6. Beer
"What's up?" Kat asked, dropping down onto the picnic table bench beside him.
Josh scowled vaguely at the empty beer bottle in his hands. "I'm twenty-one."
"Yup. Legal in all fifty states."
"It's a company picnic on a hot summer day."
"Yup again."
"There's free beer."
She took a swig of her own beer and said cheerfully, "God bless America and N-Tek."
"And everyone needs to be a little drunk to play all the games this afternoon."
"I'm not getting into a potato sack otherwise," she agreed, and belched with with remarkable ladylikeness. "So what's the problem?"
He looked around and made sure there was no one within earshot before saying, "The nanoprobes. They absorb alcohol. I could chug an entire keg of vodka and never feel it."
Not entirely true - his mouth had tingled a little, but then the nanoprobes sucked it all up. He'd been hoping maybe it had changed since the last time he'd tried... but no.
Kat took another drink of beer. "They make kegs of vodka?"
"You know what I mean," Josh said, irritated.
"Potato sack races - sober," she said. "Pretty scary stuff, McGrath. I see why you're bummed."
He made a perfect three-point throw of his beer bottle into the nearest trash can. He wasn't irritated with her, but with life. At nineteen he'd never been drunk, never had a hangover - just a clean-living kid following the rules. And now that he could drink, he couldn't. It was a little thing - a very very little thing, hardly worth complaining about. Who wanted a hangover, anyway?
He still felt cheated.
So he wasn't irritated with Kat. In fact, he decided abruptly, she was the silver lining in this situation. "Yeah. If only I had a reason to leave early."
"Mm," she said, swigging. "You mean, with someone?"
"Well... not with just anyone."
She gave him a suspicious, amused look.
"I am legal in all fifty states," he reminded her.
"Got a point there," she said, putting down her bottle. "Okay. I'm in. Let's go see if I can give you a hangover."