The Only Thing On My Wishlist

We tried not to book too many gigs over the holidays because we’d been on tour so long over the summer and then in the fall, but a couple mates begged a favor off us and we had to oblige. I wasn’t even going to invite Camille after she made it so very obvious what she thought of my friends—and also because Lucy wanted to kill “the pretentious twat,” as she called her once Max let it slip what Camille had said about her. But I sent Camille a text last minute that morning to give her a heads up. It had been a few days since our tiff, and I was kind of starting to miss her. She called me almost immediately and practically begged me to come over.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she said. After that, I was putty in her hands. And she did not disappoint.

After I left her place, with her promise to meet me at the venue at six, I headed home to shower, giving me just enough time to make it to soundcheck only a few minutes late.

“Well, look who decided to show up,” Chris called as I slunk into The Swamp.

I chuckled to myself, rumpling my damp hair. I’m pretty sure an icicle snapped off. “I’m not that late,” I argued sheepishly, shuffling up behind the mic. “I had some things to take care of, okay? Don’t give me those looks.”

Max rolled his eyes. “I take it your girlfriend just proved to you she’s not a lesbian after all?”

Matt snorted. “I didn’t realize that was something we needed to worry about,” he announced, shooting me a curious look. “And here I thought we shared everything, mate! What kind of family are we supposed to be if you can’t tell us your girlfriend might start making out with one of her friends right in front of us without warning? How are we supposed to be adequately prepared for the situation, should it arise?” Under his breath, but still loud enough for everyone to hear, he asked, “Is that very likely?”

I flipped him off. “Don’t be crude.”

“I’ll store that one in the wank bank then,” he decided, giving a flippant shrug.

Max pretended to gag enthusiastically. “I just ate!” he protested. “And in case you haven’t noticed, she’s vile!”

I glared at him. “Well, while we’re being honest—”

He cut me off. “Sorry, mate, but really, what do you expect?” he argued, “She’s not exactly my favorite, especially not after she—”

I tried to stop him, but I was too late. The words “practically called our friends worthless,” slipped from his lips just as I reached him to clap a hand over his mouth. He licked my palm.

“Max!” I protested, grabbing my hand back.

He shrugged apologetically. “I panicked.”

A clamor arose as just about everyone present—our “deadbeat friends,” as Camille had so graciously stamped them—realized that she had meant them, but the only person I heard was Dan.

“She coming tonight?” he asked, leaning over his drum kit to create a direct path from his mouth to my right ear.

I turned to face him. “Er, she said so,” I replied, though I knew that wouldn’t mean much to him. “She promised,” I tried, but that came off weak as well.

He nodded. “Right,” he said, sitting back. “Don’t you ever get tired of second-guessing it all?”

I opened my mouth to respond but shut it almost immediately when I saw Lucy coming around the bar out of the corner of my eye. Elliot was trailing a few feet behind her, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Y’know Lucy’s stepsister? Elliot?” Dan continued, unperturbed by my lack of response. “She’s a nice girl.”

I wasn’t sure what his point was, but as I tried to remember the last thing Elliot said to me—which wasn’t hard, considering I’d been playing it over and over in my head for days—I knew he was wrong. “Nice? Are you sure you’re talking about Lucy’s cousin Elliot and not perhaps her Un-Evil Twin?”

He smiled blithely. “She’s just not got a Christmas spirit,” he informed me, as if I hadn’t noticed. “Must be hard for the kid with an ugly Christmas sweater for every day until the twenty-fifth, but she is nice.”

“It’s not worth being with someone if they aren’t making as much of an effort to be in the relationship as you are.”

I rolled my eyes as I fingered the hem of my newest Christmas sweater—green with red lights on gold wire strung around it. This one, unlike the last eight I’d worn, was not of the pop-up, 3-D family. “While her lack of Christmas spirit is annoying, at best, it’s not quite a write-off,” I informed him lowly. “I think it’s her severe attitude problem and opinion on my relationship, which she knows nothing about, that really gets on my nerves.”

“Everyone’s got an opinion on your relationship, Josh,” Matt butt in loudly. I winced, casting a glance in Elliot’s direction, but she seemed like her head was somewhere else. I wished the rest of her would follow it. “That’s mostly because your girlfriend’s a giant twat.”

I glared at him. “Sod off, Matt,” I snapped bitterly. “Just because she’s opinionated doesn’t mean she’s a twat.”

“It does when she’s dragging our friends through the mud,” said Dan. “Why can’t you just admit that you might’ve made a mistake dating her?”

“Because I don’t think I made a mistake,” I lied.

