around, and soon they were staring at me in a way that made me uncomfortable.
“Uh . . . what language are you speaking?” one of the twins asked.
“English.”
“No, you’re not,” Noah said.
“Uhleka ngalendlela njalo?” I repeated the question, and that’s when I realized I was speaking isiZulu.
Everyone looked at me again, and then they burst out laughing.
“Uh . . . I think that’s our cue to leave.” Noah stood up and held his hand out for me to take.
“Where should we go?”
“Let’s mission back to my place and play some video games,” Hoodie Three said. Or was he Hoodie Two? It was even harder to tell now. All of their hoodies looked the same. Mind you, everyone was beginning to look similar. Wait . . . were they swapping faces? Because one second Noah looked like Noah, and then he looked like someone else. Someone familiar, someone younger, someone that I was sure I had met . . .
Maybe I was stoned after all?
CHAPTER 57
“Where are we?” I sat up. The place we were in looked like a train had come through it. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some sleeping, some playing video games, some swaying from left to right to some invisible beat that I couldn’t hear. To my left, Noah was fast asleep next to me, clutching a cushion to his chest. And then two big feet stepped over him. I looked up to see who the feet belonged to, and it was our friend with the big cap from last night, who we’d met. He was a friend of the Hoodies, which made sense, since they all seemed to really care about what they wore on their heads.
“Morning, dude,” he said, looking down at me.
“Morning, d-dude,” I said back, and he gave me a lazy smile, followed by a big yawn. Oh God, this was so awkward. I was almost thirty years old and I was waking up on the floor of a house party full of teens! I nudged Noah in the ribs and he rolled over and moaned. He opened one eye and then smiled at me.
“Hey.” His voice sounded croaky and sleepy. He raised himself up onto his elbow. “How did you sleep?”
“Uh . . .” I scanned the room again. One of the other girls from last night, also someone new we’d met, had fallen asleep clutching a bottle of vodka, while another one had fallen asleep with half her body on the couch, the other half on the floor. “Is that a rhetorical question?” I reached up and rubbed the back of my very stiff neck.
Noah sat up and did the exact same thing, adding a back stretch to the move. “I am way too old to sleep on the floor like this.”
“We are way too old to bloody be here,” I said, as two guys high-fived each other over a video game they were playing.
Noah watched them for a while and shook his head. “Ja, I think we should retire from this party. It looks like it’s probably going to go on for another two days or so, and I’m exhausted!”
“Me too! But I did have fun!” I added.
Noah gave me a sweet, playful smile. “Me too.”
“WHAT THE HELL?!?!” A door swung open and a voice ripped through the room, causing everyone to sit up straight and look in the direction of the noise.
“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL? TREVOR! TREVOR! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?”
I knew who the voice belonged to the second I saw her standing there in the doorway with a suitcase.
“Uh . . . Mom . . . uh . . .” Hoodie One replied, looking sheepish as hell. Trevor—that was his name! Suddenly, like reverse dominos, bodies starting jumping to life, grabbing bottles and clothes and general party debris. One of the twins shoved a joint down her pants and crawled across the floor to hide behind the sofa. Noah and I also jumped to our feet.
“Mom . . . I thought you were coming back tomorrow.” Trevor sounded quite desperate.
“SO YOU HAD A BLOODY HOUSE PARTY???? AGAIN!” She looked furious. Her face was growing redder by the second and a big vein in her forehead had started to throb. “OH MY GOD, TREVOR!”
“Mom . . . I’m . . . uh . . .” Trevor looked terrified. Gone was all his teen bravado, now replaced by something else entirely: scared little boy about to be grounded.
“RUN!” someone yelled.
“YES, GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OOOOUUUUTTT!” Trevor’s