The Edge of Always(77)

“Yeah, but you haven’t told us anything,” says Lea, my friend who works at Starbucks.

Alicia, who works with her, adds, “I went on a road trip with my mom and my brother once, but I’m sure it wasn’t anything like yours.”

“And you still haven’t filled me in on what happened in Florida,” Natalie says. She takes a drink of her beer and then sets it down beside her on the floor, afterward resting her arms over Blake’s legs. Blake kisses the side of her neck.

I cringe inside, just thinking about Florida, but I realize it’s because Andrew would really be the one of us who might be embarrassed about what happened. For a second, I can’t even make eye contact with him because I feel guilty for bringing it up to Natalie at all. I didn’t give her any details, just mentioned that something really messed up happened while we were there.

When I do meet Andrew’s eyes, I can tell he’s not mad at me. He winks and sets his beer on the floor beside him, too.

“Florida,” he says, to my surprise. “That was probably the worst part of our trip, if not also the strangest—and yet, somehow parts of it I didn’t mind so much.”

I have no idea where he’s going with this.

Everyone is looking right at Andrew now, especially Natalie, whose eyes are bugged out with anticipation.

“We met this group of people who offered us to drive out and party with them on a hard-to-find area of the beach. So we did. And we had a good time. But then shit got weird.”

“Weird how?” Natalie interrupts.

“Like LSD or who-the-hell-knows weird,” he says.

Natalie’s eyes get bigger and grow fierce as she looks back at me. “You did LSD? What the f*ck is wrong with you, Cam?”

I shake my head. “No, no way did I do it willingly. They drugged us!”

Everyone’s eyes match Natalie’s now.

“Yeah,” Andrew goes on. “We’re not even sure what they gave us, but we were both trippin’ out of our minds.”

“I was roofied once,” Blake’s sister, Sarah, says.

She looks about eighteen.

Blake’s body jerks forward to sit straight up, causing Natalie to hit her front teeth on her beer bottle. “What?” he asks with fire shooting from his eyes.

“Oh, you didn’t know about that?” Sarah says sweetly, acting like she had simply forgotten to tell him at some point.

Obviously, it was better that he hadn’t known.

“Owww!” Natalie whines, holding her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Blake says. He kisses her cheek and turns back to his sister. “Who the f*ck roofied you, Sarah? Don’t shit me, either. You better tell me… Did anything happen?” There’s dread in his face.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “No. Nothing happened because Kayla was there and she drove me home. And no, I don’t know who did it, Blake, so please just chill out.” Then she turns back us. “You were saying?”

“I’ll go with you, man,” Andrew says to Blake. “You ever find out who did it, just let me know. That’s bullshit.”

I elbow Andrew softly. He takes the hint and says, “Anyway, Florida was an experience, I have to say, but I never wanna do it again.”

Andrew doesn’t tell them anything about that skanky bitch who tried giving him a blow job. I’m glad he doesn’t, because that would be an awkward conversation. Not to mention, Natalie would have a field day with information like that. We hang out in the beanbag chairs and talk to our friends for a few hours until around eight o’clock, when Blake has to drive Sarah home. Shortly after the three of them leave, everybody else follows, and Andrew and I are alone in our first official home together as newlyweds.

He comes back in from the kitchen with a candle in his hand after lighting it on the stove. The gas was turned on early. Then he uses that flame to light the others on the table.

“Are we going to sleep on the floor?” I ask, watching him.

“Nope,” he says as he moves away from the candles. He drags all the beanbags into the center of the room and fits them closely together, creating a makeshift bed, then pats one of them with the palm of his hand. “This’ll have to do for now. I’m not sleeping on the floor. Talk about waking up with a stiff back.”

I smile. “This is strange, isn’t it?” I say, looking around at the bare walls of our house, envisioning what kind of pictures or paintings might look good on them.

“What, having no furniture or electricity? You should be used to that by now.” He chuckles.

I get up from my beanbag by the wall and sit down on the bed he made. I reach out toward the table and poke my finger around in the hot wax of a candle, letting it sting and then cool and conform to the tip of my finger.

“No, I mean this house. Us. Everything, really.”

“Strange in a good way, I hope.”

“Of course,” I say, smiling up at him.

Silence fills the house. The light from the candles cast large dancing shadows on the walls. It smells like bleach and Pine-Sol and other various cleaners, although it’s faint.

“Andrew,” I say, “thank you for moving here.”

Finally, he sits down beside me and we both stare into the flames for a moment.

“Where else would I be other than wherever you are?” he says.