Marc looked me up and down. I wore jeans and a thick sweater, my hair loose around my shoulders. He seemed to be making some kind of assessment.
“Fine,” he said, pulling open the door to let me in. He took the cooler from my shoulder, and as I wandered into the living area, I could see there was a joint being passed around.
“Are you going to tell your father?” Marc asked me.
I gave him a glance that said he should know me better, and he conceded.
“Come sit by me, Ashleigh, and tell me how the high school is holding up since I left.”
That was from Greg. He’d been the soccer team’s goalie and knew me from all the games I’d attended. He was at Villanova now, and I heard they were having a good season.
I grabbed a soda from the cooler and went over to sit next to him. Immediately, he put his arm around me and hugged me into his side. But it was okay; Greg was one of the good guys.
I looked over and saw Marc scowling, but since he was usually scowling at me, I didn’t take offense.
“Forget about high school,” I said. “How is college?”
“It’s awesome. Freedom like you can’t even believe. The freshman girls are fucking hot. Like, all of them.”
I laughed, and Marc walked over and smacked Greg in the head. “Dude, not in front of Ash.”
“Please. She’s been around the team long enough to know how we roll. Do you still go to see the soccer games now that your boy’s not there?”
“Sure, I love soccer.” It was a lie. But it felt a little too obvious to say soccer didn’t matter to me now that Marc wasn’t playing it.
“What about boys? You got a boyfriend yet? Someone pushing you to get to second base? Who is it? I’ll kill him.”
“She doesn’t,” Marc announced. “And stop talking about that stuff.”
“How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend?” I asked Marc.
“George,” he said as if that was enough of an answer.
Had he asked George? Had George simply volunteered that information? What else did George tell him about me?
“Marc,” Chris said, coming up behind him with his joint in hand. “Take a hit and chill out. We’re all cool. Ashleigh’s cool, too. Right, Ashleigh? Want to loosen up?”
Chris held the joint out to me. I’d never done drugs before, but I knew it was kind of a rite of passage. A hit on a joint. I didn’t see the harm it could do. Why not experience it once?
I reached out to take it, when Marc stepped between Chris and me and smacked my hand away. “Fuck no.”
“I want to try,” I said.
“Yeah, Marc, she wants to try.”
Marc glared at Chris, then turned on me. “You’re not pulling any fucking smoke into your lungs. You get me?”
“I’m fine, Marc. It’s been a year and I haven’t even—”
“Not a fucking thing in those lungs,” he snarled.
Greg tightened his hold on me. Almost instinctively, like he could feel the ripple effects of Marc’s anger toward me. But I was used to it.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” he bit off. “You brought the food and soda. You said hi to the guys…you can leave now.”
“She just got here,” Greg insisted. Then he did the unthinkable and pulled me onto his lap, wrapping both arms around me. I wasn’t even sure how I knew what that was going to do to Marc, I just knew I immediately reacted by trying to pull away.
