Apartment 905 by Ned Sahin (best summer books txt) 📕

Harmony comes back from the kitchen, swaying her hips from side to side as she balances a tray in her hands.

“Who wants some brownies?” she asks.

Who doesn’t! The three of us have been craving for desserts.

We divide into two teams. One team is Harmony, Kathleen, and Toshi. The other one is Rowan, Sunshine, and me. The category of the pictures we should draw about is “cities.”

Harmony’s team starts first with the youngest of them, Kathleen, drawing a picture while having a series of bites from her brownie. It’s a diagonal line with chair-like shapes on one side. She puts a lot of dots around them.

“Hollywood… Los Angeles?” Toshi guesses from the table. He is keeping his distance from others.

Kathleen shakes her head.

“Chicago! No, no... New York! Theaters!” Harmony says.

Kathleen adds more chair-like shapes and adds curly lines crossing the diagonal line.

“Farms? I don’t know which city is famous for farms.” Toshi laughs.

“No, that’s a beach! Santa Monica? San Diego?” Harmony keeps guessing. Time is ticking.

“Tokyo?” Toshi says while jumping on his chair. We all giggle seeing how excited he is about his guess.

“Time is up!” Rowan holds up the hourglass that is filled with sand on the bottom.

“Miami!” Kathleen screams. She seems disappointed with her team. I think these magic brownies improved her imagination but messed with her precision. Her team would have a better chance if those shapes looked like sunbeds instead of theater chairs.

Our turn. Our youngest, Sunshine, takes the marker and notepad. She starts with two parallel vertical lines next to each other and adds two more with some distance from the others. She then draws a line crossing all four vertical lines. In only seconds, there is a masterpiece in front of us. A realistic 3D sketch of my favorite place.

“Golden Gate! San Francisco!” I yell, trying to control my excitement.

“That’s my man!” Sunshine gives me a high five.

“Wow, what a team!” Rowan says, joining our high five circle.

For a second, I see both of his hands in the air coming for a double high five. I raise both of my hands but only one of his hands is held high. I laugh at myself. Sunshine holds my other hand and helps me stand up. She is here for the rescue again. She puts the marker in my hand and moves it on the notepad she is holding. I don’t know what she is making me draw, but I know that it’s not our turn. I see all the lines on the notepad doubled. I can’t figure out the shape. I know this double vision feeling from our margarita series with friends.

I finally figured it out. The brownies are making us high. They are not normal brownies. They are made of weed.

The good thing is our hosts seem to be high as well.

I don’t know what time it is, but it seems to be flying with jokes and laughs. The last thing I remember is dancing along to a Hawaiian song with Sunshine.

Chapter 24

I open my eyes on the recliner chair. The left side of my neck hurts. Sleeping on a chair was probably one of the many poor decisions I made last night.

The window is still open. People are chatting and laughing outside. Do they ever go to bed? This street is like the Las Vegas Strip.

Kathleen is sleeping on the couch. I don’t see Toshi in the living room. I hope none of us had contact with him last night. Hopefully, I don’t feel sick except for having a mild headache. I need to see how my skin looks like.

“Good morning, buddy,” Toshi says, entering the living room. It looks like he found a mask.

“Hey… You are up! Where were you?” I ask.

“Yeah. I slept in the guest room last night...” he says. He never fails in making good decisions. “How are you feeling?”

“Just a little headache... Other than that, it’s been the best sleep I’ve had for a long time,” I say, closing my eyes and leaning the recliner back. I finally had a full night’s rest after weeks. Even though I was on a recliner, I had an uninterrupted sleep thanks to those brownies.

“Hello,” Kathleen says while yawning. She smiles at us while trying to fix her hair.

“Good morning, my lady,” I say, chuckling. “Not sure what you did last night but it looks like you earned the couch for yourself,” I say sarcastically.

“I won the game!” she says. I don’t remember the score, but I will pretend like I do even though I doubt it.

“Congrats… again!” I say.

We hear a car approaching the building. The engine stops across the street. Toshi and I walk to the window to see who it is. It’s probably Rowan’s sedan.

I see a pickup truck. It’s a black Ram with a white flag on the hood and “HR” letters written on it. Two men get off the truck. These must be the Herington Rebels.

A few Purple Haze residents carry wood boxes with apples and vegetables sticking out to their truck.

“Morning, beauties!” Sunshine says as she enters the room. “Am I missing something?” She joins us on the window to see what we are watching.

“Do you know them?” I point to the guys who came with the truck.

“I do… They come once a week to trade stuff with us,” she says.

I understand why these rebels were so harsh to the couple in the church, but they get along well with the people in this town. The couple didn’t want to cooperate, or they were not giving a good offer for trading. Either way, I am not a fan of militia groups in any kind.

“Hungry? I am thinking about toasts with eggs and cheese,” Sunshine says. She reminds me of the friendly hosts I met during my trips before the pandemic. There were people in every city who were happy to host travelers without expecting anything in return. There was a website