“You guys realize you can afford to eat better than Nutella out of a jar, right?” I teased. I was just glad to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“Nutella isn’t a budget situation,” Matt informed me. “It’s a midnight craving situation.”
“Right.” I eyed him, kinda wondering what “midnight craving” situation he was referring to, and why I wasn’t invited to that party.
“Have you got a problem with the fact that I find your best friend attractive?” Ash asked Xander innocently. He seemed to enjoy trying to irritate Xander almost as much as Xander liked trying to irritate him.
“It’s not a problem,” Xander said, feigning near corpselike boredom.
“It’s the mere idea that you find men sexually attractive at all that keeps him up at night,” Matt clarified.
“Not true,” Xander said. “I just give such sub-zero level fucks about it that I don’t need to hear about it all the time. ‘I like pussy. Wait, I also like dick.’ Blah blah blah. Bisexuality is so 2010. Fuck whoever you want. I. Don’t. Care.”
“Alright,” Danica interjected. “Shut up, Xander. Let’s keep playing the game.”
“What game are we playing?” I inquired, because who could remember that far back?
“The Game of Things,” Ash said. “Rock star version.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Who’s turn is it to come up with a topic?” Xander asked.
“It’s my lovely bisexual husband’s turn,” Danica said cheerily.
Matt snickered.
“Great,” Ash said. “People I’d rather fuck than Xander.”
“That’s your topic?” Xander groaned.
“Yup.”
“Wait. Is the ‘I’ in that sentence us?” Danica asked. “Like people we’d rather fuck than Xander?”
“Nope. I, Ashley,” Ash said.
“I’m confused,” I said, sucking on my pickle. My ability to follow along was gradually fading as the vodka pickled my brain.
“The topic is ‘People Ash would rather fuck than Xander,’” Matt translated for me.
“Hmm,” Danica said thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her paper.
“Take your time,” Ash said, grinning at Xander.
Xander scratched his forehead with his middle finger.
“Oh, I get it.” My brain clicked into gear, and I wrote my response on my little paper. “This one is easy-fucking-peasy, people.”
“Yeah, just like Ash,” Xander quipped, and Ash chucked a cushion at his head. It bounced off and Xander ignored it, writing carefully on his paper.
When everyone had written down their responses, Ash gathered up the little papers, including his own, mixed them up and said ceremoniously, “People I’d rather fuck than Xander. Here we go.” Then he read off the papers, one by one, to the background of our snorting and snickers. “‘Almost no one.’ ‘Literally anyone.’ ‘Me.’ ‘Danica every day and twice on Sunday.’ ‘Everyone in this room.’”
We all cracked up.
“That was the last one,” Ash said. “Matty, you’re up to guess first.”
“‘Me’ was Danica,” Matt ventured.
“Yup.” Ash leaned over to kiss his wife.
“Good job, Matt,” Danica said supportively.
“Too obvious.” Xander rolled his eyes. “Take the easiest one first, Matt.”
“Obviously. I’ll even take a shot, so you don’t feel bad when you have to drink because you suck at this game.”
“Taylor?” Ash said.
“Uh… ‘Almost no one’ was obviously Xander because he’s full of himself like that.”
“Yup,” Ash said. “Xander?”
“‘Danica every day and twice on Sunday’ was Taylor,” Xander guessed.
“Yup. I actually fuck her three times on Sundays,” Ash said. “But nice effort, Taylor.”
“Thanks.”
“Danica?” Ash said.
“I’m thinking Matt said ‘Everyone in this room,’” she concluded.
“And he’s not wrong,” Ash said.
“You know, when you hear the truth, you just know it,” I said, giving Matt a high five.
“Fuck you all,” Xander said, and poured us out another round of shots. “This game is too easy because you’re all so fucking predictable.”
“Uh-huh,” Matt said. “And that’s why you’ve already had twice as many shots as the rest of us?”
“He’s just a team player like that,” Danica said, patting Xander’s chest as she came to his defense. “Right, Xan?”
“Thanks, Danica.”
“And if it makes you feel better,” she added, “there are a lot of people I’d rather fuck way less than you.”
Matt laughed and Ash frowned.
“That’s my girl,” I said.
“That’s my girl,” Ash said.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Danica Vola,” Xander said, and kissed her on the forehead.
“No forehead kissing my woman,” Ash said.
“Where would you rather I kiss her?” Xander said, deadpan, and slugged back his shot.
After that, I kinda tuned them out as the drinks flowed, the testosterone surged, and they all got drunker, ruder, and somehow more dickish yet more flirtatious with one another.
And every little bit of it made me miss Cary, a hell of a lot.
I wanted to call him.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I kept drinking.
Eventually, someone threatened to jump out the window