Free Stay Until We Break by Mercy Brown Page A

“Yes.” I think I would say yes to pretty much anything he asked me right now. Petty crime, mechanical bull riding. Even line dancing.
    He digs a cigarette pack out of his backpack and pulls out three fat joints and passes the first to Shen. Shen lights it, the smoke billowing out of his mouth and floating upward in the candlelight. Cole lights the second joint and passes it to Emmy. She takes a hit and then coughs it out as she tries to hold it in. She passes to Travis, and who are we now? We never smoke pot at home. We’re by no means straight-edge, but it’s just not a thing we normally do. It feels so surreal, it’s like we’re not even us. Or maybe we are. Maybe being here with new people in a new place lets us be some other side of us we don’t get to be at home. The thought makes something in my brain tingle with curiosity.
    Cole lights the last joint and turns to me.
    “Open your mouth, Sunny,” he says.
    My mouth drops open in surprise. My heart races. His smile is far more sly than I’ve ever seen it, and I think this bad-boy stoner Cole might be my favorite yet. He takes a hit off the joint and shotguns it into my mouth. I suck that hit all the way down and hold it in before I exhale and then proceed to cough for about thirty seconds straight.
    “Em, give Sunny some of your water,” Cole says, and Emmylou hands me a bottle of Poland Spring and wags her eyebrows at me as I take a nice, long drink.
    “What?” I say, though I know exactly what she’s thinking.
    “Uh-huh,” she says, nodding. “Stoner.”
    “You are.”
    “No, you are.”
    We both laugh like idiots, and already I feel my buzz come on like a dream rolling slowly in. Travis starts kissing Emmy’s neck as she’s laughing and it strikes me as absurdly hot, like I can’t look away. Now Shen and Jeremy are making out on the other couch, and good lord, it’s like a high school party in here tonight, which is surprisingly a lot better than it sounds. I turn to look at Cole, whose glazed-over, relaxed smile feels like an open door to bliss.
    “Want more?” he asks, those big, brown eyes of his shining, all happy and dreamy in the candlelight. I nod that I definitely, most positively do. “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah,” I say. He hands me the joint and I take a hit and lean towards him. He smiles and opens his mouth so I can exhale into it. He breathes it in and touches his forehead to mine, then exhales off to the side.
    “Had enough yet?” he asks.
    “No,” I whisper, so quiet I’m not sure I really said it at all.
    Before I have a chance to take another hit, he kisses me, slips his tongue into my mouth, and we start to make out right there in front of everyone, not that anybody is paying attention by this point. It feels so raw and exposed but I don’t even care. All I care about is the way his lips work over mine, the feel of his hand on my neck, his fingers lacing into my hair as he cradles my head. I climb into his lap and straddle him in my dress, my bare legs against the fabric of his pants. I kiss along the edge of his jaw, over to his ear and whisper, “Want to show me the very good, wrong things you can do to me now?” He exhales sharply, slides his hands up my thighs, under my skirt.
    “Travis,” Emmylou stage-whispers as loud as she can, all baked, and just the sound of her giggling makes me grin. “I think Sunny is going to fuck Cole. Maybe right here.”
    “Hmm . . . do you think exhibitionism is on their checklist?” Travis says.
    “Cole, you beast!” Emmy lobs her pillow at us. “Unhand the tour manager. She’s mine!”
    “Shut up, Emmy,” Cole says. “You can’t have her—you already stole Trap from me.” He wraps his arm around me possessively and then flings Emmy’s pillow back at her and Travis.
    “Oh, if only Henry Rollins were here, what a party we would have,” she says and falls into Travis’s lap, laughing, and I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about but I can’t stop