Drinking amongst friends.

We did feel awkward when Diana left for work and we were all alone in her house. It reminded me of that feeling in high school when you had to enter a classroom that wasn’t yours. Like… We weren’t supposed to be here.

We considered leaving, but for one, Diana invited us and we’d feel pretty bad leaving before she came back, and two, everyone had at least three or four drinks in them. Well, everyone except me. I was supposed to be practicing, so no drinking for me. Yet.

“How can she trust us like this and leave us alone in her house?” Mila asked, pouting with a mojito in her hand as she sat in the living room with the girls while I stayed behind the counter.

Mojito: lime, brown sugar, mint leaves, white rum, crushed ice and soda. Relatively easy to make, but I was sure there were some details I was missing. Still, Diana told me to focus on getting the basics down and learning the drinks before I started trying to add details or my own spin. Made sense to me.

“I mean, I watched something in the news the other day… Rather, like two weeks ago,” she continued. “A college girl invited friends over to her house whom she’d known for two years and they robbed her blind!”

“You watch the news?” Sarah asked her after taking a sip of her daiquiri.

Daiquiri: light rum, lime juice and simple syrup. Shaken with ice, then strained. Garnished with a lime twist. It broke when I tried to bend the lime, though.

“...My mom told me about it,” Mila admitted. “My point stands, though!”

“So what you’re saying is we should rob Diana blind,” Grace said, gesturing towards her with her glass of Tom Collins.

Tom Collins: gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, ice cubes and soda water. It’s built in the glass itself and stirred. Garnished with a lemon wheel.

“Of course not! Why would you think that?”

“I do agree that it feels weird to be trusted to this extent,” Alice said, lightly stirring the Tom Collins in her hand with a metal straw. “But I mean… We’re the ones coming to her house, to drink **** no less. It goes both ways. And with a certain someone linking us all together…”

“Right,” Sarah nodded. “She trusts him and he trusts us.”

“I won’t be made responsible for anything you do,” I told them. Then I let out a sigh and shook my head. “Oh, who am I kidding?”

“Oliver?” Noelle spoke, staring into what little light green liquid remained of the Grasshopper I convinced her to try. This was her second, actually.

Grasshopper: creme de menthe, creme de cacao, heavy cream. Shaken with ice until well-chilled. Garnished with grated nutmeg.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Would you still love me if I was a wyrm?” she asked out of nowhere.

“A wyrm?” I asked to confirm.

“A wyrm.”

“I would. Actually, I’d probably love you more. It’d be pretty cool.”

“What do you mean ‘cool’!?” Mila asked, raising her voice.

“Shit, that’s clever, haha!” Grace laughed.

Noelle started giggling, all too proud of her little joke.

“Wait, how is that clever? That’s the forbidden question,” Sarah said, frowning. “You’re only supposed to ask that to test your boyfriend.”

“No, no. She said wyrm, not worm,” Alice clarified, grinning.

“Explain,” Mila said.

“A worm is a worm. A wyrm is a dragon,” Grace said.

“Oh. Wait, where the hell did that come from, Noelle?” Mila asked her, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. I just came up with it,” the redhead said, giggling.

“Oh, she’s drunk already,” Sarah said. “You can see it in her cheeks, her eyes, and the way she’s giggling.”

“I’m not… Okay, maybe a little,” Noelle admitted, still giggling.

“You and Oliver are the biggest lightweights out of all of us,” Grace said. “You need to build some tolerance.”

“I like my liver the way it is, thank you,” I told her.

“I promise I’ll only drink when I’m with you all…” Noelle said, now pouting.

“Yeah, you need to be careful in university,” Alice said. “I’ve heard some stuff about freshmen parties…”

“And that’s why she needs to build some tolerance,” Sarah said, agreeing with Grace.

“I said I won’t drink unless I’m with you all. Besides, I don’t even like parties. I’m not going, even in university.”

Mila sighed. “Not going to at least one or two will label you as a wet-blanket, though…”

“But I kind of am,” Noelle said. “And not like I care if they think of me that way. I only care what you guys think. Am… Am I a wet-blanket to you?”

“Are you kidding? That’s Alice. She’s the one who gets pissy when we eat inside the car,” Grace said.

“I don’t…! I mean…! You’re not the ones who’re gonna clean the seats!” Alice grumbled.

“I don’t like it, but she has a point,” Sarah admitted.

We all shared a laugh at that.

“But seriously, Noelle. We don’t think you’re a wet-blanket,” Mila told the redhead. “We love you just the way you are.”

“You’re way too quirky to be a wet-blanket,” Sarah told her. “I mean, a V-Tuber? Seriously? I didn’t even know what that was before I met you!”

“And you girls don’t even watch her streams,” I told them. “She can say some wild stuff.”

“W-What do you mean? What did I say!?” Noelle asked me, her face falling and her face reddening even more.

“What was it? Something about how you didn’t want to talk about how much your boyfriend satisfies you?” I teased.

Noelle’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t say that!”

“I think I remember you saying something like that.”

“I bet you a blowjob I didn’t! But if I’m right, you go down on me!”

Actually, now I wasn’t so sure that was exactly what she said, but… Eh. “Alright, sure.”

“Alright! Mila, bring up the clip!” Noelle ordered.

“Um… What am I looking for?” Mila asked, bringing out her phone.

“I think Isabelle clipped it,” I said, looking at my phone. too.

“WHAT!? SHE WATCHED IT!?”

“What’s wrong? I thought you were confident you didn’t say anything of the sort,” Sarah teased, smirking devilishly.

“Um…”

Turns out that what Noelle actually said during her debut stream was ‘If you get yourself someone who makes you believe heaven on earth exists, keep them.’

We all argued for a while if we should take that to mean sex or not, and after much debate we decided it could go either way, so Noelle and I compromised to a sixty nine… when she was a little more sober.

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