- Saturday, February 13th, 2016 -

– 22 days after the disappearance –

“Did he respond to any of the messages?” Julia asks while we’re seated on the bleachers, watching a soccer match from my old team.

“Nope.” I’m plopping the p to drag out the word a bit. “Read them all.”

“So, it’s not helping us to push him over the edge.” Emma sighs deeply, leaning her head onto my shoulder. “What else can we do?”

“I’ve thought about this. Since the police obviously didn’t arrest him,” – we’ve seen Nathan around town and he’s been in school – “maybe we should start shadowing him in our free time. See what places he visits and stuff like that.”

“The police probably do that,” Stan tells her matter-of-factly. “Cris said Charlie told him they look at him as a suspect.”

“But we could, you know…” Julia shrugs simply, retrieving the papers with the conversation from her backpack. “There’s a lot of locations in here, but only three of them have been visited by them more than once.”

“You should become a detective.” Emma chuckles. “You seem very fond of playing spy.”

“Well, I’m just really worried about Finn after reading all of this.” She waves with the papers.

“You read all of it?” I cock a brow in surprise. Neither Stan or I have taken the effort to really read all of it.

“I’ve been studying it.” She blushes slightly. “There’s three locations that stand out, one is probably his home, the other is close to his school and the third is a club.” She retrieves a paper on which she wrote down multiple small lists and points out to the locations. “The club is a bit of a surprise, since it’s not the club Nathan usually visits on Friday. But he seems to hang out there a lot on Saturday. It’s probably where he took Finn every now and then.”

“It’s a shady place.” Stan looks at the name of the club – Oblivion – and sighs deeply. “It’s a place where people deal drugs and all.” He shrugs. “You won’t get in as a minor, unless someone is taking you; like Nathan.”

“Well, let’s put a hold on visiting the locations.” Julia points to another list, this one containing names. “These two names keep popping up whenever Nathan wasn’t available to meet with Finn. I assume they’re nicknames, but maybe we can find out who these people are.”

“Again, the police are probably already figuring it out,” Emma tells her in a snappy tone. “I don’t see why we have to go out and investigate on our own, while the police are already looking for him.”

“Because, without Stan borrowingNathan’s phone, they would’ve never gotten this information in the first place.” Julia sends her a cold glare. “If you don’t want to help, be my guest and leave.”

“I think it’s best if we keep calm for now.” Stan agrees, weirdly enough, with Emma. “Let the police figure it out with Nathan. If they need to, they’ll confiscate his phone. Which would mean that they receive our messages and that could get us into trouble.”

Julia’s eyes widen before she groans. “Why haven’t I thought of that?”

“Because you’re too focused on getting Nathan to tell what the hell was going on between him and Finn.”

“So, we agree on not doing anything right now?” I take in a deep breath, letting it sink in that even if we want to, we’re powerless right now.

“We’ll wait for the time being.”

“I hate this.”

“We all do.” Stan pads my back gently.

* * * * *

“Are you going out, again?” My mom sounds irritated, disagreeing even. “Don’t you have homework?”

“I’m going to Julia’s to do homework.” I lie – realizing I haven’t told them anything about Julia before.

“Who’s Julia?” There is the question I was expecting already.

“She’s in Finn’s class. Or was…” I cough uncomfortably. “You know, she’s eh… his friend?” God, how do I address these things right now? It feels wrong to use past sentence, but then again, they’re not in the same class since Finnley is missing. This is all too confusing. “I’m going to eat my pillow if I spend another minute alone on my room mom.” I admit honestly. “Julia helps me focus.”

“What time will you be home?”

“I don’t know if I’m going home. Maybe we’ll head over to Stan afterwards.” I drawl. I wasn’t planning on coming home.

“I want you to come home tonight.”

“Mom, I’m not a baby… I’m seventeen for the love of god.”

“And as long as you live under this roof, you live by our rules.”

“Might as well get myself my own place soon.” I snap at her. “I’m out, Julia’s waiting.” I hastily make my way out, grabbing my bike to head over to the park where I agreed to meet with Julia and Stan.

I get there a couple of minutes late, noticing Julia and Stan seated in silence on a bench, watching over the water. “Whose funeral is this?” I joke, slumping down on the bench in between them. They’re seated on either side of the bench with a gaping hole in between them.

“Sod off.” Stan mutters. “James got his ass kicked by Nathan.”

I frown, snapping my head in his direction. “You say what now? Why? What did he do?”

“James returned the phone, Nathan found out James returned it and then kicked his ass, thinking it was James who’s been sending those messages, who went to the cops, you name it.”

“Oh shit.” I shortly look at Julia, before turning back to him. “How bad is it?”

