Page 71 of Unrequited (Unrequited 1)

Maeve

Yael and I bought pot brownies in Amsterdam. I’d let her peer pressure me into it, but I only ate a corner. This was my first experience with ingesting pot. I’d been aroundmuchheavier stuff over the years, but had never once been tempted. Partly due to being somewhat of a goody two shoes. Mostly because I’d seen friends and acquaintances act like tools under the influence.

I was nervous I’d go nuts and streak through the Red Light District.

“Weed makes you lazy. It won’t make you want to run naked through the streets.” Yael stuffed half a brownie into her mouth as we walked.

“I’ve heard sometimes they lace these things with LSD.”

She looped an arm around my shoulders. “Come on. You can’t get paranoid already. You ate, like, an eighth of a brownie. You have to eat at least half before the paranoia sets in.”

I looked pointedly at her half-eaten brownie, and she laughed. “No, girl. I don’t get paranoid. I eat junk food and laugh at stupid movies. It’s the best.”

We’d been in Europe for five days, and I was already getting high. Twenty-three years walking the straight and narrow, and all it took was a nudge from my friend for me to eat a little tiny bit of pot. Probably not even enough to get high, and really, it was legal in most places these days anyway.

Still, I was officially a rock star, after one performance with Unrequited in Belgium two nights ago and another tonight. Eating an eighth of a pot brownie while walking through Amsterdam seemed like the proper celebration.

I waved at a scantily clad woman standing in a window, and Yael grabbed my hand. “What? She waved at me. I know she’s a prostitute, but that’s no reason to be rude.”

She snorted, keeping my hand in hers. “She probably got one look at your fine ass and got hopeful you were her next customer. Don’t be cruel to the woman. She’s only trying to make an honest living.”

I giggled. “I don’t think I could ever go to a prostitute.”

“You don’tthink? You’re not positive?”

I giggled again, only louder. “You never know, circumstances could change.”

Yael’s mouth dropped open, I giggle-snorted, and that was all she wrote. We both started giggling, stumbling over each other’s feet as we passed coffee shops and windows full of waving women in lingerie.

She gave me another piece of pot brownie, and I consumed that sucker with no reluctance. I’d planned on taking in the sights of Amsterdam, maybe seeing a museum or the floating flower market, but it turned out, this city was so funny, walking became difficult. Yael and I sat on a bench by a canal, people watching and laughing until our stomachs hurt and tears streamed down our cheeks.

Finally, we caught a taxi back to the venue and our tour bus, where we’d left the guys this morning.

“I kissed Santiago, you know.”

She snorted, letting her head loll on the headrest. “No kidding.”

Everyone saw us kissing at that club, but we’d all been drunk enough not to read too much into it. I knew Santiago wasn’t into me.

Of course, I had no explanation for what went down in that bathroom. Maybe post-concert adrenaline? Emotions were running high and he was grateful for my kind words about Diego?

Yeah, that had to be it.

“No, I mean I kissed him that summer.”

She sat up, squinting at me with glassy eyes. “What? Wait,what? You never told me this.”

I nodded. My head was heavy, flopping on my neck. “Oh yeah. I’d convinced myself I was falling in love with him and he did not feel the same. At all.”

“But you kissed?”

“I kissed him. He mostly responded out of instinct, but he pushed me off him like I was gross.”

That memory still stabbed at me on my low days.

“That bastard. I had no idea.”

“I’m not mad about it anymore. It was a long time ago. It made me see him differently after, though.”

---