Devin Narasaki
Now, I'm not the type to drink alone, but Geoff, Brody and Noah were running so late, I felt as if I had no other option. Please, don't mistake me for an alcoholic. I'm not. But the end of summer vacation called for a cold one with the boys.
So I lounged in my garage. My garage was one of my favorite hangout spots. It was far away from the rest of my house, so I could yell and curse as much as I wanted to. The Christmas lights hung up on the ceiling gave the garage a festive mood, especially now that the sun had gone down.
I heard the familiar sound of Geoff's Jeep creep up my caul de sac. He pulled up in my driveway and whooped "Hey, dude. How's it hanging?" asked Geoff, pulling me into a bro hug. I accepted the hug and reached into the cooler to grab him a beer.
Geoff was the epitome of gregarious party dude. He was by no means the king on campus, but he was very well-known and very well liked. He also had a tendency to not wear a shirt, which made him very popular with the ladies.
He always wore a straw hat on his head. I chuckled when I remembered the first time Principal Hinds tried to get Geoff to take his hat off. It was like a glitch in the Matrix or something. Everyone just started at Hinds incredulously until he backed down. Nobody messes with Geoff's hat.
Thankfully, Hinds is actually a pretty chill dude. Bend, Oregon is like one of those boring small towns where nothing ever happens. I wouldn't necessarily call it a sleepy town. But things dragged their feet every once in awhile.
"It's going good, dude." I said. In all honesty, it wasn't going well. It wasn't going bad either, really. It was just going.
I rubbed my forehead. How much had I drank already?
"Jacques has something he's pretty stoked about." Geoff informed me. "Apparently something happened in France."
Jacques was the sort of odd man out in our little merry band of misfits. Brody and Geoff were surfers through and through. I was a decent enough tennis player, but I still got slated for the JV team my junior year, so I guess that says something. Jacques was a ballerina. Or was it a ballerino because he's male? I mean, all the power to him. I took hip hop lessons in fourth grade, dancing is no joke.
He arrived in our little town of Bend, Oregon halfway through freshman year from Alberta, Canada. His Canadian accent had made very little effort to disappear throughout his eighteen months of American residency.
"Ah, speak of the devil and he shall appear, yes?" said Jacques, strutting in from across the street. I squinted and saw his rusty, old, lime green Pacer across the road.
Geoff heartily shook Jacques' hand. "Good to see you, dude."
"I missed you as well" Jacques responded, letting go off Geoff's hand and turning towards me.
Jacques pompadour haircut was gone, now replaced with the more modernized crew cut. I guess that Jacques could do whatever he wanted with his hair, but I didn't like sudden change.
"What did you do in France, dude?" asked Geoff, bouncing on the soles of his feet "I'm dying to know."
Jacques made a tsking sound and waggled his pointer finger "We must wait for the other four to arrive."
Geoff sighed and pulled out his phone "Oh, they're pulling up right now. Sweet."
Noah fading blue minivan pulled up right behind Jacques' God awful car, and the rest of the gang hopped out.
Brody was Geoff's blood brother. I can't think of a single major life event that those two have had that the other one wasn't present for. Except for Brody's first time with MacArthur. That would've been weird.
Y'know that one friend in the group that will do the stupidest shit in the world just because you ask him to. Yeah, that's the perfect definition of Brody. One time, at the end of sophomore year, Jacques dared Brody to memorize the dictionary. He's still working on that. He's all the way to 'styrofoam', according to Geoff.
Owen slid out of the rear driver's side and hit the ground hard. Owen was a habitual optimist and almost a little naive. After hearing stories about what he and Izzy get up to in the bedroom, I had to reevaluate. The big guy just doesn't really care what other people think. Something I respect. I wish I felt the same way. With my boys, I felt that way, but Owen feels that way regardless of who's in the room and who's listening.
Jay cautiously got out of the shotgun seat, his eyes quickly and wildly looking for danger. Jay was one of the oddballs of the group. During the first few days of school, Jay was being picked on by Eva. After latching on to us, in a freakishly bizarre turn of events, Eva antagonising Jay went from bullying slowly to mutual belligerent sexual tension. I didn't understand it. Geoff and Brody don't understand it. I don't think any sane, rational person understands it. Speaking of which, I should probably ask Izzy about it. Maybe she can figure it out.
