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One thing, he argued with himself. One tiny thing. Because Jem could go on for hours about his stupid beard.
No, he told himself. Not tonight. Not ever. Never again.
His beer came, and he lifted the glass and was about to take a sip when he caught a glimpse of Emery’s face. The pulsing lights and shadows made it hard to tell if it was only North’s imagination, but he would have sworn Emery was smiling.
And then Auggie giggled, of course.
“What the fuck?” North demanded.
Theo put a hand over his mouth. Jem was cracking up.
“No,” North said. “No. No. What the actual fuck?”
“Would you guys be nice to him, please?” John-Henry said. “He’s trying so hard, and all you want to do is bait him.”
“In their defense,” Emery said, “he does make it easy.”
North stared. His jaw slackened for a moment. And then he said, “Y’all are a box of dicks.”
That broke them all up. Even Tean was taking a suspiciously long time to wipe his mouth with a napkin.
“Fuck you,” North said, “and you, and you—fuck all y’all, and you can fuck yourselves with a big old multipack of dildos.”
“Don’t be mad,” Auggie said through a grin. “Jem texted us about the green lights, and it was just too funny.”
“You were in on it too?” North demanded of Tean.
Tean managed a not-quite-convincing, “Um, yes?”
“You make it too easy,” Jem said.
“I was trying to be nice, you collective fuckstain!” North did hear, in the wake of that comment, the mixed message. He pointed at Theo. “And you, Paw-paw! You’re supposed to be a fucking adult. Senior citizen card revoked. AARP membership canceled. Turn in the keys to your golf cart.”
It was, as far as North knew, the first time he’d seen Theo laugh hard—not a chuckle, not quiet amusement, but the laughter welling up and spilling over. Auggie leaned into him, the two of them practically crying.
John-Henry put a hand on North’s shoulder, squeezed once, and leaned in to whisper, “One thing you should know about your friends? They live for this stuff.” Then, moving back, he called out, “I’m the designated driver tonight, so everybody else needs to get a drink and start relaxing.”
They got drinks—North, Jem, Theo, and Auggie with beers, Emery insisting on a Guinness, Tean with a cider that Jem picked for him, and Shaw and John-Henry with Cokes. They moved to one of the booths, and food started arriving—it was only bar food, wings and toasted ravioli, but North was surprised he was hungry, and surprised again by how much fun it was to sit around, beer in hand, shooting the shit. Plus, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t nice to be able to yell at these dillholes again.
He wasn’t sure how it happened. He threw a French fry at Auggie to make a point—he couldn’t remember what, exactly—and Auggie the wundertwink snatched it out of the air without missing a beat. A cheer went up around the table.
“Luck,” North said. He threw the next fry like a javelin, and Auggie caught that one too. More cheers went up, and Auggie pretended to bow.
“How do you think I get him to eat his vegetables?” Theo asked.
Everyone burst out laughing, and North could hear his own, scandalized, “Gramps!” ring out as Auggie blushed and shouldered into Theo and then started laughing too.
“Oh my God,” Jem said, “we should play darts!”
“Nice try,” North said. “But I like my money.”
Everyone else declined until, of all people, Emery said yes. And then it was something they couldn’t walk away from. They had to wait while the bartender—Chase, North heard Emery call him—rummaged around until he found the dartboard (clearly not a regular feature at the Pretty Pretty). But he hung it for them near the bar, and he had a full set of darts, and Emery and Jem started their game.
It went pretty much how North had expected. Jem yammered and chattered and pranced around—acted like Jem, in other words—while he slaughtered Emery in the game. Emery grew flustered, to the point that once, when he went for his drink after a bad throw, he crashed into Jem, and Jem had a shocked look on his face as they separated. But after a couple of drinks, Emery seemed back to usual, making his little comments, offering his tiny smile, and whatever the blip had been, it was over.
When the game was over, their group did a little cheer for Jem, and he bowed and clapped Emery on the shoulder and grinned. “Good thing we weren’t playing for money, right?”
“Good thing indeed,” Emery said. Then he did this thing with his eyebrows that was annoying, and North decided to tell him how annoying it was, but when he opened his mouth, he stopped. Because Emery was holding up Jem’s wallet.