Max shot me a look. “C’mon, mate, I just played priest to your confessor the other day, and you said you’ve thought about breaking things off with her more than once in the last few weeks.”

“I thought priests had a vow of silence,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

“That’s why Max here never became a priest,” Chris announced, wrapping an arm around Max’s shoulders and shaking him rather violently.

Max’s eyes spun like a cartoon characters, practically bouncing around in their sockets.

“Admit it, mate,” Dan urged. “You don’t want to break up with her because you spend nine months out of the year lonely as hell. We get it. We’re all in the same boat. But it’s not worth not being lonely if the one filling that hole isn’t good enough for you and isn’t treating you right.”

“And next time on Hollyoaks,” Matt joked in his best TV voice. “Should I get my tea and a copy of some girls’ magazine, or can we actually do this sound check before my hair starts falling out?”

No one argued.

&&

I’d been hoping Camille would redeem herself. My friends weren’t so keen on her—none of them even wanted her to show, which they’d voiced on more than one occasion, to me and to each other loud enough for me to overhear.

“So, I take it that lovely girlfriend of yours decided not to show.”

I downed the amber liquid in my shot glass, wincing as it burned my throat. “Yeah, thanks for pointing it out, Lucy,” I grumbled. We’d been offstage for almost an hour, and in that hour I’d had to endure the “guess Camille had better things to do” from just about everyone I ran into—at least, everyone who knew Camille was supposed to be there.

She sighed, hopping up onto the barstool beside mine. “Don’t look so glum, Joshy,” she said, reaching over to pinch one of my splotchy red cheeks—my personal curse whenever I consumed alcohol. “You’re too good for her. I keep telling you, but you never listen.”

I didn’t say anything. But then Elliot passed by, shooting Lucy a confused look and then turning a disdainful eye my way. And before Lucy could say another word, I hopped down from my seat and started after her, swaying slightly as soon as my feet touched the ground.

“Oi, Elliot!” I called as I made my way through the crowd. She was almost to the door, but she turned at the sound of her name. Her face, which had been blank, twisted into a snarl when he eyes fell on me.

“What?” she snapped when I reached her.

“You might’ve been right,” I admitted, the words rolling off my tongue before I could swallow them again. Whiskey was my truth serum.

“About what?”

“About Camille.”

She eyed me. “That’s honest of you,” she observed, looking suspicious. “Are you drunk?”

My cheeks, which were already hot, practically blazed at the question, which I heard as an accusation. “I’m not drunk!”

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Oh, I see,” she replied blithely. “So are your cheeks always so red?”

I covered my cheeks with my hands, glaring at her. “Don’t talk about my cheeks, it makes me bashful.”

She laughed—actually laughed, and I was almost certain it was the first time I’d even seen her smile for real. For some reason, I practically swelled with pride. Of all people, I’d been the one to elicit a laugh from her. I’d been so certain that she was about two steps from hating me—for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out, except maybe the comment I made about her boyfriend—and here she was laughing at something I said.

“This feels like a trick,” I told her honestly, dropping my hands back at my sides.

“A trick?” Her smiled faded.

“It’s just, I didn’t think you could laugh,” I admitted. I swear I felt the temperature drop a few degrees when she frowned.

“I can laugh,” she told me, like it was a fact she’d just read out of the encyclopedia and was updating me on, like she was proving something.

I shrugged. “First time I’ve seen it, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I can laugh,” she said again, this time a little louder. “I love laughing. Laughing is probably my favorite thing in the world.”

“Other than Christmas?” I offered cheekily.

She rolled her eyes. “I have my reasons for not being so hot on Christmas. You’ve just never asked.”

“Why don’t you like—”

She cut me off. “I don’t really want to get into it now though,” she said quickly.

“Ah, of course,” I replied, tilting my head up toward the ceiling with a small smile.

She sighed loudly, and then suddenly she had me by the elbow and was dragging me toward the door.

“Oi!” I protested as she tugged me out into the cold night. A harsh, frigid wind smacked me in the face, cooling my warm cheeks. “What’re you doing?”

“I can laugh,” she said again, like she’d adopted it as her new life motto. “And I’m pretty fucking hilarious too.”

The next thing I knew, she had her arm linked with mine and was leading me down the street.

“Is there a reason you couldn’t let me get my coat first?” I complained, shivering even in my sweater. I noticed that she’d left her coat behind as well, which more than likely explained why she was holding onto my arm like it might save her life.

“Didn’t think about it,” she answered, sniffling against the cold. My own nose felt a bit wet as well, but before it could start running, she halted on the sidewalk and pulled me into a store with blacked out windows and a sign proclaiming it as “Avant-Garb.”

