Free Lengths by Liz Reinhardt, Steph Campbell Page A

you. And the way he was about to jump off that table mid-tat when he thought you were leaving before he was. Don’t get me wrong, he also looked like he wanted to bend you over that couch out there—”
              “Rocko!” Pennsylvania Whit is dying.
              “Come on, kid. I know you aren’t scrambling to get out of here at night with your phone going off like crazy to go home to your DVR. You’re up to no good. And that’s all good, because you’re nineteen. I’d be worried if you weren’t up to no good at your age.”
Rocko smiles smugly, obviously feeling like he’s got me all pegged. And I guess, maybe he does.
              He leans back in his chair and props his feet up on my desk. I knock his heavy black boots off.
              “Manners,” I say under my breath. I’m only half-joking.
              “See, it’s stuff like that, though, that confuses the hell out of me. Like that tat you drew for Divo—”
              “Deo, and I didn’t draw it for him.”
              “There’s something more to you than the sexy makeup and heels.”
              “Rocko, I could so nail your ass for sexual harassment, you know that right?” This time, I’m totally joking. I love the free and fearless banter I have with Rocko. It’s one of the most real things I have.
              “So, tell me kid, what else is going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
              I haven’t even started talking yet. But I turn to him, knowing that this time, I will. It’s time, and really, I won’t find a better listener, or anyone less judgmental than Rocko.
 

 
     
                  -Nine-
    Deo
     
    Cara is applying a coat of shiny purple nail polish to my toenails while I lie back on my stale-smelling sheets and count the cobwebs that have multiplied like crazy fuckers on the ceiling above my Scarface poster. It’s been a little too dark to notice them lately, but Cara fixed the light problem with one snap of the sagging rollershade. She also tossed my iPod in my dresser drawer next to my bong and under my rolling papers to stop Robert Johnson’s incessant, broken-hearted wail.
    “You’re harshing my mellow, Sunshine,” I gripe, wiggling my toes and making her click her tongue when she paints the side of my foot.
    Cara glares at me and swishes her strawberry blond hair over her shoulder so she can paint with more precision, but all that long hair is tickling my knee now. “You can’t just hole up in here and listen to the world’s most depressing music on repeat all day while you get high,” she informs me cheerily.
    “Robert Johnson happens to be a blues genius. And I’m not high,” I protest, sitting up on my elbow.
    She blinks her big, sky-blue eyes slowly. “Really? Why not? Too lazy to go out and hunt for more product?”
    “You don’t happen to have any you’d like to share, do you?” I make a kissy face at her and she tries to hide her smile by shaking her head.
    She tugs out a little chip hanging on a cord from under her yellow sundress. “Deo, you know I’m sober now. Six months in a week.”
    I lay back on my pillow and sigh. “When did we all get so fucking mature and boring?”
    “Not we ,” she corrects. “ I got mature and grew up. You’re still a little boy who wants to get high and surf and do nothing with your life.” There isn’t a single ounce of malice in her words. Cara is like a surf-bunny Buddha. I irritate her sometimes, but she kind of respects that I do my thing.
    Unless my thing is begging her to come over and then being a whiny little bitch who wants to be entertained.
    “I don’t do nothing.” I raise my eyebrows at her. “Actually, there’s something we could do right now. C’mon, Sunshine. Nothing lifts the mood like an orgasm.”
    She twists the cap back on the nailpolish and looks at