chapter ten
“Airplane. Airplane people. Airplane holding a sponge.”
“Airplane with hands, hands? Okay, hands. Airplane hands. Sponge hands.”
“Sponge hands! Airplane sponge. Bird sponge. Bird! Okay, bird. Hand bird.”
“SpongeBob HandBird. Stop pointing at the airplane, we know it’s not an airplane!”
“Time’s up.”
“Dammit!”
Sophia sat down in a huff, throwing her Sharpie across the room. Neil stuck his hand straight up in the air and caught it as she huffed, “I can’t believe you guys couldn’t get that! It was so obvious that it was—”
“Ah-ah-ah, don’t say another word. We get a chance to steal,” Simon said from his place on the couch.
It was girls against guys, and the guys were currently kicking our ass. They were up forty points. Stupid boys.
“Go ahead, you’ll never get it. Don’t worry, they’ll never get it,” Sophia assured us, sipping her cocktail and winking at Zach over the rim.
“Now just give us a minute. We have thirty seconds to examine the picture and see if we can guess what you were trying to draw,” Ryan said, standing up and going over to the board where Sophia had been drawing.
“We know how the game is played!” Mimi yelled from her perch on the back of the couch. She was Drunky Mimi tonight; her cocktail station had served her well. And overserved her—she was Loud Drunky Mimi. “You don’t have to say that each time you try to steal!”
As Simon and Ryan puzzled over the drawing while Mimi counted down from thirty, Zach flirted with Sophia. And by flirting, I mean licked the rim of his glass. All the way around. He looked like a giraffe.
Shuddering, I looked at Sophia, who wasn’t even watching. She was watching Neil, who was watching Missy, who was adjusting her bra. I knew this because it was hanging half out of her shirt.
Ryan and Simon continued to argue over the picture while Zach giraffed, and I just held my head. Disaster.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!” Mimi shouted, staring at her watch.
“It’s not New Year’s—just give us a few more seconds, we can get this!” Ryan shouted back, looking back and forth from the picture to Simon.
“Shit, I don’t know, is it, is it—shit!” Simon yelled, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Six! Five! Four! Three!” Mimi continued. Missy crossed her legs. Neil stared at her legs. Zach burped, but continued licking. Sophia steamed.
“Two!”
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” Neil stated, his gaze on Sophia.
“One! Ha, you didn’t— Wait, what?” Mimi asked, looking at Neil, then Sophia. Simon and Ryan looked hopeful.
Silence.
“That’s right.” Sophia scowled, wincing when Simon and Ryan erupted into cheers.
“No way, no way! No fair, I had almost said one! I had almost said one!” Mimi cried, jumping across the room and landing on Ryan’s back, pummeling him with her fists. Zach burped again. Missy took her hair out of her ponytail, and everyone with a penis stopped to watch.
“That’s it,” Sophia snapped, and stormed into the kitchen.
“I’m calling time-out!” I yelled as I left the room to follow her.
“Time-out from what?” Zach asked, and I just shook my head.
Sophia was angrily taking things out of the fridge, then putting them back again. “I can’t believe he got that!”
“I can’t believe we didn’t. How embarrassing!” I answered, holding the fridge door open for her as a rotisserie chicken made its way out.
“No kidding! I mean, come on, how are we losing to these guys?” she asked, rifling through the condiment door and coming up with a bottle of Sriracha.
“We’re losing because we’re not concentrating. We need to get our heads in the game.” I watched as she put away a jar of pickles and grabbed a jug of milk.
“Pfft, maybe you’re not concentrating because you’re drooling over my b’ball player.” She smirked, removing a plastic container of leftover peas.
“I’m sure that’s it,” I remarked, trying to keep the incredulous out of my voice. Without question, Tall Zach was great looking, but what a drip.
“What am I looking for?” she asked, holding a container of sour cream in one hand and a cucumber in the other.
“You got me,” I answered, spying Neil coming around the corner. “But thanks for cleaning out the fridge.”
As Sophia stuck her head back in, Neil came into the kitchen.
