Seay sat on his bed, sipped his coffee, and glowered at the mess at hand. Not so much at the literal state of the loft he was about to have to deep clean. That he would tend to with solemn delight. But at the other mess. The one that had left this small dry splotch on his bedsheet. Presently, he scratched at it. It didn't come up.
The notion that this must somehow be assimilated into his life story, that he must continue to act "normal" despite everything that had happened last night, whacked him like a bat to the skull. He literally jolted, gasped, and scared the bedsprings. His head spun. He came to and saw he'd spilled a little coffee on the carpet.
The little splatter of coffee had landed in the shape of a big, veiny -
- actually, nevermind. Let's just say it was a random splat of coffee. And it was now time to begin cleaning.
Downstairs, there was a knock at the cracked-open back door. Tracy heard it slide all the way open, and then the blinds joggle and thwap as someone came inside. There was the canvas thud of a backpack being unshouldered onto the kitchenette table.
"Daddy?" Tracy muttered. It was as loud as she could will herself to talk through the pounding in her skull.
There was a peculiar silence.
"Hello?" came a familiar voice. But not Dad's.
"Blaze?" she frowned. She sat bolt upright. Her brains swum, sloshed, and punished her for their too-sudden reorientation. When her vision came back, she realized she was glaring slightly to the side of her intruder. She scowled at him directly, now.
"What?" he chuckled. He put his hands up defensively. "We early or something?"
"You can't just WALK into somebody's HOUSE!" Tracy spat. "And if you'd have thought to fricking call first, we'd have told you we're grounded. So you can kindly piss off. Ass." She never liked to swear, but she was kind of panicking right now.
"Oh, shit!" Michelle cackled giant cauliflowers of smoke into the cabin through a part in the hanging blinds. She had her fingers parting the blinds. She had a joint in her fingers. Stinky yellow smoke also twirled and helixed out of the joint's cherry.
From upstairs, Seay smelled something off. He turned and saw the smoke. He rose from scrubbing the carpet, a bit too eager to peek over the ledge and see what was going on, and accidentally banged the top of his head on the ceiling.
"What was that?" said someone from somewhere below the ledge. "That our homeboy up there?"
"B-Blaze?!" Seay yowled, wincing as his yelling angered the tingly throbbing in his dome.
"In the flesh!" Blaze chortled.
"I'm here, too!" called Michelle. The blinds rustled. She called up again, now from the base of the ladder. "May I come up and say hi?"
"No, you may not," groaned Tracy. She pointed to the back door. "You may go and say bye."
"Oh? Feeling a little territorial today, hm?" Michelle scoffed. She scratched gingerly at an itch on her stomach. Her navel piercing was acting up again today. Just when it had stopped itching, those bitch fates went and gave her a mosquito bite right next to it. She took a smarmy drag on her joint while she sized up the gray-faced, hungover teen slumped angrily over her couch toward her. "That's an interesting change from last night."
"Hey, while you guys hash this out or whatever," Blaze interjected, "I gotta go take a quick piss. Been holding it since we left." He sauntered off, in search of the bathroom. "Be right back!"
"Sooo, what? You're grounded because you got caught?" Michelle shrugged, exhaled. This time it came out in one long pretty flume. "Good news, babe. You don't have to sneak out again anyway. Today, the party came to you."
"Hey I think I know this layout," Blaze called from the foyer. "I dated a chick who had a cabin just... just like... " He trailed off.
Blaze stood stock still outside the bathroom door. There was a beautiful, naked woman drying herself off in there. Her bare backside was to him. Her round, muscular ass. And now she bent to dry her ankles and toes. He couldn't believe his luck. He loosed an accidental noise of irrepressible delight.
Mom was still bent forward. She noticed a strange figure lurking behind her. She momentarily lost her balance, stumbled, and dropped her towel.
Blaze's eyes bulged. He snorted giddily, piggishly, but entirely by accident. Was he high? He sure felt high right now. He hadn't hit any of his girlfriend's joints, but Michelle had insisted on hotboxing the whole drive over.
"Ma'am," he waved to the woman.
"GET OUT!" Mom barked as she scrambled to pick her towel back up.
"Needed to piss, Ma'am, sorry. Honest mistake. I'll, uh - " not sure where else to go, Blaze saw himself to the front door. "I'll just see myself out. I'll, ah, find myself a bush or something."
"SEAY?! TRACY?!" Mom bellowed. "WHO IS THIS STRANGE MAN WANDERING THROUGH OUR HOUSE?!"
"Hey, lady," Michelle appeared from the main room, trying to soothe Mom and tempt her with a joint. "You can take it down about twenty notches, okay? We're friends of your daughter's. We met them last night."
Mom's panic burned off in an instant. It sublimated into pure, radiant fury. Her face turned crimson. She looked hard at Michelle, studied her bratty mug for any signs of wickedness or deceit. Then she smiled. "You must be Michelle?"
"Yep," Michelle giggled. She peeked back behind her to see if Tracy was watching. "And I see my reputation precedes me!"
"It does," Mom said. "Michelle, could I trouble you to extinguish your cigarette while you are in my home?"
"Suit yourself," Michelle shrugged. She brought one foot up off the ground and dabbed it out on the sole of her flip-flop. She slipped the unfinished joint into a tiny side pocket of her purse.
"That man who just - who just barged in here and then left. That was your friend, Blaze?"
"My boyfriend. Yeah. Sorry about him." Michelle peeked out the window beside the front door. "He can't help it. He's like cursed or something. Everywhere he goes, pretty women wind up naked."
"Well, won't you let me get dressed and we can bring him back in? I'd love a chance to speak with him."
"Yeah I see you, hiiii, ya' fucking idiot," she said quietly, waving through the glass. She wasn't paying attention to Mom.
"Sweetheart."
"Hm?" Michelle said, turning to look and jumping, surprised to see Mom standing just behind her, hair dripping, wrapped in a towel, breathing very, very hot, angry breaths. "Whoa, lady. F-fuck. Don't scare me like that."
"Go and get him. Bring him in. Sit him down. And tell him to wait. I will be out shortly."
Michelle blinked.
"Michelle," Mom set her jaw.
Michelle blinked again. She sniffled. She fixed a piece of Mom's hair. "You really are pretty. You look like her."
Seay heard a screech of pain from downstairs. Mom had done something to Michelle! He swore, steeled himself, and gave his noggin one last rub for good luck, then he climbed down the ladder.
There was Tracy, standing in the kitchenette. She was leaning on the table and rifling through an unfamiliar backpack. Blaze's bag of party supplies, by the sound of it. Bottles. A grocery bag. Something that sounded like a bottle of pills. Tracy pulled it out and read the little white label. She couldn't pronounce the name of the formula.
"What the FUCK?" Michelle whimpered.
"GO. GET. HIM," Mom roared.
"FINE! FUCK," Michelle sobbed. She hurried noisily out the front door, her purse and things jangling.
"AND DON'T YOU DARE TRY AND DRIVE OFF ON ME. I SEE YOU," Mom hollered from the door. "I'VE ALREADY SEEN YOUR LICENSE PLATE."
"Mom?" Seay murmured from behind her, at the end of the hall. "A-are you okay?"
Mom spun around, her boiling temper momentarily confusing her. Wasn't her son supposed to be upstairs cleaning? She adjusted her towel under her arms self-consciously. She hadn't had a second to cinch it properly around herself, yet. So she did.
