I opened his refrigerator. “You have Monster, not Red Bull.”
“Same difference.”
It really wasn’t the same difference, but there was no changing it now. I mixed us some drinks and brought them back out to the sofa.
“You’re so cool, you know that, Leigh?” said Clint, accepting his drink.
I settled down next to him. “Why thank you.”
“No,” he said. “I mean it. You’re a girl, and you’re really hot, but... you’re like a guy.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Excuse me?” Okay, maybe I had a tomboy phase before I grew breasts. What ten-year-old girl didn’t climb trees and go to karate class? (Not that I got past being a white belt.) But these days, there was not a shred of butch in me. I hated football, I cared about personal grooming, and I so did not belch audibly.
“I mean because you aren’t clingy,” he said. “You just take what you want. You’re like a player, but a girl.”
I took a drink of Monster and vodka. The marshmallow flavor wasn’t quite as complimentary. “Is that cool, though?” Didn’t they have a word for girls like that? It wasn’t as nice as “player,” either. It was “slut,” wasn’t it?
“Totally,” said Clint. “Because it’s awesome to know where I stand with you.” He leaned over and kissed me.
I kissed back for a second, and then I pulled back. “I don’t always just take what I want.”
He laughed. “Of course you do. You don’t think about stupid stuff like how a guy feels or whether he might want more than sex. You just go for it, and if he doesn’t like it, he has to deal with it. It’s really great.”
It didn’t sound great to me. It sounded like I was kind of a bitch, like the guy had called me the morning my dad...
I gulped at my drink. I wished I had someone to talk to about my dad’s passing. But I couldn’t tell anyone that it had happened. It would open up too many questions. Was I going to his funeral? Where was it? And I couldn’t afford to draw attention, because I wasn’t even here under my real last name. If people went looking for a Mr. Dunn, they wouldn’t find him, because he didn’t exist.
And it made it worse to know that there wouldn’t be a funeral, that I wouldn’t ever see his body and get to properly say goodbye. I felt like I might start crying. I didn’t want to do that in front of Clint. “I wish we had some blow.”
“Your bodyguard is an ass,” said Clint. “That was premium stuff he got rid of.”
“You don’t have anything?” I said.
“Completely out,” he said.
I set my drink down. “I have money. Let’s drive to Morgantown and get some.”
“That’s like a three-hour round trip,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea. I know where my roommate hides his stash.”
“No,” I said. “That’s a bad idea.”
“We won’t do all of it,” said Clint. “Just a little. He won’t notice.”
I chewed on my lip. What Clint was proposing here was an impossibility. There was no doing a little coke. Once anyone started, she’d keep going until it was all gone. It was a law of nature or something. “I really don’t think...”
He was already getting up from the couch. “Don’t worry, Leigh. It’s cool.”
* * *
I couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re an idiot!”
“I am not,” said Clint. “I’m a fucking superhero. Everyone knows it, so just shut the hell up.”
“With like a cape?” I said. “A red cape?”
“A big, flowy red cape.”
“I want to be a superhero too,” I said. I looked around. “Is there any more blow?”
“Yes,” said Clint. “He has a crap load. I’ll be right back.” He got up.
“Oh my God,” I called after him. “We’re going to do too much of it. I knew this would happen. Because once you start snorting cocaine, you can’t stop. It calls to you. It says, ‘Leigh, if you want to be a superhero, snort me.’”