Inside was like the Toys-R-Us of lingerie and sex toys. I almost blushed, but I was so mesmerized that I just ended up wandering around. There were costumes in the back and a whole rack of different types of handcuffs. There was a sign advertising edible underwear, and against one wall was a selection of wigs. Then suddenly I was staring at rows upon rows of dildos, in every size and color imaginable, promising vibration strength and beads and rotation. My head was practically spinning at all the options, and I noted then that being a woman seemed right difficult. If I wanted to get off, I had the wank bank and tissues. If a girl wanted to get off, she had a million hoops to jump through before she found the right one.

I backed away quickly, knocking over a few boxes of candy bras in the process. Just as I bent over to pick them up, I felt a sharp pain snap through my butt cheek, and I yelped as I shot straight up.

Elliot’s laughed echoed around me, and she dropped a licorice-colored whip on the floor as she doubled over, clutching whatever she had in her other hand against her chest.

“That was rude,” I told her, rubbing my backside tenderly.

She smiled, her eyes bright. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“Well, I can add that to my list of firsts,” I replied as I set the candy bras back on the shelf, a bit askew.

“Come on,” she said, still giggling as she linked our arms again and led me up the counter. She dropped what she’d been holding—a box of penis-shaped straws—on the counter and pulled a wad of money from her pocket. Before she could pay, though, I shoved her hand out of the way and pulled out my wallet. Then, as an afterthought, I grabbed the box of penis-shaped gummies next to the register and handed them over as well.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, pulling at my wrist. But I’d already handed the money over.

“Whatever you’re planning to do with those, I feel like I would probably pay to see it,” I told her as I took the receipt from the salesgirl and shoved it into my pocket.

“Kinky,” the salesgirl said. She snapped her gum and gave us a wink.

Elliot and I shared a look and simultaneously burst into laughter, practically falling over ourselves on the way out the door. Out on the street, I pulled the penis gummies from the bag and then handed the bag to her. She pulled out the box of straws and popped it open, pulling one out. It was blue and veiny, with a large set of balls at the base.

“This would do very nicely to stir some iced tea,” she observed, shoving it back into the box.

“Are they all blue?” I asked, feeling like it was a bit cruel to give every straw blue balls.

She held up the box and pointed to where it said “multicolored.” As an afterthought, she reached back into the box and pulled the blue one out. “I’m saving this one for Max.”

I laughed as I opened the box of penis gummies and ripped the plastic bag inside. “Want one?” I asked, offering a handful to her.

She made a face. “Seriously?”

I shrugged, popping two into my mouth. As I chewed, she threw the plastic bag into a nearby garbage bin and hopped back and forth from foot to foot, presumably to warm herself up.

“Told you we should’ve gotten our coats first,” I told her, popping another gummie into my mouth. They were rather like penis-shaped Gummie Bears.

When we got back to The Swamp, a DJ had set up where we’d been playing earlier and everyone was milling about near the bar. They’d kicked out everyone underage while we were gone, and Elliot and I had to flash our IDs at the door to get back in.

Elliot and I split the box in half, each taking a handful of straws, and made our way through the crowd, slipping a straw into unwatched drinks, into pockets, and once into a large mass of overly hair-sprayed hair. At one point someone asked Elliot if she had a cigarette and she told the guy she did and handed over a straw instead. We spent the next half hour amusing ourselves with the penis straws and eating the gummies, which she eventually relented and tried, until the only straw left was the one she’d reserved for Max.

It took a while to find him, but when we did, Elliot was elated. She popped a few gummies into her mouth and, laughing silently, snuck up behind him and stuck the straw right into his back pocket—right beside Lucy’s hand, which was tucked inside. Her fingers wiggled as Elliot stumbled back to me, laughing, and we watched as her hand closed around the straw. As her head turned, we caught sight of the confused look on her face. She pulled her hand out in front of her, bursting into laughter when she saw what she was holding. Max sprung away from her, glancing all around him for whoever may have stuck it in his pocket. When he turned back to her, Lucy smacked him in the face with it, still laughing. This sent Elliot and I into another round of uncontrollable laughter, the kind the makes your stomach hurt and tears spring to your eyes.

She was still laughing when her phone started ringing. We couldn’t hear it over the noise in the bar, but when she pulled it out of her pocket, it was lighting up with an incoming call.

Feeling brave—and maybe a little drunk, I’ll admit it—I plucked the phone from her hands and answered.

“You’ve reached Avant-Garb,” I shouted over the music. “Where shopping is a pleasure. Really.”

It wasn’t until I heard the voice on the other end that the murderous look on Elliot’s face made sense.

”Who the fuck is this and why are you answering my girlfriend’s phone?”