“She’s a handful,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I can see that.”
I guess my no-Jaeger clause won’t kick in until I’m thirty-one. We all do a shot of the vile liquid before heading to the VW bus in the bar.
To my surprise, only Steph’s friend Nicola is there and Steph’s boyfriend, Aaron, is nowhere to be seen.
I hang back for a second and tug at her sleeve. “Where’s Aaron?”
Her delicate features look strained for a second, then she shrugs it off. “He’s in LA for the weekend. Modeling stuff, you know.”
“Oh yeah, I totally know,” I say mockingly. “All those days I spent on the circuit, showing off my nuts to strangers.”
She squints at me, not amused. “He’s a model. He’s not a porn star.”
“Sure, sure,” I say. I love bugging her about Aaron, it’s one of my new favorite hobbies. The guy is all right, I guess, but he’s not the smartest pig in the pen. In fact, he’s three years younger than Steph and has a lot of growing up to do. Not that I’m one to talk – I’m as immature as they come – but honestly he’s just not good enough for her. I’m not sure anyone is.
But that’s the overprotective friend in me talking. She seems happy.
While she punches me quickly in the arm, I nod at Nicola. “What’s she doing here?”
Steph lowers her voice, turning her back to her friend who is saying hello to Nadine as everyone joins her on the seats. “She needed a night out.”
Nicola is not only fairly prim and proper but she’s a single mom to a two-year old son. In the past, before she got knocked up and left hanging by her pussy-chasing ex, I used to see her quite a lot, even if we didn’t frequent the same kind of scene.
I catch a whiff of her flowery, fresh perfume as Steph leans in and whispers, “Also, she’s in love with her gynecologist. So I’m doing a pre-emptive strike before something happens in that department, trying to show her there are other men out there. Ones that aren’t paid to look at your vagina.”
I glance over at Nicola in her black silky looking dress and pulled back hair. She looks completely out of place in the shagging wagon but I’m grateful it’s she that’s here and not Aaron.
“Should I act like myself and dash her hopes that good men do exist?” I ask her, leaning in closer, hoping to catch her sweet fucking scent again.
Steph rolls her eyes. “Just be nice, cowboy.”
I can’t help but smile. Cowboy – she hasn’t called me that in months. It makes me feel warm, and maybe a bit hard. I want to bask in this feeling but I realize I can’t.
I never can.
I sit down at the table beside Nadine, ignoring the blaze in her dark eyes. She wants me to know she’s pissed off for whatever reason, probably talking to Steph. Maybe she caught me trying to smell her. It wouldn’t be the first time.
James hands me a beer from out of nowhere and I gulp it down. The draft here is pouring great tonight out of the keg and my thirties are starting to sink in a bit.
It’s such a fucking relief just to be out with my friends, especially when we don’t seem to do this as much anymore. With James with Penny and Steph with Aaron, and of course me with Nadine, I’m starting to worry if this is the start of things to come. As we get older, get more involved with our significant others, with our lives, and trying to make the most of those quickly ticking years, I think the ties that bind us will become more strained.
I don’t want to be forty, married to Nadine with a couple of brats, and have nobody around me, just a couple of people I used to love, used to know.
I don’t want to lose them. But as I look around the table, I’m wondering if that’s just the way things go in life. Age brought us together, age will tear us apart.
Okay, now I’m just being drunk and overdramatic. I’m about to suggest we do another shot – no fucking Jaeger this time, sorry Penny – but Nadine suddenly turns to me and moans, “Linden, I have a headache.”
She does suffer from migraines from time to time, so I can’t be sure that she’s just making it up so I can take her home.
“All right,” I whisper back. I suppose she’s saving me from a massive hangover tomorrow anyway. I look at everyone else, my eyes resting on Steph’s only briefly. “Sorry you wankers, we have to get going.”
James lets out a cry of disgust. “What the hell man? You just got here.”
“Over an hour ago,” I point out. He’s too drunk to notice the passage of time anyway.
“Was I too much?” Penny asks James, trying to be quiet but failing.