Jason knows how Nick feels about me, so he doesn’t press me to go in with him. I settle in a patch of tall grass and woody daisies in what’s left of my backyard and wait for him. He joins me a few minutes later and takes a couple of beers out of his backpack, staring at the view with a skeptical look in his eyes. It’s a look that says he can tell something’s different but he can’t put his finger on it. He opens the bottles with his lighter, hands one to me, and then lights the joint he’s been keeping behind his ear.

“How are things in Rye?” I ask him.

“Bobby got locked up.” Bobby is Jason’s older brother.

“Shit. How long for?”

“Don’t know yet. Some dick must have snitched, ’cause they busted into his house just after he got a shipment in. Two kilos, uncut.”

“God. I’m really sorry.”

“It’ll be his first conviction, so it probably won’t be for too long.”

We sit and sip our beers in silence for a while. Jason finishes his and opens another. The sky is changing color, like caramel cooking, moving from a pale, clear day into a sweeter, richer twilight. I lean against Jason’s chest and stare into the tall grass. The sound of the waves breathing mixes with the bugs and bees, the crickets and gulls. Jason finishes his second beer. I’ve forgotten about mine.

“Should we go in?” He sounds shy. For some reason I find that really—I don’t know—exciting maybe. I lead the way around back and up the two steps to the kitchen door.

“That step’s still broken.”

“Yeah, I keep forgetting to have someone look at it.”

People say weird things when they’re about to have sex. But it’s not like you can talk about what you’re about to do. The fact that you’re about to do pretty much the weirdest thing that people do can make everything seem really bizarre.

Jason starts kissing me as soon as we’re through the kitchen door. I don’t know whether to call the kisses hard or soft—maybe they’re both, like a cock, like the way they make me ache and strain and gush in my underwear.

I go into my room first and he follows but doesn’t close the door all the way, so I have to go back and push the door until it clicks. He looks at me as if to ask why, what’s the point, since no one is here. And I pretend not to notice.