“Stay away from my sister,” I said.

“Whoa. What?”

“You heard me. I said, stay the fuck away from my sister. Or you will pay for it.”

His face fell. “Hey . . . uh . . . are you okay?”

“I’m fine. You’re the one who’s not going to be okay.”

He took a step toward me. Touched my arm—and looked at me with his pale-blue eyes; pale, blue, screwed-up eyes—the pupils wide and black from all the shit he was taking. Some weird cocktail that made him hyper-focused, not afraid of anything, and never upset. I thought, That’s just the kind of cocktail that’s a recipe for disaster. And weed is illegal? Seriously? Something’s not right in this world.

“Take it easy,” he said. He ran his hand down my arm and then took my hand in his. I was about to pull away. I couldn’t believe the nerve he had.

“You better—”

“Shhh,” he said, putting one finger against my lips. I glared at him, but he pulled me closer to him. “I like you.”

Then before I could say anything he leaned down and kissed me quickly on the mouth. I pushed him away and he just laughed. I stared at him, trying to figure out just why he thought he could get away with this. Who the hell did he think he was? I looked into his relaxed face and thought again about what Richards said about always being tough and I thought again that I’d like to try whatever he was on. Pills weren’t my drug of choice but he was clearly having some kind of wonderful time just being himself.

“C’mon,” Graham said. “Let me kiss you again. I really do like you. Even when you’re like this.”

Maybe I would let him kiss me again, I thought. Maybe that was the best way to find out who he really was and what he had going on. Maybe I liked it. And that’s the hardest part to admit now. That maybe, in spite of everything my head told me, every creepy feeling I had about the whole situation, everything I knew about Ally falling in love with him . . . maybe, just maybe, I liked it.

I felt like that for maybe a week.

And then it all came crashing down.

Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think he’s right either. I spent the whole day dragging him around the halls and he acted like . . . I don’t know, some kind of smarmy spaced-out aristocrat. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do!” I told him. “I totally do! Becky and these girls at school seem to think he’s some artist heartthrob Abercrombie model. Bitches be crazy.”

“Yeah, well, the boy’s hot,” he said. “I’ll give him that. But yeah. He’s weird, and I don’t mean weird like you.”

“Hey!” I laughed and he put his arm around me. We were taking the back way home, meandering past the harbor and seeing the tall masts stately rocking in the distance. Walking out to the old pier, the one totally abandoned because the foundation was so badly eroded. The place was a briny brackish barnacle-covered part of the town that time forgot and I loved to walk there with Declan—it was solitary and nostalgic and felt a little dangerous.

“He is hot,” I said. “But not hot like you.”

He gave my side a little squeeze. “Let’s go to the old playground.”

“Yeah. Let’s do it,” I said. We would go to the town hall playground and swing until nearly dusk and when everyone had gone home for dinner we would climb into the sprawling wooden jungle gym that looked like a castle. There were actually little rooms in there. And we would sit and get high and talk and do anything we wanted. After being interrupted by Ally, I was dying to touch him again. Feel his warm skin and his hard muscles.

We put our boards down and skated so we could get there faster.

Coasting from a distance we could see Graham’s car parked across the street from the swing set.

As we approached the park, we could see him sitting there, wearing a red baseball cap, his messy blond hair hanging out beneath it. At first it looked like he was alone, but as we got closer we could see he was talking to a little kid—a boy maybe ten years old who was wearing an Iron Man T-shirt, a blue Windbreaker, and jeans.

“Sweet shirt that little dude has,” Declan said. “I wonder where he got it.”

“From his parents, duh. It’s not like he can drive himself to the mall.”

Declan laughed. “Does Graham have a little brother?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He strikes me as the ultimate only child.”

“Takes one to know one,” Declan said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Just kidding, Tate. Wait. Hang on . . . shhh.”

We picked up our boards and tiptoed quietly to the edge of the trees that flanked the swings and jungle gym. Graham hadn’t noticed us and if the kid did he didn’t think much of it.

We walked through the trees and stood silently listening.

“Oh yeah?” Graham was saying. “I had no idea. I always thought that Wolverine got bit by a wolf or something to get his powers.”

Even from far away you could see the kid give him a little condescending smirk when he said it. The kid’s voice was high-pitched and he talked some more while Graham nodded his head, listening.

“Spider-Man,” Graham said. “You know, ’cause of the web shooting. He’s pretty much a regular guy, lives with his aunt and all that. I think he’s the best. When do you usually get out of school?”

The boy told him and Graham took out a little notebook. The same one he’d used when talking to Becky. At that point Declan and I looked at each other and slunk out from behind the trees.

“’Sup, G?” Declan asked him.

“Oh, hey guys.” Graham seemed completely relaxed. “This is my friend Brian. He’s a mutant with a metal-alloy skeleton who fights crime.”

I was worried for one minute that Graham would act all weird because of what happened in his garage, but there was nothing strange between the two of us at all. He was focused completely on Brian.

The kid laughed and looked happy when Graham said it. He was obviously proud to be talking to a big kid and thrilled to have an audience for his information about the X-Men. I noticed that he was wearing a necklace. A cord with a piece of sea glass at the end of it. The letter W drawn on the glass with Sharpie marker. Becky’s handiwork, of course. Pretty soon the whole town would be covered in sea glass jewelry and running on apps built by one adorable little stoner with a nose ring.

“Hey, Brian,” we said.

He waved at us even though we were two feet away from him.

“Where’s your mom?” I asked.

He turned and pointed to a bench at the far end of the playground where a woman was reading next to a stroller.

“What’s up, kids?” Graham asked us, leaning back on the bench and folding his hands behind his head. “I suppose you have four hundred and twenty reasons you wanted to come to the park tonight?”

“Nah, we’re just chillin’,” Declan said.

“What are you up to?” I asked him.

“Making art,” Graham said. And at that moment I noticed the tiny camera he was holding. The same one he had tried to film me with the other day. It was so small, I had again completely missed it. “Making art and talking to my homeboy Brian.”

“What kind of art?” Declan asked.

“Cool stuff. If you want to come over I can show you.”

Declan and I looked at each other. The playground castle would have to wait . . . or we’d have to sneak out later at night. Whatever Graham was working on, we needed to see it.

We said good-bye to Brian and got in Graham’s car. Even though it was fall he had the top down. He drove fast through the winding shady roads that wound up the hill to our neighborhood. Declan sat in the front and I sat in the tiny backseat. Graham was a good driver. He took some of the hairpin turns a little fast, but it was fun and he definitely knew what he was doing. I imagined him driving all over country roads down south like some aristocratic hick, even though I knew he was from the suburbs.