Noah is the group's resident cynic/anchor to reality. He got a little grating at times, I'm not gonna lie. But he balances everyone out. I guess the best way to describe Noah's relationship to the group is sort of like Stanley from The Office. You might not like what he has to say, but he's gonna say and he's probably going to be right.
"Hey, Heineken!" exclaimed Brody "My favorite!"
I grabbed two beers out of my cooler and tossed them to Owen and Brody.
"Thanks, dude. I'll get you some Jack-In-The-Box later." promised Owen, cracking open a cold one.
I walked over to the cabinet on the far end of the room and opened it, revealing Jay's favorite beverage.
"And for the little guy, a lukewarm glass of water." I announced, setting it down on the counter.
What can I say? I like Jay but I have to admit, his consumption habits were a little weird.
I started for the back of the garage and started to grab some of those cheap, white, foldable plastic chairs and set them in a circle. It was a tradition whenever one of us invoked the Storytime Clause that we all sit in a circle and listen to whatever story one of us had. The last time the Storytime Clause was invoked was when Geoff realized he caught feelings for one of the girls at the surfing camp he was running.
Geoff took a swig of his beer and hiccuped. "Alright, spill the beans, dude."
"So, when I was in Canada, I had a one night stand. My first one-" Jacques started. He was interrupted when the garage erupted in thunderous applause. Owen clapped Jacques hard on the back "Good for you, dude!"
Jacques lowered his arms to tell us all to simmer down, but I could tell from the smile on his face that he secretly enjoyed the reaction he got. "So we were at a club. I met this girl. We danced our asses off."
"Whoop-dee-doo." snarked Noah.
"You know, if you finally grew some balls and made a move on Emma, maybe you wouldn't have such an adverse reaction." suggested Jay meekly. I couldn't contain my laughter and neither could anyone else.
"You're walking home." the pessimist deadpanned.
"No, he is riding home with me." corrected Jacques "Such an insult deserved to be rewarded."
I tried to calm everyone down before things got out of hand "All jokes aside, you need to ask Emma to homecoming this year."
"What, and get shot down in front of the entire school?" asked Noah harshly "I don't think so."
It was little glimpses into Noah's brain like this that seriously bummed me out. He nitpicked our lives for the sake of jokes, but he very clearly also nitpicked his own life and overthought everything. It was a sucky way to live. Being around the spontaneity of Brody and Geoff and alleviated some of this, but it still happened.
"Anyways," Jacques continued "We got back to the hotel room. Everyone was relaxing. Then she walked into the bedroom. But she gave like that look.." He faltered, trying to find the right words.
"Fuck-me eyes?" asked Geoff.
"Yes, that's what they are." confirmed Jacques. Adorably, Jay flinched at the sound of the f-word. Brody started rubbing his back to relax him. "So I followed her in the bedroom, and in my inexperience, I went down on her after six hours of dancing in a club."
"Alright!" whooped Owen "High-five!" Owen excitedly held his arm out for a high-five. Jacques hesitantly obliged.
Noah hummed to himself skeptically "That's gonna be a little hot and wet". I also had a pretty good idea of where this story was going. Shelly always liked making out with me after she won her tennis matches. Great kissing but she never put on deodorant after a game. It was a little rank. I could only imagine what poor Jacques and his poor French paramour went through.
"I have also never gone down on anyone before." added Jacques "This was my first experience."
Owen burst out laughing "Oh, no!"
"Wow!" I exclaimed
"And then I caught a whiff of the puss…It was so pungent. I was so sick. I almost threw up."
By this time, most of the guys, myself included could not stop chuckling. Even little Jay was entertained. The only exception was Noah, who was still licking his wounds from Jay calling him out.
"I tried to cheat, and started licking my thumb." Jacques pantomimed the action and wiped it on Brody's shoulder "And she was like 'If you do not want to do it, do not do it.' It was all downhill and I went back to my room after that."
"What?" asked Owen "Why?!"
"I gotta know this." said Geoff "What could possibly drive the great Jacques Borreau away from sex?"
"You do not know how bad her dirty talk was." Jacques shuddered "The worst I've ever heard."
"What did she say?" I asked. I couldn't wait to hear this one.
"If my boyfriend finds us, he is going to kill us." said Jacques, evidently still shocked she said that "Can you imagine my embarrassment?"
The group, Noah included, howled with laughter.
A/N: This is just a dumb one shot I thought up of while hiking. I could easily make this into a multichapter thing. Let me know if you'd be interested.