Free Pulled Within by Marni Mann Page B

carpet.
    And Hart had wanted to help me move into my new place…
    I made a mental list of everything I needed to pick up on my way to work, things that would make this room clean and livable. Then I joined the guys in the living room. There were pieces of bud all over the glass table. Some were small enough to be rolled; the rest were waiting to be bagged. Other empty cans had been tossed on the floor beside the couch. At least every wood-paneled wall had a hole in it, and they were covered in a blackish film that turned the grain much darker than it was supposed to be. The cleanest thing in there was the flat-screen that hung in front of us, and even that had handprints all over it.
    “Thanks for letting me stay,” I said, tucking my feet underneath me and leaning into the end of the sectional. “I just need a couple weeks and I’ll be able to afford my own place.”
    “Don’t rush out,” Jeremy said. “There’s way too much cock and takeout boxes and unused bottles of bleach up in here. We need a girl roommate.” He put a glass bowl up to his lips and took a hit, holding the smoke in for a while before he finally coughed it into the air. Then he passed the bowl to Caleb. “The place is starting to fucking smell. Keep telling Caleb that, but he says he doesn’t smell shit.”
    Maybe that was because Caleb couldn’t smell anything past his hair. Since we’d graduated, I’d been telling him to cut it. He hadn’t listened. The dreads made everyone think he was a hippie; his patchy beard and Birkenstocks only added to the image. He never dressed in anything other than a hoodie, jeans and wool socks—even in the summer. His teeth were starting to turn the color of resin. The truth was, he wasn’t a hippie at all. He was just lazy, and grime—whether it was around him or actually on him—didn’t bother him.
    “How’s my boy?” Caleb asked, smoke drifting from his lips as he spoke. He banged the bowl against his palm to empty it, collecting the ash and wiping it on his jeans. They were already so dirty, the streak was hardly noticeable. Scooping up a few buds, he packed the bowl again and handed it to me.
    Smoke began to fill my mouth. I blew it out and said, “He’s still in detox. At least that’s what Shane told me in his last text. Brady hasn’t called me since he left.”
    There was a knock at the door, and Jeremy got up to answer it. The living room was in the back of the house so I wasn’t able to see who it was. Not that it mattered. Unless they were friends, the guys usually didn’t let anyone in past the kitchen.
    “When I heard Brady had been in Bangor,” Caleb said, taking the bowl from my hand, “I called some of my boys up there. No one had seen him around. Whoever he was with is way deeper than the connections I have.”
    Jeremy returned to the living room, taking the same spot on the couch, reaching for the pipe as soon as he sat. “They wanted a dime,” he said to Caleb.
    I thought about Brady’s face, and how beaten it had been when I’d picked him up. “Do you think he’s in trouble?” I didn’t know anyone in Bangor, so there was no one I could check with or call.
    Caleb shrugged. “If he is, I’ve got his back. He knows that.”
    “Me too,” Jeremy said. The whites of his eyes were now the same color as his hair.
    Brady had helped out these guys so much over the years, especially when the cops had been tipped off and told that they were all dealing. When Caleb had a hard time moving the rest of his supply, Brady took care of it. The cops hadn’t found anything in Caleb’s house when they’d searched it.
    “Hope Brady doesn’t think he’ll be getting any drugs from me when he gets out,” Jeremy said. It was strange hearing those words come from someone who had a beer in his hand and probably more than a few pills up his nose.
    Caleb laughed while he tied an elastic around his knots. “You said the same thing about Tiff when she went to rehab, and Evan, and