In the dream, I was eating her pussy. It was dry, but I was eating that shit as if it was my last fucking meal. Her legs clamped tight around my head, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing, until I said her name right into her cunt.

“What?” Her voice was clear, as if her thighs weren’t around my ears.

“Harper.” My voice was flat and toneless in sleep.

“You’re going to wear it out.”

The dream ended. I was left with a headache and a dry mouth.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. If I did, I was either in the hospital or in the Barrington house. Maybe I was in Butthead’s house. Or Kyle’s. Maybe I was lying on the pool table.

But where I wasn’t was my own bed or the couch at QI4HQ. Nope. I was definitely still in Shit City and batshit crazy Harper Barrington/Watson was right next to me with her freckles and her strawberry-shortcake tits.

“Water,” I croaked like a frog.

“Right next to you.”

Keeping my eyes closed, I reached to where I’d remembered the night table was in the room I’d slept in.

“You’re more likely to knock it over like that.”

Damn. That meant I was leaning in the right direction, which meant I was in that same room. Fuck.

“And anyway, that’s the wrong side,” she added.

Different room? Okay. I reached out with my left hand. My knuckles found cool plastic.

“For the love of Pete.” Her exasperation was cute in a psycho kind of way.

The cold container was put right in my palm. It was short. I opened my eyes. Everything was a mad blur except the water container I held three inches from my face. It was a purple-and-yellow sippy cup with clowns biking around the sides.

“You don’t have to pick your head up this way,” she explained.

I closed my eyes and put the bottle to my lips, sucking on the end like I’d sucked her hard little clit. I remembered it had been a red-painted pebble.

Or not.

That had been a dream. Right.

“Thank you.”

“There’s something for your headache if you can reach it. Or I can get it for you.”

“I got it.” I gave up sweet darkness and opened my eyes for real, blinking the blur out. The ceiling was painted in roses. “You put me in the moldy room.”

“Closer to the stairs. You were heavy. Butthead’s not in great shape, you know.”

I got up on my elbows. I was dressed. I knew that much. A blanket was thrown over me, hiding my dream-induced boner. When I turned to Harper, my neck hurt. She was in a white wicker chair, one knee folded with her bare foot up on the edge. Her arms wrapped around the bend in her leg, and her fingers laced together around her calf. I couldn’t read her expression.

“Thank you,” I said. That hurt too.

“You still drunk?”

“A little.”

“Kyle said you could still hit bank shots better than you could stand.”

“It’s math.” I scooped up the three brown pills on the night table. “I can do that drunk.”

“Apparently. You were the proud owner of half the Harleys in town until about midnight.”

“I don’t ride.” I washed down the pills with sippy-cup water and flopped back on the pillow. “They can keep them.” I put my arm over my eyes. My Langematik was gone. “Where’s my watch?”

“You played nine ball with Johnny. Mistake.”

Right. Math + Sobriety > Math/Drunk.

“Those guys are a bunch of assholes. I don’t know how you stay here.”

I meant it as a compliment, and she read my sarcasm like a pamphlet on guy-speak.

“They’re all right.” Her voice was bathed in warmth and pride.

“No, I mean, yeah, sure. They’re fine. But I can’t get the hell out of here, and I don’t even live here.”

“You should really think about my offer. I’m a great student.”

“You’re a terrorist.”

“I’m desperate. There’s a difference.”

I moved my arm and looked at her. “Why?”

“Why is there a difference?”

“Why are you desperate?”

She got up, leaned down until her hair brushed my chin, and whispered so close I could hear the wet pop of her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

“You haven’t been paying attention.”

She quickly kissed me and walked out before I even felt it.