I turned to look at Chris; he appeared to be even more off-kilter than I felt. I laced my fingers through his and pulled him behind me toward an empty spot at the bar, on the dark end of the room.

“This is insane,” he said, when we finally found a place. He gazed at the hookah as if it were going to bite him. I laughed.

“Relax, jeez. You have cop written all over you.”

“Because I am one. I would rather be that than—”

“What’re you having, hon?” A waitress had appeared out of nowhere, wearing a tight hot pink romper and thigh-high black hose with a pair of combat boots. Her hair was pulled back slick on one side and dangled to her chin on the other in a flat black waterfall. She handed me a card with the shisha menu printed on it.

“Oh. Uh . . .” I leaned over. I had never smoked shisha. I knew this wasn’t exactly the same as smoking cigarettes, but it was a slippery enough slope that my palms started to itch. At the same time, my senses came to attention with craving. “Double apple,” I said, choosing the first thing on the menu.

“ID?” she asked, holding her palm out, looking bored. I dug for my license and gave it to her. She scanned it, nodded, looked Chris up and down, and then moved on.

“Apple-flavored smoke? Sounds delicious,” he said, deadpan.

“You never know until you try it.” I picked up the hose and slithered it at him like a snake.

“Can we just get to what we came here for?” he asked, turning his eyes back to the room. I dropped the hose. He was determined to make this suck as much as humanly possible.

I concentrated. Words came out at me in their usual colors, which got confused among the neon and made my eyes wonky. The room felt salmon to me. Peaceful. Not at all the kind of place I would expect to find someone like Luna.

The waitress returned with tobacco, foil, and lit coals, and we watched while she expertly filled the bowl. “Fifteen dollars,” she said in a voice equally as bored as everything else she did. I paid her and she disappeared into the crowd.

I picked up the hose and held it out to Chris. “You want to go first?”

He shook his head. “No desire, actually.”

His Mr. Straightface routine was getting old. “Whatever. Up to you.” I took a pull off the hose and felt the smoke roil through me, my whole world lighting up in apple green. “You should give it a try,” I yelled over the music, holding out the hose again.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m getting enough secondhand smoke to last me a lifetime.”