Page 47 of Byte

“I don’t know why I’m being so impatient. It doesn’t matter how long the test takes. I’m not going to be able to do anything about it until Monday anyway.”

“True,” he agreed. “But at least you’ll know.”

“How could I not know? I mean, shouldn’t I have felt different?”

“Not necessarily. If she used one of the other cannabis compounds like delta-eight, you likely wouldn’t have noticed any impairment. Now that I’m thinking about it, that would also explain why the baked goods didn’t have an unusual taste or smell,” he explained.

“You seem to know a lot about this.”

“When the bill was passed that made a lot of hemp-derived products legal, Ember asked me to do some research to see if growing the legal plants would be lucrative for the farm.”

“Was it?” I asked curiously.

“Yes, and no. While it definitely would have turned a nice profit, there was still a lot of uncertainty with the legalities on a state level. Since our state isn’t known for being progressive where marijuana is concerned, she decided against it.”

He pulled into his driveway a few minutes later and put the truck in park. “You ready for round two of testing?”

“Yes!” I said excitedly. “But it’s round three for me.”

“I didn’t know you guys were coming back tonight,” Flint said from the front porch. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is so far from okay it’s not even funny,” I said and let Shadow out of the truck. He jumped down and ran straight for Flint.

Flint leaned down to pet him. “So, what’s going on?”

“In a nutshell, I got fired today because I tested positive for THC on a urine drug screen. We think my so-called friend from school has been feeding me homemade edibles without my knowledge.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yep,” I nodded. “No one besides Patch knows about this, so please keep it to yourself for the time being.”

“Of course,” he promised. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I still have some of the brownies she gave me on Wednesday. We’re going to use the kits Patch gave us to test them for THC.”

“Then what?”

“Either way, I need to contact a lawyer. I don’t so much care about getting my job back, but I don’t want my nursing license to be affected by something I didn’t do.”

“What about school?” Byte asked.

“I honestly don’t know what to do about school. If I tell them, I’ll definitely be kicked out of the program. If I don’t tell them, I might be able to finish the program and graduate before anything comes up with the Board of Nursing. I won’t be able to take the practitioner boards if my nursing license isn’t in good standing, but at least I’ll have my degree.”

“Do you want to do the honors?” Byte asked and placed the container of brownies on his kitchen table.

“Sure,” I said and picked up a test kit.

I rubbed the swab on the brownie as instructed and then rubbed it on the test panel. It turned red almost immediately. I stared at the result and tried to process my feelings. Part of me was happy to know why I tested positive, while another part ofme was livid that Lauren had drugged me. And I wanted to know why.

“You okay?” Byte asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” I said. “I want to know why she did this, but it’s not like I can ask her.”

“No, you definitely can’t ask her. In fact, I don’t think you should have any contact with her at all.”

“That shouldn’t be hard. I only saw her every other Wednesday to study.”

“When do you want to tell Keegan?” Byte asked.

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