Free The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

gestures and even those are few and far between. He tried to get me to resort to note writing a few days ago but I shut that down quickly enough. Note writing is for fact-based, pertinent information only, not conversations.
    Go to a party with Drew? Why not? I surprise even myself, but really, why not? Okay, there are probably about a hundred reasons why not. Because let’s face it, he’s probably not asking me for my sparkling wit and entertaining anecdotes. But much to my chagrin, Drew is actually one of the few things in my day that I don’t completely dread, because at least with him, I feel a certain sense of control. I can handle Drew. He doesn’t scare me, and right now, that may just be enough. I find that, in spite of his blatant man-whorishness and put-on cocky smolder, I like him. Not like him, like him . But I do like him and I wonder what that says about me. He’s entertaining, and I am sorely in need of entertainment. I nod to him. Sure, party, of course . He looks surprised for a moment. Hell, I’m kind of surprised myself. Then the surprise is gone and the self-assured, of-course-you-said-yes smile spreads across his face.
    “I’ll pick you up at nine?” he asks.
    I nod, digging a notebook out of my backpack and ripping a page out of it. I grab the pen he’s been holding out of his hand and write down the address because addresses are acceptable note material.
    “You should probably wear black,” he mocks as I write the address. I’ve worn nothing but black in the past two weeks. I hand the paper to him, seeing that conquering gleam lingering in his eyes. I tilt my head to the side and look him up and down in all his preppy hotness until my eyes rest back on his face. Then I shrug and walk away.

CHAPTER 10
    Josh
    Drew pulls into my driveway just after midnight and I know immediately that no good can come of this. I put down the pencil I’ve been using to mark down measurements with and watch him get out of the car and walk towards the garage.
    “Dude, I need a favor.”
    “Of course you do.”
    “I need you to take Nastya.” Take Nastya? At first I wonder where he wants me to take her, until I glance down the driveway and see what he means.
    “What? No way.” I look past him to the dark figure slumped over in the front seat of the car. “What did you do to her? Is she even conscious?”
    “Nothing. No,” he says defensively, following my eye-line back to the car. So now we’re both standing in my garage, his arms crossed, my hands shoved in my pockets, watching through the windshield of his car for signs of movement. “She just drank too much.”
    “Too much of what?”
    “Flame throwers.” He avoids my eyes when he says it.
    “What asshole gave her flame throwers?” He looks at me without answering which is answer enough. He’s an idiot. A flame thrower is grain alcohol mixed with cherry Kool-Aid. He might as well have chloroformed her. “What were you thinking? She weighs like 25 pounds.”
    “Yeah, OK, Dad. Thanks for the lecture, but it’s not really solving the problem. Besides, how was I supposed to know she couldn’t handle it? She looks like a badass.”
    “A 25-pound badass.” It’s true. She does look like a badass. I’ve seen her arms, and she’s ripped which is kind of weird and scary all at once because it just seems all wrong on her. She’s really small and fragile-looking, and at the same time, it’s like she’s some exotic teenage mercenary, all rock solid, dressed in black, ready to take somebody down. None of it makes any sense. It’s kind of disconcerting. She’s like an optical illusion. You look at it from one angle and you see the picture and you think you’ve got a lock on it and then it shifts and the image changes to something entirely different and you can’t even find the original picture anymore. It’s a serious mindfuck.
    “Josh, seriously. I can’t take her home like this and if I miss curfew again my mom will rip my balls off.”