Serious Moonlight(74)

I’d never even had a swig of beer! “What are these even doing here? They didn’t taste weird. How was I supposed to know?”

“I didn’t know you’d be coming over! I forgot they were even sitting out.”

I was horrified. And close to a full-on panic attack. “I’ve been drugged.”

“For the love of Christ,” he muttered. “You haven’t been drugged.”

“Can I throw them up? Should I go to the ER and get my stomach pumped? I’ve never even been in a hospital!”

Daniel put both hands around the sides of my neck, holding me firmly in place, and whistled. “Calm down. You don’t need to go to the ER. The candy isn’t some back-alley edible. Dottie and Roman’s son-in-law grows marijuana, and their daughter made these—the one who just had the baby. They aren’t strong. I promise.”

“How would you know?” I gasped audibly. “You’ve had them.”

“Quite a few. Dottie left them here for me. It’s my payment for watching their place.”

I scolded, “Daniel!” Which unfortunately sounded way too much like my grandmother for comfort. And he just laughed at me. Laughed! “Does your mother know?” I asked.

“Hell no,” he said. “She’d kick my ass. But Jiji had three of them a few days ago. And my therapist knows.”

I was having trouble processing this. My grandpa enjoyed a cigar now and then, but he wouldn’t dare eat weed candy. He referred to smoking marijuana as “toking the grass” when our rich neighbors had parties and we could smell it on our stretch of beach. “Don’t people get hospitalized for eating too much pot candy?” I asked.

“Maybe a few dumb-dumbs who eat whatever some rando gives them at a party. Do you know how many people fatally overdosed on weed last year? Zero. It’s always zero. Look, my grandfather’s eaten this candy,” he argued, stroking his thumb along my jawline. “Joseph’s eaten them. I’ve eaten them. They’re perfectly safe.”

“Then why were you freaking out when you saw me eating one?”

“I don’t know. I guess because you might have downed half the jar and gotten way too stoned, and that’s never fun. And because you’re . . .”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“I’m naive.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you thought it.”

“Not in a bad way. I just don’t want you to be upset. And I don’t think you should be. Seriously, you’re going to be fine. You’re not going to hell or the hospital.”

“What you’re saying is that I don’t need to try to throw them up?”

“That would be silly. And a waste of perfectly good edibles. Besides, you may never even feel it. One gummy barely makes me feel relaxed. Worst that can happen is you just get a little buzzed in about an hour.”

“An hour?”

“Or two.”

“Two hours?”

He kept one hand on my shoulder while reaching to flip open the candy jar’s lid. “How many did you have? Two? I’ll catch up with you.” He mimicked a transatlantic, 1930s Hollywood accent. “I’ll have two martinis, bartender. Line them up right here.”

“Don’t you dare quote Nick and Nora to me at a time like this!”

He held up two gummy squares and popped both into his mouth. “See? We’re even stephen now.” He chewed, swallowed, and stuck out his tongue to show me. “Ahhhh.”

I relaxed a little. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“So sure,” he said, amused. “Look, why don’t we put our earlier talk on hold and just enjoy each other’s company. We can curl up on the couch and watch a movie.”

I was definitely not in the mood to discuss heavy topics anymore—and especially not sex; I was too busy dreading the candy’s effects. After some more circuitous talking, in which he assured me several more times that I was okay, he took me out the back door for some fresh air on a small patio. And while we sat outside in the setting sun, I drank a soda—which made me feel better.

Eventually, I was calm enough to go back inside. It had been an hour, and I didn’t feel anything, so maybe Daniel was right. Maybe I freaked out for no reason. We browsed the house’s time-capsule video selection and picked out some weird fantasy film called Labyrinth. “It’s got Jim Henson puppets and a kidnapping and David Bowie playing the Goblin King,” Daniel informed me excitedly, showing me the back of the videotape sleeve.

“It sounds insane.”

“It is. You will love it.”

We put it in and sat on the couch together. Then he scooted me around and lay back against me, kicking his socked feet up on the armrest. Which felt . . . charmingly intimate.

Slowly, like a light dimming, my limbs began to loosen. He’d said that I’d relax eventually, but I wondered if it had more to do with his pleasant weight on me and the scent of his hair falling over his shoulder and less to do with the candy. Was I feeling something? Maybe. I was less panicky about it. I tried to enjoy it and concentrated on the TV screen. What was this movie even about? Some chick running around inside a goblin maze trying to save her baby brother? But suddenly there was David Bowie in a crazy wig, looking like a mad vampire, and then a little later . . . wow. What was I seeing?