“He’ll be fine in a couple of days.” Stan shrugs. “But he’s hella pissed off and told me to stop shitting with Nathan.”

“Well, we stopped already.” Julia crosses her arms to hug herself, shivering in the cold evening sky. “Maybe we need to figure out a way for Nathan to stop believing it’s James.”

“James said to drop it. If we stop, Nathan will probably leave him alone.”

“But, Nathan is way more dangerous than I thought he was.” Julia sighs. “He always seemed like a nice guy to be honest.”

“Get used to it, he isn’t.” Stan chuckles.

“It’s not funny.” I snap at him. “If he’s dangerous, short tempered, why did you let Finn continue on with their contact? Why didn’t you warn Finn?”

“I did, but he said he didn’t care. Nathan treated him fine. It took his mind off of you.”

“Let’s not argue about this, okay?” Julia shuffles from left to right in her spot. “We wanted to meet up because we wanted to chill out for a bit. Did you bring the stuff?” She looks towards Stan dead-serious.

“Sure I did.” Stan grins and retrieves two spliffs from his pocket, showing them to us. We both grab one and look at them curiously. “Now, let’s start easy, with the one Julia is holding.” He snatches back the spliff I’m holding, putting it back in a box and in his pocket. “It contains less and we’ll see from there on.”

He lights it, taking a few drags before handing it to me. Julia’s eyes follow my every movement. I take drag, ending up couching and chocking when I inhale the smoke. It’s the most disgusting taste I’ve ever came across in my life. How can people enjoy this kind of stuff? Not even talking about the smell here, which is slightly nauseating me. Julia ends up coughing just as much and this continues throughout the entire spliff. We share one among the three of us, Stan the least affected by the effects, while Julia and I eventually end up laughing over everything and on a hunt for food. Stan is highly amused by this, offering us food in his home after telling us his parents are out for a couple of days. He bakes some eggs and tries to satisfy our never-ending hunger. After those effects wear off, we end up lazily on the couch and eventually in the garden to smoke another one.

“Let’s do a game.” Stan lays down on one of the lounging sofa’s that’s underneath an awning, while I’m seated on the floor in front of him, Julia sprawled out on the other sofa.

“What game? I’m too lazy to be active.”

“It doesn’t require any energy.” Stan hits me round the back of my head softly, making me scowl, lolling my head backwards to watch at him. His hand it gently playing with my hoodie and every so often a strain of hair in my neck. “It’s simple, childish, but fun.”

“Explain, what game?” Julia mutters with her eyes still closed, oblivious to the affection Stan is showing ever since we got a little high. He’s been touching me in barely noticeable ways and it’s weirdly enough arousing to be teased but not being able to show it since Julia has no clue about the obvious attraction I feel towards Stan.

“You inhale, and name an animal.” Stan chuckles before he goes on. “Than you exhale.”

“That sounds like a really simple game.” I chuckle along with him.

“Too simple, what’s the catch?” Julia chimes in.

“If I say horse, you have to use the last letter for your next animal.” Stan’s fingers are tickling my neck and I shiver from the touch. “And you can’t say any animal that’s already been used.”

“Okay, got it, eventually it’ll get harder to name one, so you can’t exhale for a while.” Julia sits up straight and right at the same time Stan’s hand drops flat behind me. “Does that add up to the effects?”

“Nah.” Stan shrugs. “I always end up in the best state of high when I play that game.”

“Let’s try.” I sit up straight, handing him the spliff to light it. “I want to end up in the best state of high.”

“I don’t.” Julia gets up from her seat. “I really need to get home anyway. This has been great. And maybe we could do this again. But my parents don’t like the idea of staying out for this long after Finn went missing and he turned out not to be the first…” She’s blabbering, but then again, she has been all night.

“Wait, we’ll drop you off.” Stan gets up. “I don’t want you to ride your bike home all alone.”

* * * * *

“Still wanna do that game you talked about?” We’re in the car after dropping off Julia at home.

“I don’t know, do you? You seem pretty tired.”

“I’m mellow.” I chuckle, feeling the effects wear off slowly. “I want to play, if you do too.”

“So, I reckon you’re not going home tonight?”

“Nah,” I shrug. “I’ll text my dad to tell him I’m staying at your place because it’s too late to ride back home alone.”

“If only you’d use that cleaver mind of yours for your education.”

“Says who?”

He just grins at my remark, parking the car in front of his home. We head back to the backyard, Stan turning on the heater, me sitting down on the couch he was previously laying on.

He heads back inside, grabs a couple of cans of cola, some chips, a spliff and a lighter, before sitting down next to me.

