Free Infandous by Elana K. Arnold Page B

pull all the way away from me and a moment more before she finds her voice.
    “Didja bring the beer?” she jokes.
    “Uh-huh. Keg’s in the back of my Jeep.”
    “’S okay,” she says. She takes another step back and smooths her hair. “Drinking beer is kind of gross.”
    I refrain from mentioning that she’s clearly had a few already and say instead, “Lots of things people do are gross.”
    “But drinking …” She run-skips into the kitchen and holds up a blue glass bottle that I hadn’t noticed before, all of her Marissa-confidence back, “ … vodka? Now that’s some classy shit.” She twists off the top of the bottle and pours more than I would into a couple of glass tumblers.
    Giving one to me, she holds hers up for a toast. “To us,” she says.
    I clink my glass against hers. “To us.”
    ***
    Normally I’m not a big drinker. I don’t like the spins, I don’t like to throw up, and I don’t like to end up places without knowing how I got there. But sometimes, even if you’re totally sober, even if you think you’ve completely got a situation under control, you can still end up in places you haven’t imagined. That’s how things work.
    So with Marissa and the vodka I kind of figure, control is an illusion. And hell, my mom was more worried about my fortune cookie than my homework, so I decide, Fuck it.
    I drink the vodka, and I pour us each another.
    Around us the gathering begins to resemble something that more closely fits the definition of “party.” People start to show up and the music gets turned up and then there are a few drinking games and even dancing.
    Maybe inspired by Sal’s lesbo porn comment, Darrin throws this gross DVD into the Xbox, and the moans and groans augment the party’s sound track. I do my best to ignore the hard jiggling boobs and condom-sheathed cock and bad lighting. I have gotten good at ignoring things.
    In my pocket I feel the vibration of my phone three times. Three voice calls, none of which I answer. I don’t even pull the phone out of my pocket to see who is trying to get ahold of me. Marissa is here, playing Quarters with Sal and Darrin and Lolly, who for a change isn’t working any of her three jobs tonight, so she isn’t calling me.
    In case you don’t know, Quarters basically goes like this: everyone sits around a table with a cup in the middle. The cup is half full of beer, if you’ve got it, or if it’s a shot glass, then something harder. Vodka works fine, as Marissa and the others were admirably demonstrating. Then you take a quarter and try to bounce it off the table and into the cup. If you make it in, you get to choose who has to drink and then shoot again. If you miss, the quarter goes to the next person. If you sink three shots in a row, you get to make up a new rule to add to the game. Anything you want. Like, drink and then take off a piece of clothing. Or drink and then kiss the person to your left. Or anyone who says the words drink , drank , or drunk has to drink. Whatever you want. You lose when you quit or pass out. Last man standing wins.
    Not complicated and generally not really my thing, but after I’ve polished off the second vodka, it’s starting to look like fun. I shove my way in between Marissa and Darrin.
    It’s Darrin’s turn to shoot, and he misses. Then it’s my turn. I miss too, but Marissa’s killer at this game, so she makes it. She points to me the first time, then Lolly when she makes it again, and drinks the damn thing herself on the third one, just to impress the rest of us, I think, and it works.
    “New rule!” she declares after slamming the cup onto the table. “If you miss, you have to drink.”
    So pretty quickly most of us go from buzzed to blitzed, because no one except Darrin is as good at Quarters as Marissa.
    No one is paying attention to me now, not like before with Marissa when the room’s eyes focused in my direction, and that’s okay. It’s more what I’m used to, and I get to be the