Spin the Bottle

Friday nights usually found Rachel and her friends lounging around in someone's house, alcohol all around, and this Friday night was no exception. This weekend the house of choice was the house Matthew Sanders shared with his girlfriend Valary. It was small, but big enough for the group to hang out and still be comfortable. And it definitely beat Jimmy's apartment, with his piles of dirty clothes and mountains of used dishes where rare species of flora could probably be found.

"There is absolute shit on TV," Matt complained.

"How the hell can you tell? You never stay on one channel long enough for us to see what's on!" Brian Haner shouted. He reached over and yanked the remote from his friend's grasp, earning a stream of cuss words from Matt. Brian just smiled. "Let me find something to watch."

"Just because you have the remote now doesn't mean there's going to magically be something on, dumbass," Matt grumbled.

"Hey, let's play a game!" Jimmy Sullivan yelled suddenly.

"What kind of game?" Brian asked, his quest to find something to watch temporarily forgotten. He grinned wickedly. "Does it involve alcohol?"

"Well I was thinking more along the lines of spin the bottle," Jimmy replied. Everyone groaned, but Jimmy would not be deterred. "Stop whining! At least it's better than sitting around listening to Brian and Matt argue about the tv, sheesh."

Everyone grumbled in complaint, but arranged themselves in a circle all the same. Jimmy fetched a beer bottle from nearby and poured the remaining alcohol into the sink before placing it in the middle of the circle. Rachel sat between Brian and Johnny, wondering how long she would have to play before she could bail.

"Johnny, you spin first!" Jimmy instructed jovially. The younger man objected loudly but quickly became silent under Jimmy's glare. Johnny gave the beer bottle a spin, and it circled several times before landing on Brian. Everyone cackled as both men adamently objected. "Oh, go on!" Jimmy encouraged, giving Johnny a prod. "Don't be a pussy."

"Can't I use a free pass?" Brian whined. "I don't wanna kiss Short Shit. Rachel noticed his chocolate eyes flicker to her momentarily before continuing to glare at the drummer, and she was a tad confused. What was that look for? Surely Brian didn't want to kiss her. Not that she hadn't thought about locking lips with the guitarist...she shook her head. There was no reason to read so much into it; after all Brian acted pretty strange sometimes, especially when he'd been drinking.

"If you two don't kiss right now, I'm gonna go streaking down the street," Jimmy threatened, crossing his arms over his chest. This seemed to convince both Johnny and Brian, and the two boys leaned together in front of Rachel and lightly pressed their lips together before separating with identical looks of disgust on their face. "Oh, that's rich," Jimmy laughed. "Now Brian, since the bottle landed on you, you get to spin next."

"Better fucking land on a chick," the brown-eyed man grumbled as he reached for the bottle. He gave it a hard spin and when it finally stopped, the neck pointed straight at Jimmy, who could barely contain his laughter. "Oh, come on!"

Ten minutes later, each of the boys had been made to kiss another at least once, but Rachel hadn't been made a victim yet. She'd avoided having to kiss Zacky by excusing herself to the bathroom just before he spinned, but now she had a feeling that Jimmy wouldn't let her get away with dodging his game any longer. She was unfortunately proven right when Jimmy snatched the bottle away from Val and slid it over to Rachel.

"You haven't been kissed yet, Rachel," Jimmy observed, smiling in a way that scared Rachel just a bit. "Give the bottle a spin."

"Okay." Rachel shrugged her shoulders and gave the bottle a lazy spin. It only went around once before stopping on Matt. Well shit. Rachel looked up at Val, feeling as if she needed permission from her in order to kiss Matt, and the petite blond nodded her head. Rachel went on all fours and crawled across the circle to kiss Matt, and the moment their lips touched was the moment Brian suddenly decided to excuse himself to the kitchen. Rachel plopped down in her spot with a confused frown. What was that all about?

"I'll go talk to him," Jimmy announced, getting to his feet. He stalked his friend into the kitchen and found him leaning against the counter, a freshly opened beer in his hand and a grimace on his face. "Brian!" Jimmy yelled. His friend jumped and turned to Jimmy with irritation in his eyes. "What are you doing in here? You're missing the game!"

"I needed a beer," Brian responded flatly, holding up his drink. "That game is stupid anyway."

Jimmy frowned at Brian, stroking his chin in mock thought. There had to be a reason why Brian's demeanor had changed so suddenly, a better one than Brian had given him. But what? He'd been fine until Rachel had to kiss Matt-- "That's it!" Jimmy exclaimed, causing Brian to jump for the second time in two minutes. "I know how to fix this."

"Fix what?" Brian asked as Jimmy hurried back into the living room. He snatched the beer bottle from the middle of his circle of friends and then ran back into the kitchen. Making sure to keep his back to Brian, he taped a small magnet to the inside of the bottle. He grabbed another magnet and went back into the living room, dropping it into Rachel's lap.

"What the fuck is this for?" she hissed, tucking the magnet against her palm. Instead of answering her, Jimmy ran into the kitchen, the bottle in one hand and Brian's hand in the other. Rachel shook her head. Sometimes Jimmy was a little much.

"Alright, Brian's turn to spin!" Jimmy announced.

"But the bottle landed on--" Johnny pointed out, but Jimmy silenced him with a shove, which sent him crashing into Rachel. She eyed Jimmy. Something was definitely going on. And what the hell was with this magnet?

"Jimmy, I'm getting really tired of this shit," Brian grumbled, reaching for the bottle. Rachel watched as he spun the bottle, and her eyes went round when it stopped and pointed at her. Brian had to kiss her? Rachel glanced over at Brian and noticed that his expression was nearly identical, except for one thing. He almost looked excited to have to kiss Rachel.

