Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,94

a long inhale of it as well.

“Yeah, baby,” LaKeesha said. “Whew. I needed that.”

Wishing she could jump out and run as they were stopped at a light, Taylor tried with everything in her to ignore what was going on even as the smell began to seep back to her. Brooklyn took another long drag before turning to the back.

“Oh, gosh. Where are my manners? Here you go.” She handed the vape to Jaylan.

One glance over and Taylor knew Jaylan wasn’t really into this idea, but before she could figure out how to get Brooklyn to give up on it, Jaylan took the thing, hesitated just a second, and took a long, hard drag of it. She coughed softly and handed the thing over to Taylor without looking at her.

“Oh,” Taylor said, feeling very much like she had freshman year when Kennedy Clark, her best friend at the sorority at the time had offered her a hit of something neither of them had really known the substance of. “No. No thanks.”

Jaylan’s gaze dimmed in surprised judgment even as she fought to recover. “It’s cool,” she said as if Taylor needed just a push of convincing. “It’s just a vape.”

“No, really,” Taylor said. “I’m… I’m not into that stuff.”

With a soft snort, Jaylan’s face registered full condemnation. “Whatever.”

How an evening that had started off with such promise could have gone so sideways, Taylor had no idea. They found the G with little trouble, took a selfie at the Rock’N’Roll Diner on Slatterly then almost gave up on the one with the bison sculpture but finally found it. Taylor was getting a monster headache whether from the sickeningly awful smell of the constant vaping or from the increasingly ridiculous nature of their discussions which had turned first racy and then downright filthy. They were having a marvelous time. She just wanted to go home.

“Okay. Okay. Best guy you’ve ever been with,” Brooklyn said from the front. “Jaylan.”

“Uh…” Jaylan hesitated for only one breath. “Greg. Definitely Greg.”

“Greg from last semester Greg?” Brooklyn asked in surprise.

“Yep,” Jaylan said confidently though Taylor noticed the glance she took at her even in the darkness. “He was a-mazing.”

“All right. First place you ever did it with him,” LaKeesha said before taking a long inhale on the pen.

That shut Jaylan up long enough that Taylor heard it. She wanted to tell them all that Greg wasn’t like that, that the two of them couldn’t have even been together that long, and that he would never take advantage of a girl and then toss her away like other guys did.

“First date,” Jaylan said, lifting her chin. “He took me out dancing, and then we went back to his place.”

Taylor’s whole body roiled at that. Greg? Her Greg? The guy she had grown up with and thought she knew inside and out Greg? The thought that the two of them had…? On their first date…? She snapped those thoughts in half and shook her head without moving it to clear it of the image. Breathing hurt, and tears stung her eyes. Of course, Greg was a guy, and he was away at college, so…

“Ooo, go Jaylan,” Brooklyn cooed. “So how was he?”

“Best I’ve ever had.” And her smirk at Taylor was pointed and sharp.

“Okay, so how ‘bout you, Taylor?” LaKeesha asked. “What was your first lay like?”

So many thoughts hit Taylor at the same time, she had no idea which one to attend to first. Did LaKeesha mean her and Greg? The thought whipsawed through her like an F-5 tornado. But then again, LaKeesha probably didn’t know anything about her and Greg, though Jaylan surely did. Or did she mean the first time she was with a guy, any guy? Her throat closed up and she nearly choked on the memory.

“You probably should say in the last year,” Brooklyn said as if it was funny. “You gotta remember, Tay’s got a couple years on all of us. Going back that far isn’t really fair.”

The center of her blood began to boil. She wanted to lash out or to say something wholly shocking just to get them all so blistered by it that they would stop this stupid game.

“Oh, hey, look. There it is!” Brooklyn suddenly said, and without warning, LaKeesha yanked the wheel, and they bump-landed into a parking lot very nearly losing control.

Without warning, an uncontrollable shakiness took over Taylor’s entire being. It was impossible to beat it back or to calm it down.

“Come on. Come on,” Brooklyn said, jumping