Nothing Like Us

chapter 37

"Yo!" I look over at Ryan and laugh a little harder than I normally would because I'm high as fuck "The eyes look like tits!" I begin laughing all over again as I gesture towards the alien/monster looking thing I've been spray painting on the wall.

"What are you like 12?" He asks, shaking his head even though he's laughing too.

"Nah bro..." I answer regretfully, as if I feel sorry for him "They do look like tits. Don't worry, someday you'll see some in real life and then you'll know what I'm talking about."

"Yeah, fuck you..." he replies, stretching out on the couch with red, heavy lidded eyes "I've seen plenty. In fact I saw your mom's last night."

I pop the cap off the can of green paint in my hand and throw it at him, sending it bouncing squarely off his forehead "That shit ain't even right, Butler."

"But it's true." He shrugs, taking a long hit from the blunt when I pass it to him. "This is sick though..." he adds, glancing around the room I've set up in the basement for smoking, complete with a ventilation system that is separate from the rest of the house because of Lyric. I know it's ridiculous, there's no way any smoke would ever make it up to the upper levels of the house, but I don't care.

"It's not finished either..." I say with excitement that is slightly muted by the THC that's floating through my system. "Over here I'm gonna have a bar put in..." I hold my hands out as if I'm positioning it against the wall as we speak "I was gonna make it look all modern but then B was showing me some shit online, people who had 'em built to look old...they call it something, I don't know but..."

"Vintage." He offers.

I point at him "Yeah that's it...vintage. Anyway, it's gonna look hard as fuck! Like something out of that Gatsby movie."

"The Great Gatsby..." he pipes in again. "It was a book first you know."

I roll my eyes, eyeing the spray paint that stains a couple of my fingers "Yeah, cause I give a single fuck."

"Speaking of Bobbi," he throws his legs off the couch to give me room to sit down but remains slouched back against the cushions "Where's she at? And how come I haven't seen my little Lyric yet? You know that's the only damn reason I come over...sure as shit isn't to see your ass."

I pull hard on the blunt and hold it in for a moment or two before answering with a rasp as I exhale a huge cloud of smoke "They went shopping with Betty for clothes or shoes or tampons or whatever it is girls shop for."

He laughs softly "Yeah, I'm sure they're out shopping for tampons dumb ass."

"Fuck if I know...but aye, look..." I dig my phone out of my pocket and deliver a swift punch to his leg with my middle knuckle raised out of my fist to jab into the muscle."

He pulls himself into a sitting position and lands a punch of his own against my arm in retaliation.

"You break your hand?" I ask while flexing my bicep, holding the phone out without waiting for an answer when I come to the first of the pictures I want to show him.

His eyes grow wide "Daaaaamn..." he drags the word out, obviously impressed "How many carats is that?"

"I don't know..." I shrug "A shit load."

He reaches for the phone to inspect the ring a little closer "So is this the one then?"

I roll the blunt between my fingertips, pressing down to loosen it up a little, I rolled it a little too tightly, making it hard to get a good hit "Maybe. Scroll through, there's like five more. They're not actual rings either, just graphics of some of the different ideas me and Ben are fuckin' around with."