Answering questions

You slide into the seat beside Janelle, and her knee finds yours immediately—warm through the fabric of your joggers, steady as a heartbeat. The patio is filling up now, clusters of people pulling chairs around wooden tables, the string lights throwing soft amber pools across weathered planks.

"There she is," Priya announces, sliding a tall glass toward you. The smoked cherry mocktail is garnished with an actual cherry and smells like summer campfires and something sweet. "Drink up. You're carrying us through science."

"About that," you say, taking a sip. The mocktail is tart and smoky with a fizz that tingles against your tongue. "I'm a psychology major. Not exactly rocket science."

"Wait—what?" Wren looks up from her notebook, genuinely betrayed. "I specifically recruited you for the science round."

"I can tell you about cognitive dissonance and the Stanford Prison Experiment. I cannot tell you the boiling point of argon."

Janelle laughs beside you—a low, warm sound that vibrates through the point where your shoulders touch. "This is amazing. Our secret weapon is a fraud."

"I'm not a fraud. I just have a very specific skill set."

Priya drums her fingers on the table. "Fine. What ARE you good at? Beyond making my best friend's closet look like a magazine spread."

"Movies," you say without hesitation. "Specifically 80s and 90s movies. I watched an obscene amount of them growing up."

"Name the three Ghostbusters." Priya crosses her arms.

"Venkman, Stantz, Spengler. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis. The fourth Ghostbuster was Winston Zeddmore, played by Ernie Hudson, and he deserved better billing."

Priya uncrosses her arms. "Okay. We might survive."

The nachos arrive—two massive plates piled with tortilla chips buried under a volcanic landscape of melted cheese, jalapeños, black beans, corn, sour cream, and guacamole. The smell alone makes your stomach clench with hunger. You've been running on banana bread and adrenaline since noon.

A guy in his thirties with a receding hairline and a wireless microphone steps onto a small platform near the patio railing. "Alright folks, trivia starts in five! Teams, make sure your names are on the board. First round is Geography, second is Pop Culture, third is Science, fourth is Random Weird Stuff. Five questions per round, ten points each. Highest score wins a fifty-dollar gift card."

"Otis is so earnest," Priya murmurs, stealing a chip loaded with cheese. "It's like watching a golden retriever host a game show."

Janelle leans toward you to reach the far plate of nachos, and her arm brushes across your back. She doesn't apologize for it. Instead she settles back with her handful of chips and says, quietly enough that only you can hear: "I'm glad you came tonight."

Me too.

Round one—Geography—is a bloodbath. Between the four of you, you manage two correct answers out of five. Wren knows the capital of Uzbekistan. Priya nails a question about the Nile's tributaries. You and Janelle stare blankly at a question about the Andes mountain range.

"We're dead," Wren whispers.

"We haven't even gotten to my round yet," Priya says through a mouthful of nacho.

Round two—Pop Culture—is where you ignite. The questions skew older than the others expected, and you're suddenly the person everyone's leaning toward.

"What 1986 film featured the line 'Nobody puts Baby in a corner'?" Otis reads.

"Dirty Dancing," you say before he's finished the sentence.

"Which 1994 film won Best Picture and featured a character named Jenny?"

"Forrest Gump. But Pulp Fiction should have won and I will die on that hill."

Janelle is staring at you with something between amusement and genuine admiration. "Who ARE you?"

"Someone who had a lot of free time and a VHS player."

You nail four out of five in Pop Culture. Priya gets the fifth—a question about a reality TV show you've never heard of—and the table erupts in a small cheer.

Round three—Science—goes exactly as poorly as predicted. You contribute nothing. Wren gets one about photosynthesis. Priya guesses correctly on a chemistry question through sheer luck. Janelle knows something about tectonic plates that surprises everyone, including herself.

"How do you know that?" Priya demands.

"I paid attention in Earth Science one time. One time."

The final round—Random Weird Stuff—becomes a free-for-all. You know the name of the dog from The Wizard of Oz (Toto, obviously). Wren knows which country consumes the most chocolate per capita. Priya somehow knows the number of dimples on a standard golf ball.

"How—why—what?" you stare at her.

"My brother's a golfer. You absorb things."

When Otis tallies the scores, The Organizers land solidly in the middle of the pack. Not winners, not last. The $50 gift card goes to a table of middle-aged men who cheer like they've won the Super Bowl.

"We got eleven out of twenty," Wren calculates. "That's not terrible."

"It's slightly below average," Priya says. "Which is my natural state."

Janelle shifts beside you, her braids brushing your shoulder as she reaches for the last chip. Her fingers graze yours on the plate. She doesn't pull away.

"Riley," she says, voice low under the patio noise. "You're really something, you know that?"

Priya, across the table, catches the look Janelle gives you and raises her eyebrows so high they nearly disappear into her hairline. She says nothing. But her smirk says everything.