“Fuck yeah!” they both responded at once.
Aiden went inside and grabbed beer from the fridge. We all sat around the patio table, and Aiden popped open the bottles. Lo and Mo went over some details from the party Aiden had missed, focusing on the obviously insane amount of alcohol they had consumed.
“Vodka roulette, Redeye called it,” Mo said. “He’s out of his mind.”
“He had a dozen flavors of vodka,” Lo said, “some good, some not so good. Then there’s one shot that’s just water.”
“That’s the worst one to get,” Mo piped in.
“No it isn’t,” Lo corrected. “Nothing is worse than Bakon vodka.”
“Bacon?” I repeated.
“Bakon with a ‘k’ in it,” Lo said. “That shit is nasty.”
“Crack an egg in it,” Mo said, “and it’s the perfect hangover breakfast!”
“Dude, you are fucked up,” Lo responded seriously. “Nasty, nasty shit.”
“So everyone gets a different flavor,” Mo continued, “and you don’t know what it is until you drink it.”
“I got blueberry pancake,” Lo informed us. “It’s not bad, really.”
“That sounds awful,” I remarked.
“You can’t say no to a shot from Redeye,” Aiden said as he leaned toward me. “He’ll badger you until you take it. It’s easier to just give in.”
Mo suddenly stood up and pretended to hold a shot glass out to me.
“You need a shot!” he yelled. “Take this shot! Take this shot right now! Are you disrespecting my hospitality here?”
The three of them laughed.
“That’s about right,” Aiden said with a nod.
“His name is Redeye?” I asked.
“Not really,” Aiden said, “but it’s what everyone calls him.”
“Why?”
“I have no clue.” Aiden grinned and tipped back his beer. “He’s a lot of fun, though.”
“Is he a bartender or something?”
“Nah, he’s in sales, like me.”
I didn’t press the subject.
Lo and Mo went over more antics from the party, mostly concerning who ended up puking by the end of the night and who hooked up with whom afterwards. None of the names meant anything to me, so I just listened and watched the waves crashing along the beach.
“You want to take a little walk in the sand?” Aiden asked.
“That would be nice,” I replied with a smile. The idea of being alone with him for a little while sounded good. He had introduced me as his guest, which was as accurate as anything but still hadn’t so much as touched me all evening.
“Good,” Aiden said with a smile. “Lo can take you. I need to talk business with Mo for a minute.”
“Oh…okay.” That was not what I was expecting—not at all. I went with it anyway.