"Get on with the lip-locking!" Jimmy shouted, breaking Rachel from her thoughts. "We haven't got all night!"

Letting out another huff, Brian leaned over and pressed his lips against Rachel's. He did so without a lot of theatrics, but it was far from a lackluster kiss. The instant their lips touched, Rachel's stomach started doing flip-flops, jolted by the electricity coursing through her from Brian's lips. Every scenario she'd ever conjured up when thinking about kissing him was replaced with the real thing, which was oh so much better.

"Alright, that's enough," Jimmy sighed. Rachel and Brian popped apart. "I wanted to play spin the bottle, not watch you two film a porno."

Rachel felt her cheeks tinge pink as she got to her feet. Giving her eyes a quick flicker around the circle, she announced, "I'm gonna go into the kitchen and get another drink." Still clutching the magnet Jimmy had given her in her hand, Rachel hurried into the kitchen, eager to put a bit of space between her and Brian.

Leaning against the counter, Rachel touched her fingers to her still-tingling lips. She still couldn't believe she'd kissed Brian and felt something as powerful as what she'd felt. She'd know Brian for many years and although she'd entertained the thought of being romantically involved with him, she'd never really had feelings for him.

Until now.

Rachel jumped when she heard a loud clatter. Quickly turning around, she saw Brian bent down, his long fingers wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle he'd dropped. "Jimmy found something interesting on TV," Brian explained with a laugh. Bypassing the trashcan, Brian walked over to the counter and sat the empty beer bottle next to Rachel's full, unopened one. "So about what happened in there..." Brian began, suddenly finding his sock-clad feet extremely interesting. What was the best way to tell someone that kissing them was just like he'd always imagined without sounding creepy? "It was um, it was nice."

"It was nice," Rachel repeated, her voice flat. Was it possible that what she'd been feeling during the kiss was purely one-sided?

Brian let out a sigh and nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm nervous, okay?" he said. He let out a dry, anxious chuckle. "I've actually wanted to kiss you for a long time, and it took a stupid game of spin the bottle to make me do it," he blurted. "I'm an idiot, I'm sorry."

"Is that why you looked so upset when I had to kiss Matt?" Rachel asked. Everything was starting to make sense now. Brian's annoyance when Rachel kissed Matt, his stomping out of the room, Jimmy intervening. "Hold on a second," Rachel said suddenly. She held out her hand. "Let me see that bottle." Brian obliged, handing Rachel the bottle they'd been using during the game. She peered inside the neck and saw that there was something taped to the glass. Acting on a hunch, she waved her magnet near it, and the neck of the bottle lined up perfectly with the magnet she held in her hand. "Jimmy, you sneaky little bastard," she mumbled to herself, smiling widely.

"Mind explaining your epiphany, Timon?" Brian asked, raising an eyebrow at Rachel.

Rachel held up the magnet Jimmy had given her. "Jimmy gave me this magnet," she explained. "And there's a matching magnet inside the beer bottle. So--"

"So Jimmy made all of this happen on purpose," Brian finished, a smirk growing on his face. Rachel nodded. "I should've known! Jimmy always does shit like this!"

"I heard my name!" someone shouted from the living room. The sound of footsteps echoed through the house, and Jimmy jogged into the kitchen. His crystal-blue eyes flickered from Rachel to Brian to the beer bottles and he smiled widely. "I guess you figured out my nefarious plot."

"Nefarious plot?" Rachel laughed. "You taped a magnet inside a beer bottles. No lives were lost. Nothing was destroyed. So it's not really nefarious, Jimmy sorry."

"But it worked, didn't it?" Jimmy asked excitedly, smirking. "You two kissed each other and now you're gonna live happily ever after!"

"Could you give us a minute, Jim?" Brian asked, slinging his arm over Rachel's shoulder. "I need to talk to Rachel."

"Yeah, sure," Jimmy agreed, nodding eagerly. He ran back into the living room and the sound of Johnny shouting and cursing could soon be heard.

Once Jimmy left, things became quiet in the kitchen. Rachel stared hard at her feet, waiting for Brian to speak, but the only thing coming from his mouth was a stream of unintelligable babble. Finally she heard him whispered to himself, "I just gotta do this." And suddenly she felt his hand on her chin, and then he was kissing her again. She froze in shock, but soon found the use of hher limbs again; she wrapped her arms around Brian's neck and pulled him a little closer.

"So...you think we could try this?" Brian asked awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Rachel raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking what he meant, and he spit out, "You know...being together?"

"I don't know, Brian," Rachel sighed. Brian's face fell. "We're such good friends. I don't want to lose that if things don't work out."

"So Jimmy went through all of this trouble for nothing," Brian pouted. "You know he probably planned this whole afternoon around this right here." Rachel laughed. She could certainly imagine Jimmy come to Matt's house with plans to force everyone to play this asanine game just so she and Brian would have to kiss. "So...you'll at least let me take you out?" Brian asked hopefully. He pushed out his bottom lip. "Please?"

"I guess so," Rachel relented, smiling. "But I'm picking the restaurant. No pizza!" With this, Rachel hurried into the living room, Brian hot on her trail.

"But pizza is cheap!" he protested. He mananged to snag her around the waist, and the two of them fell in a pile on top of Jimmy and Johnny, who'd been wrestling on the rug.

"This is better than TV," Zacky cracked, hugging his stomach as he dissolved with laughter.

"Much better," Brian agreed, his voice soft. Nudging Johnny's foot out of the way, he leaned close to Rachel and kissed her again, both of them silently thanking Jimmy for putting all this together.