“Funny how I knew exactly what you were trying to draw, huh, Soph?” he started, and she froze. I knew she froze because the sour cream dropped to the floor. I sidestepped away as she shut the door, pointing her cucumber at him.
“Don’t give me you knew exactly what I was trying to draw. You must have seen the card.”
“How could I have seen the card? You were holding it the entire time.”
“Well, maybe you turned away from Titty McBoobs over there to look.”
“Oh please, you think that—”
I walked away just as Simon came around the corner, and I quickly turned him back from where he came.
“I wouldn’t go in there right now. Sophia’s got a cucumber and she knows how to use it.”
He snorted.
“Wait, that came out wrong. They’re in there talking,” I said, tugging him along.
We both winced as their voices rose.
“Well, they’re talking loudly—but they’re talking.” I sighed.
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In the end, Game Night totally sucked. Mimi almost passed out, still grumbling about being cheated out of SpongeBob HandBird. Ryan spent the rest of the night memorizing the Pictionary rulebook for next time, while Simon and I cleaned sour cream off the kitchen floor and picked cucumber seeds out from between the tiles.
“She squeezed the seeds right out, with her hand! It wasn’t even peeled!” he kept saying, amazed and more than a little scared.
And Frick and Frack? Made out with Tall and Tits. Actually made out with their dates in front of each other. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wanted to look away, I felt like I should look away, but I couldn’t. Simon and I stood there, covered in seeds, watching the make-out contest. Sophia was pushed up against the wall, so then Tits got pushed up against a wall. Neil got an impromptu lap dance; so did Tall.
“It’s like we’re at some kind of swingers’ party,” Simon whispered when a shoe flew by, kicked off by a Playboy bunny.
“Or WrestleMania,” I whispered back when another shoe flew the other way. Don’t think Sophia didn’t notice Shoeless Tits.
When the groaning finally drowned out Mimi’s muttering, it was time to stick a fork in the entire evening. And then never speak of that fork again.
Glaring at each other, Neil and Sophia walked out together, hot dates in tow. Ryan carried Mimi out to the hillevator, telling us he’d come back the next day to pick up their things. “I’ve got to get her home before she pukes,” he said, shaking his head. “No more drink stations.”
As they rode up the hill, I could hear snippets floating back from Neil and Sophia, arguing all the way to the cars.
We headed back inside, looking at the drawing board. Which was now decorated with phallic imagery, courtesy of Tall Zach.
Simon began, “I love our friends, but—”
“How the hell are they our friends?” I finished, and he nodded.
Laughing ruefully, he flipped back to the picture that ended the game. “A bird in the hand. How did we not get this?”
“Because she drew an airplane with sponges—that’s why.” I sighed. “Wanna go to bed?”
“Hell yes,” he answered. As we headed to the bedroom, he helped me unzip my dress. “She still loves him, doesn’t she?”
“Of course she does,” I answered. I let my dress fall to the floor, and I climbed into bed in my bra and panties. I watched through tired eyes as Simon undressed.
“Did you set the alarm?” I asked.
“It’s Sunday. Why do we need to set the alarm?” he asked, turning back his covers.
“I have to work for a few hours in the morning. Monica’s meeting me at the coffee shop down the street.”
“Babe.” He shook his head before turning out the light. After he set the alarm. “You’re working too hard.”
“Lots to do. If I work tomorrow, I’ll have some time this week during the evening. It’ll be fine. You sleep in, and by the time you’re up, I’ll be almost home. We can go for a drive.”
“It’s not that. I just think you’re working too much; you need to slow down a bit,” he grumbled, pulling me across the bed and into his side.
“Things will slow down after the holidays, you’ll see. Besides, I’m in charge right now—kind of don’t have a choice,” I reminded him.
“I know, I just— I know,” he said, kissing the top of my head.
I kissed his chest. “It’ll ease up, I swear in the name of SpongeBob HandBird.”
A moment later, the bed was shaking from laughter. And a few minutes later, the bed was shaking for a different reason.
Eh, sleep is overrated. Being turned over by a Wallbanger? Priceless.
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