“The defense hasn’t made its case yet,” I announce, tossing the magazine back into the pile. What shoddy journalism. I hastily grab the bottle of vodka. Cam smiles, tips his chin at me as an approval to drink straight from the bottle, so I do. We both look at Damon, seated beside me. I raise my eyebrows at him in a dare. He sighs and takes a swig. I wonder how he’d taste if I were to kiss him now.
“We can’t do this here. Too loud,” Cam says, grabbing the contraband and replacing it in his backpack, then sliding a strap over his right shoulder. He heads for the door. “Follow me.”
Damon and I exchange a glance as Cam quietly pulls the handle. I shake my head in defeat.
The overwhelming desire for time with Damon, in any form. This newfound sense of adventure.
Of course I’m going to follow.
28.
Collective Juror Misconduct (n., phrase)
a group of jurors, rather than an individual, engaging in behavior that goes against the court’s instructions or rules
jurors gone wild
Damon, Cam, and I make our way silently to the stairwell and begin to climb. Just as I’m thinking perhaps Cam has also swiped a key to the poorly secured presidential suite, he passes the second-floor door and keeps going, stopping at the only other option: the door to the roof.
This one’s got to be locked. It’s the roof. External access. But nope, Cam shifts the handle down, and sure enough, it’s also unlocked. I doubt these security measures are up to Judge Gillespy’s standards for this high-profilemurdertrial.
We step onto the roof, and I am immediately struck by the pungent odor of what I believe is a combination of desert rain and animal urine. The strip mall below is still lit up, providing ample light to the otherwise darkened evening sky. I immediately wrap my arms around myself as the moist breeze catches my hair.
“Oh, here,” Cam says. He bends around the corner of the door and hands me a gingham flannel blanket.
I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, wondering just how many times Cam has snuck up here.
Cam slides down against the stairwell wall, and Damon and Ifollow suit. We sit in a line—Cam, Damon, then me—looking on as two Jimmy John’s employees share a smoke break.
Cam positions the backpack in front of him and unzips it. “Either of you want to use the phone?” he asks, pulling one from the bag.
I contemplate, but making a call seems a step too far with all the rules we’re already breaking. I do briefly contemplate calling my mom, checking in on her and baby Gen, but I quickly think better of it. Besides, a call to the outside world would place a pin directly into the bubble we are in, and I don’t want that.
“I’m good,” I tell him.
Damon shakes his head, and Cam replaces the phone.
“How ’bout one of these?” Cam pulls out the prescription-sized bottle of blue gummies.
Damon and I exchange glances, and he raises his eyebrows in question.
“Might as well,” I say, leaning around Damon and swiping the bottle. We’re already fraternizing on the roof, having snuck out of our rooms post-curfew with Cam’s full bag of contraband. One bite of a gummy to ease the beehive in my gut can’t make any of this particularly worse should we get caught.
“You sure?” Damon says, watching as I spin the cap off the bottle.
I grab a light blue gummy and bite into it, collecting half into my mouth. I hold out the other half in offer to Damon. He wraps his hand around my wrist, raises my hand to his mouth, and then takes the gummy with his teeth from my fingers. My stomach free-falls as his bottom lip grazes along the pad of my thumb.
“Excellent,” Cam muses, taking a whole gummy for himself.
“I told you, Amazon gummy bear reviewer,” Damon whispers, bending close. His breath steams against my ear, in direct contrast to the biting evening air, and the rousing combination sends a shock up my spine.
Thirty minutes and an additional half gummy later, the three of us lie atop one of Cam’s blankets on the cement roof, me in the middle,staring up at the evening sky. It’s clear and smogless—an L.A. rarity, though the air is both wet and crisp with the faint clay smell of distant rain. Though I can’t seem to focus on much else besides the whole left side of my body pressed against Damon’s right. He’s like a warm, crackling fire, and I fight the urge to cuddle into his body heat.
As Cam’s voice grows groggier, slow and more placid with each minute that passes, I wonder why I don’t feel any different. “I’m not feeling much. Can I have another?” I ask without moving my eyes from the smattering of stars in the sky.
“Give it a few minutes,” Cam says. He pushes himself up to sit, the entirety of his face upturned. His expression is noticeably slack, more than usual.
“Cam, how many gummies did you have?” I ask.