He inhales, offering me the spliff. “Horse.” He exhales and grins.

I repeat his moves, inhaling, responding with elephant and giving back the spliff while I exhale. We continue like this for a while, I thought I had him with donkey, but he came with yak, telling me to google it if I didn’t believe it exists.

Eventually I lose after he came up with raccoon and we had no animals left with the letter n that I could come up with. I had to exhale before answering.

“The spliff was almost done anyway.” Stan chuckles softly, before taking a swig from his cola.

“This is the best feeling, I swear to god.” I admit, feeling lazy, slumped down on the sofa, head leaning on the back of it.

“Well, you want to just sit here? Or want to do something?”

“Just sit.” I murmur sleepily.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He sounds a little worried, looking at me with a frown. “You’re slurring your words.”

“I’m just high as fuck.” I laugh softly, trying to wave my hand. I don’t have to energy to lift it.

“You look a little pale…” Stan’s voice sounds funny, making me laugh harder. “I knew the second one would be too much…” He’s more talking to himself than to me, since I’m in full on laughter right now. I want to move, but I just don’t have the energy to do so. I’m starting to get dizzy, wanting to lay down. It almost feels as if I’m drunk; nauseous, dizzy, incapable of controlling my movements.

“Don’t panic.” Stan simply tells me while getting up. “You’ll be fine in a minute.” He’s gone before I can tell him not to leave me behind like this. Him telling me not to panic, only makes me panic a little. I feel like shit out of the blue, while Stan seems fine. My head lolls to and from, me trying to keep it still, but not having the muscle power to do so.

“Drink this.” Stan pushes back my head, with a hint of a smirk on his face. “It’s just juice.” He holds a glass in front of me, helping me to drink the juice. “Eat this.” He hands me a chocolate bar, unwrapped. “It’ll help.” He’s now smiling in amusement.

“I feel shitty…”

“I know, just eat it. It’ll help.” He kind of forces me to eat the candy bar, until making me drink another glass of juice. After that, he sits back down beside me, chuckling while I’m leaning sideways against him. His arm is around my shoulder and he’s hushing me to calm down, while his fingers tickle my upper arm, neck and jaw.

It takes about 15 minutes before the overly high feeling makes places for a better, mellow feeling. By then, I notice all the little touches from Stan, while feelings inside me swirl around, confusing me like hell. I want him to touch me in different ways. I’m in the least a little aroused right now, my body heated and my heartbeat is picking up speed.

“What are you thinking about?” Stan’s voice is soft, relaxed. I watch sideways, noticing how he closed his eyes and seems perfectly content with just sitting around doing nothing in particular.

“You.” I chuckle. “You seem so relaxed.”

One of his eyes open to watch back at me. I swallow once, twice, lean in and press my lips against his.

It’s a gentle kiss, lips touching without much happening. That is until Stan’s hand found his way to my neck, pulling me closer. He takes over control, much to my relieve, since I had no idea what I was doing. His fingers wave through my hair, grabbing a fist fill, tucking at it to pull my head to the right. The angle gives him a chance to deepen the kiss and as soon as he does, I moan softly.

I feel him smirk, before he grabs my sweater, tugging it towards him, making me turn, climbing on his lap. I straddle his waist without breaking the kiss, that turned heated and hungrily. One of his hands still holds a fist full of hair, while the other found its way to my hip.

This whole thing got out of hand a bit quick, but I’m high as fuck and all I know is that my senses are on full alert, making his touches, his kiss, all the more enjoyable. He grinds his hips upwards, creating friction, causing me to gasp for air. He takes the opportunity to flip me down on my back on the sofa, climbing on top of me.

“Stan.” I moan out his name when he pushed my shirt up, trailing kisses down my chest and stomach.

“Hmm?” The vibrations on my stomach, caused by his response, makes me arch my back.

“What are we doing?”

“Having fun.” His lips never leave my skin, his hands fumbling with the zipper of my jeans. “Unless you’re telling me you’re not having fun.”

“I don’t know…” I drawl, closing my eyes, keeping in a moan when he managed to slide his hands in my jeans, grabbing hold of my hard member.

“You wanted the best sort of high, didn’t you?” He tells me, leaning in to kiss me again, all the while touching me in ways that send my mind, and my worries flying out of the window.

“Uhu…” I admit, groaning when he bites softly in my shoulder. My hands roam around in his hair, messing it up completely. “I’ve never done this…”

“If you want me to stop…”

But I started this, right? I wanted this. My body wanted him to touch me, to kiss me, to pleasure me in all ways possible. “No, I’m fine.” I give my consent for all of this, agreeing to let him shag me right there and then.