Free Eyes Full of Empty by Jérémie Guez Page B

rage. Just then, Eve shows up. I didn’t know she’d watched the whole scene. I give her a smile.
    â€œDrop it,” she says.
    â€œOh, I wasn’t about to get all worked up.” I eye her lips a little too intently. I don’t think she’d care if I eyed her intently all night. As long as I was the one with the drugs.
    â€œIgnore him. I told you the guy was weird.”
    I look at her, smiling. “So he’s Tantalus?”
    She gives me a weird look. “What? No, he’s the guy I told you about on the way over.”
    I should drink more often. Sometimes connections get made without my even realizing. I’d call it genius if it hadn’t taken me so long. Which makes me a dumb fuck instead. I forget that I’ve been to college, am capable of logical reasoning, can do something besides this shitty job where I’m paid under the table.
    â€œâ€˜Condemned to thirst forever’—is that what you said to me in the taxi?” I ask her, taking a firm grip on her arm.
    â€œYeah—I mean, I don’t remember. Something like that.”
    Tantalus. Torment. I must look like a visionary right now, or a crank. Thank you, Dad, for keeping me from spending my days in the streets and forcing me to go to class. What a dumb fuck I was. Why couldn’t the guy who’d taken Thibaut to the club also be one of his friends?
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œWho?” she asks.
    â€œThe guy I just messed with.”
    â€œJulien.”
    â€œHe do drugs?”
    â€œDoes he ever,” she replies, with a smile that tells me that if he were a blue-collar boy, she’d call him a junkie.
    â€œPerfect. Go see him. Tell him I want a word. Say I’m ready to give him a little pick-me-up as an apology.”
    She stares at me, eyes wide open.
    â€œStop staring at me like that. C’mon now, please?”
    She obeys. I knock off the rest of my glass and follow her out on the patio. I look around for her. She’s holding Julien’s hand in a corner of the yard. I walk over to them and extend my hand. “Try this again? I’m Idir.”
    He looks me over warily without replying or taking my hand. I figure it’s time for the pills to come out. I don’t know what the fuck they are, but he pops two like they’re candy before I can even ask if he wants any.
    â€œKeep the rest, if you want. I’m sorry about earlier. It was an accident.” Discreetly, I signal Eve to clear off and leave us alone. She gets it and goes. He watches her walk off, eyeing the sway of her hips.
    â€œYou fuck her already?” he asks, just like that.
    â€œNope.”
    I know guys like him. He wants me to turn the question around so he can say he fucked her, give me all the details of what he did to her, tell me she was screaming with pleasure and begging for more. Guys like him make me want to puke. Instead, I say, “I’m headed out. This party’s too tame for me.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    I can feel him on the hook. “Score something. I’m all out.”
    A spark lights up in his eye. “Any way you could get some for me?”
    â€œDepends. You got cash?”
    â€œNot on me.”
    â€œSorry, man, I don’t do credit.”
    â€œCan’t you get it delivered here? While I go hit up an ATM?”
    I shake my head. “My guy won’t deliver to a place he doesn’t know, especially with tons of people around.”
    He nods like he understands. I make ready to leave. That’s how you win at this game.
    â€œHey!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe can wait at my place, if you want. Think he’ll go for that?”
    â€œYou live alone?”
    Outside. We get in his car, a metallic-gray Mini. For ten minutes, give or take, we cross a deserted city, shitty electro music turned all the way up, without exchanging a word. He’s too high to talk, staring at the road in front of him, eyes wide open.