Empty Graves And Shallow Hearts

“Faster! Faster! C’mon Rain!”

I heard the boys roll around in their seats.

“Are you having sex back there or somethin’?”

“There isn’t anybody to do it back here with!” Oli screamed again.

“Then why do you keep screaming my name?”

A chorus of ooh’s filled the car.

“You just wish you were back here,” he retorted. “Then you’d be screaming mine.”

I chuckled to myself and glanced up at my mirror to see the boys behind me. My eyes instantly went to the reflection of Oli, a smirk on his face I couldn’t help but laugh even more at.

“Oh my gosh.” Oli froze. “Our song!”

Before I knew it, a loud, deathlike growl blared through the speakers. And like he had said, their song came on.

I checked my mirror, looking at the boys in the seats behind me. All four were head banging, except for a few times when Oliver would stop and lift his chin way in the air, growling at the roof of the car. It was definitely a sight. Quite the entertainment for a ride home.

Only a couple minutes later, the song ended. As I looked back at them again, the “men” were still goin’ at their head bang thing.

“Take us to your leader!” Oli growled.

I shook my head. “You guys are never drinking at my house again.”

“You’ve got that right lady,” Lee looked up from his air guitar. “You don’t even have anything good at your place!”

“And yet you drank it all.” I glared at the road ahead of me.

“There wasn’t anything else!” Matty backed him up.

“You didn’t have to drink period.”

I reached toward the radio knobs and jammed up the volume in attempts to block them out. Oli was still growling and screaming, and the others were breathing heavily between their spurts of fake instrument sounds.

When the new music started they complained. But within a couple songs they were at it again; windmills of hair and sweat flying, air guitars strumming, drums banging, and grown men growling and giggling.

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“Baby sissy! We’re ho-fiddly-ho-home!” Matty had burst out from behind me as soon as I had unlocked the door.

There was silence.

I studied the room. It was totally empty.

Someone dropped a glass somewhere in another room.

“Hello?”

With a loud thud from somewhere, a door flew open.

“Who’s home?”

It was Brandon. He stumbled out from down the hallway, probably the guest room. He liked it in there for whatever reason.

“What are you doing here dude?” Curtis stumbled toward Brandon.

“Just hanging out.”

He stood there looking so uncomfortable. It was like he was embarrassed or something.

“Where’s Kylie?”

I figured they were hanging out together.

“She’s not here.”

I figured wrong.

“Where is she then?”

“Beats me.” He took a deep breath. “I thought she went to meet up with you and the guys.” The man nodded toward the others who were spreading out from behind me.

“Nope,” I was a bit suspicious now. “We were at my place, and she sure as hell wasn’t. Haven’t heard from her since we left.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

And then something really unusual happened.

Brandon twitched.

It wasn’t a little eyelid twitch. No little spasm. It was a full out, full body, hopefully unintentional, twitch.

My brain short circuited.

“What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?”

Another twitch. It was a bit smaller though.

“That freakin’… twitch!”

I couldn’t help but point at him. “You twitched!”

“No I didn’t!”

He seemed utterly confused.

“Yeah you did man.” Lee randomly spoke up from a few feet away.

“Thank you!” I turned back to Brandon. “Why in the world are you twitching? You never do that! What’s wrong?”

“Well…” Brandon steadied himself. “I have something to tell you.”

I blinked, bracing myself.

“I sort of was…” he took a deep breath. “ I was… well… it’s hard to explain. Story!”

In one move Brandon, being a pretty much full grown man, spun in a circle and sat, legs criss-crossed on the floor.

“So thing was,” he began, “I met some people at a party the other day. And you know they were just people, no big deal. And I gave them my number. They seemed cool!” He was talking very fast, trying to defend himself for whatever big thing he was trying to explain.

“And I figured, you know, one of them might call. Maybe. It wasn’t a big deal. And then one did! And then another! And now I have plans! And this person is like beyond cute and I’m so excited! And so I’m going out for a night to hang out with pretty much all these people and more and I’m oh so excited I can’t wait! It’s going to be amazing!”

He took a big breath, straightening his back a bit.

“So…”

He looked down.

“So what Brandon?”

“I, uh, kind of… decided to celebrate.”

This really wasn’t what I expected.

“Celebrate how?”

A little devious smile lit up his face.

“By gettin' pissed.”

I didn’t feel it, but I probably looked really stupid. Brandon nodded towards a coffee table sitting in front of the couch in the front room. Eight lonely glass bottles sat there, empty.

My jaw dropped.

“You drank all of that?”

“Well…” Brandon was stammering, “ A f-few were… already opened. I got a couple to myself though.”

There was a little bit of silence.
A very awkward silence.
It was so long. At least it felt that way.

Without warning, a blur of color clouded my vision, and before I knew it, Brandon was flat on his back, four bodies piled on top of him.

“Dude!” Curtis was grabbing at Brandon’s shirt. “You are so my type of guy!”

They babbled on and on about Brandon. And suddenly, I felt left out.

All they guys were drunk off their asses, having a great time just… rolling around on the floor (well at that point they were crawling after each other). Then there was me, just standing there. Staring at them. I could just imagine someone staring in the window and pointing and laughing at me, the loner.

So like that, I dashed into the kitchen and started pulling bottles out of a cabinet.

Kylie had so much booze, it was scary. She wouldn’t miss a few more bottles though.

So without thinking anymore, I twisted off the cap of a bottle of I didn’t even know what, and took a swig. My mouth burned, but only for half a second. I took another swig. It felt nice.

“Woman what are you doing?”

I snapped my head away from my bottle. It was Lee, poking his head in the doorway.

All I could do was smile this dorkish thing, and tilt my head back to take another drink.

“Hot damn!” When I turned again, all the guys were right up in my face.

I scrunched my face a bit, not sure if I liked the spotlight I was being put in.
“What?”

“You can drink too?” Curtis was jumping up and down. “Do it again!”

Raising an eyebrow, I did as told.

“Oh my gosh! We should play a game!” Lee screamed.

Putting the bottle down and wiping the saliva off my lip, I turned to the little blonde fellow. “What kind of game?”

Some sort of devious expression crossed his face. “A drinking game.”

“That sounds fabulous,” Oli chirped.

The others nodded in agreement.

I was probably nodding my head with them.

Without another moment of hesitation, Lee backed up, opened the freezer, and pulled out some cold bottles. He set them down on the counter with a huge smile.

“Then let the games begin!”