*
Admittedly, I do feel a little bit like an imposter.
Nate and his buddies are all pretty different characters, it’s clear, but there’s a way they all gel together that makes it obvious how strong their friendship is. They lay into each other, but it’s never malicious, and they riff off each other like it’s second nature. Which, I guess, given that Kaz mentions at one point they’ve been friends for over ten years, it sort of is.
There are all these references and inside jokes I don’t get; I absolutely tank on Round Three: Where Are They Now, guessing what job people from their class at school have now, but I make some really wild guesses (Percy Pinstock? Oh, yeah, he’s definitely a peacock trainer.
Jess Smith? Please, you just know she’s that lady Buckingham Palace hired to break in the Queen’s shoes for her) that I feel like I’m part of it all, and everyone has a great laugh.
It’s nice, though. It’s low stakes and good (mostly clean) fun, and nobody—not even Nate—seems to mind that some total stranger is a part of their ritual pub quiz night.
Nate’s more conservative with his cocktails than I am, but I don’t tease him about it in front of his friends. He does have work tomorrow, I guess, and I did make them kind of strong.
Even so, by the time we’re marking the final round, we’re both giggly and a little sweaty and slurring our words.
The last round was on Lord of the Rings quotes. I don’t win it, but I do come out with a really solid score. And, thanks to my stellar performance in Round One (thank you to all those hours I’ve spent scrolling social media this week) and in the music round, when Peggy/Duncan reads out our totals . . .
I’ve won.
I leap to my feet, narrowly avoiding upending the coffee table with our last drinks and almost elbowing Nate right in the face, to do a victory dance. I stand still and throw my arms out wide to belt a few lines of “The Winner Takes It Al ” by ABBA, and then, finally raise my glass to the camera.
“To absolutely whooping your sorry butts,” I declare in my most serious voice.
Everyone drinks, but Sam says, “Nate, I’m sorry, man, but you can never invite her again. This is humiliating.”
Peggy/Duncan is a few sheets to the wind and shouts, “Get out of ma Zoom!” again. Someone offscreen barks for him to shut up, which only makes him snort with laughter and shush himself loudly.
Everyone chats for a few more minutes before deciding to call it a night. I salute the boys and tell them it’s been an honor, and they all tell me enthusiastic good-byes, tell me how great it was to meet me. I think they’re probably just being nice, but I’m flattered nonetheless.
Nate gets up to turn off the TV and his iPad, and I wriggle across the floor until I can lean against the sofa. The movement makes my head spin. Or is it the room spinning? I think it’s both. It’s probably both.
“I like your friends.”
“Yeah, they’re not bad.”
“Sorry if I spoiled your night, or anything.”
“Because you won?”
“Oh, I’m definitely not sorry I won,” I assure him, cracking a smile.
It seems to take all my energy and focus to drag my cheek muscles up into a smile; the tiredness hits me like a train, right out of nowhere.
“Just, like, you know. Sorry if I took over your one night a month hanging out with your mates. I know I can be a lot. Especially when I drink. I get, you know. Excitable. Loud. Really chatty.”
Nate doesn’t disagree that I’m a lot, but he does say, “I don’t think you need a drink for that, Immy. But you didn’t take over. I had a good time, anyway. Did you?”
“Sure I did.”
Nate clears up, finishing his drink and taking our glasses out to the kitchen. He cleans up the lime wedges I’ve left on the chopping board and puts his iPad in the charger, uses the bathroom, then collects his pillow and blanket from the airing cupboard for another night on the sofa. All of this takes him a while because he stumbles around a bit, drunker than he intended to be.
By the time he comes back, my limbs are heavy, and I’m almost asleep. Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere, has ever been so comfortable as this spot on the hardwood floor with my head lolling back toward the sofa I’m propped up against.
“Come on,” Nate says. “You look ready for bed.”
It’s okay, I want to say, I’ll sleep here. He can take the bed tonight if he wants.
“I can’t feel my teeth,” I tell him instead, running my tongue over them to check they’re still there.
“Can you ever feel your teeth?” he asks, genuinely curious, moving his own mouth around like he’s testing it out.
This is an excellent question.
“Come on,” he says again, and bends down to hoist me to my feet.
We’re both unbalanced, but Nate less so than me. He hooks an arm around my waist to take me to the bedroom.
Here’s the thing: when I drink, I get . . . more. I’m more loud, more talkative, more excitable, more hilarious, more everything. And I’m already a pretty outgoing person. And when I hit my wall, I get sleepy. Often, I take catnaps on a night out—either at predrinks, or on a crappy sofa by a bathroom in a club, or on a bench—and then I’m ready to go again. I have hit that wall right now.
But even so, I’m capable of walking the few feet from the living room to the bedroom by myself.
Not that I tell Nate that, of course. He smells nice, and I like the feel of his arm around me and his body next to mine. And it’s nice to feel taken care of. Like when someone brushes your hair for you.
He’s already turned the bedcovers down (although, I notice with deep despair, he has not left a little chocolate on the pillow for me) and he sits me down on the mattress. I flop backward, crawling clumsily under the covers, and Nate helps draw them up over me.
I snuggle down, and I was wrong: screw the floor by the sofa, nowhere has ever been so comfortable as this. I peer through the dark at Nate.
“Goodnight.”
And he must be drunker than either of us realized, because he bends down to kiss my cheek. “Goodnight.”
I’m asleep before he even leaves the room.
apartment #22 – olivia
Chapter Twenty-three
Captain’s—er—Maid of Honor’s log, day . . . What day is it? Day seven. (God, is it only day seven? I swear it’s been, like, four months already.) Anyway. The centerpieces are finally finished. I even bunked off work a little early to help out with them. Lucy cooked dinner tonight—veggie burgers she found in the back of my freezer, from the time I was dating the vegan, and spicy sweet potato wedges. Also, I am going to lose my mind if this goes on much longer.
We’re all starting to succumb to the cabin fever a little, by now.