Listen Close

“Happy New Year!” the small group of friends cheered as the timer on the television finally hit zero. Red solo cups were raised in the air before being lowered back down to chapped lips. As the New Year got itself situated around the room (as well as along the rest of the east coast), the handful of partiers began to settle down a bit.

No more than ten minutes passed by before the hostess of the get-together, a petite blonde girl by the name of Juliet, was turning off the television. Half of the room looked up when the sound of celebration could no longer be heard from the speakers on the walls. Juliet waited patiently for the other half to notice that something was up, and slowly, one by one, they all turned to face her, expectant grins on their faces.

“Since it’s officially January first, it’s time for all of us to play spin the bottle!” she called out, her excitement evident.

One boy, one by the name of Josh Franceschi, who’d never been to one of Juliet’s previous New Year’s celebrations, looked nothing short of confused. While the rest of the room began to rearrange the furniture so that there was a large enough space for all of them to sit and play, he watched in silence. Within minutes, he was the last one standing.

He didn’t understand why spin the bottle was such an important New Year’s game, not when most people in the room had already kissed someone when the ball had dropped.

“Dude, sit,” Josh’s best friend, Jack Barakat, hissed. The older boy’s hand gripped at the hem of the other’s jeans, tugging childishly and pouting with everything he had in him. Of course, Josh complied.

Juliet all but jumped from her seat when she realized that, “He doesn’t know how we play!” Around the circle, understanding nods and quiet ‘oh’s were given in response.

“It’s spin the bottle,” Jack explained, pointing to the bottle and the circle of people… as though that part hadn’t already been obvious enough, “but instead of kissing people, we have to say one of our resolutions for the new year and if you accomplished the one's from last year or not. It’s easy. We usually have one or two of them, and we try to stick away from the typical ‘I’m gonna lose weight’ kinda resolutions. Juliet usually spins first because it’s her party, and we just keep going until everyone’s had a turn.”

“What if I don’t have one?” Josh questioned, eyeing the bottle on the floor suspiciously as Juliet leaned in to grip the sides.

“Then I guess you better start thinking, huh?” Jack said with a laugh. A nudge of an elbow to a set of ribs, and then the bottle was beginning to make its first rounds.

Josh only paid half of his attention to what those around him were saying. He didn’t really care about what they were saying—he sort of figured he wasn’t allowed to steal anyone else’s ideas—and he almost didn’t realize the end of the bottle had stopped on him about halfway through the game until Jack was nudging him in the side yet again.

“Oh, shit, right,” he said, clearing his throat before sitting up a bit straighter. “I honestly didn’t make a resolution last year, b—”

“There had to have been something,” one of the Fuentes brothers (Josh wasn’t sure which one) cut in. “Even if you didn’t put the label of ‘resolution’ on it, there had to have been something big that you were hoping to accomplish.”

The Briton sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I was determined to make friends when I moved here a few months back. That’s gotta count for something, right?” When a nod of approval was given from the Fuentes brother who’d spoken up, Josh continued. “This year, I’m going to make sure to compliment at least one person every day. I’m gonna go ahead and get today’s out of the way now, actually: Juliet, this has probably been the best New Year’s party I’ve ever been to, and I can’t wait until next year already.”

“That was a shitty compliment,” Jack mumbled, a snicker following soon after. Juliet rolled her eyes across the room before grinning widely at Josh.

“Thank you. Jack’s never complimented me at all.”

“Hey! I’ve called you pretty a couple times!” the older boy argued, his arms crossing defensively over his chest.

Juliet leaned closer to Josh, holding a hand to the side of her mouth as though she was about to tell him some big secret, and said, “No, he hasn’t.”

The Briton let out a quiet laugh and blocked out his friends as he reached for the bottle. He liked listening to his friends bicker playfully, sure, but he really just wanted the game to end. When the bottle stopped on its next victim, he grinned.

“Come on, Ariel, what you got for us?”

--- ---

The first few weeks were a little difficult on Josh. Some days he’d nearly forget that he was supposed to be giving someone a compliment in order to accomplish his resolution. That, of course, would result in him dashing from his house at six in the evening to find someone to give praise to.

Some of the people that he talked to were just as polite in turn, offering sweet smiles and kind ‘thank you’s, but some others… well… they weren’t as accepting, for a reason Josh didn’t fully understand. They’d give him weird looks or eye rolls or snappy replies—mostly from women, at least. Many a time had he gone to compliment another man and gotten a ‘fucking gay’ in response.

They were only half wrong, really, but that didn’t make the words or tone or gestures any less rude.

Even still, he persisted.

It was Jack who suggested he start carrying around a small pocket planner and marking down whether or not he’d given someone a compliment every day. He’d never admit it, but it was actually an ingenious way to keep track of everything. Josh almost couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought it up himself.

It was that planner in his pocket that helped him through the days, weeks, and months. Before he knew it, the year was already coming to a close and his little book was almost completely filled. There was a sense of pride that came with it, the knowledge that he’d set himself a goal and had been able to stick to it.

Until New Year’s Eve finally rolled around once more.

The same group of friends was gathered around Juliet’s living room once more, red solo cups a few measly inches from being empty and eyes trained on the flat screen screwed into the wall. Less than three minutes and the ball in New York would bring them all into the New Year.

And that’s when he realized that he’d forgotten to compliment someone. A sort of panic set into his veins as he froze in his spot, mind racing to think of a solution. He was sure that he’d complimented everyone in the room once, meaning that he couldn’t tell them anything or that’d be like losing even while trying. What good was going an entire year to get knocked off track within the last handful of minutes?

Maybe one of them won’t remember the first time, he thought, but that was quickly brushed away when he realized that he would definitely remember.

He tried to calculate the odds of leaving the house and finding some random person outside before the clock hit midnight, only to realize that people had already started to count down from sixty.

Then he remembered that he’d never complimented Jack. His best friend, the one who helped keep him on track.

Chugging down the last few sips in his plastic cup, he threw it onto the ground and began to push his way through his other friends. Jack was stood just a few feet away, just a little longer. There were only twenty seconds left on the clock.

“Jack!” he shouted over the commotion as he stumbled into his best friend, clinging onto the older boy as he looked up through his eyelashes.

“Dude, what’s up?”

“I like your laugh,” Josh rushed out, head spinning around to glance at the clock on the television screen. “And I also like your smile. You have such a nice smile, and it makes your eyes light up, and it’s just really cute, y’know? You’re probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and you’re also super sweet to everyone you meet, no matter what. And you’re smarter than everyone gives you credit for, especially me. I don’t give you enough credit f—”

“Happy New Year!” the room erupted around them. Josh didn’t even bother finishing his statement, instead allowing his body to relax once he realized that, yes, he had been successful with his resolution… and then Jack was ducking in to kiss him.

It was the first New Year’s kiss Josh had been given in over two years, and he did his best to not dwell on the fact that it was his best friend, of all people, that was kissing him like he’d been wanting to do it since the minute they’d met.

The cheering began to fade in the background, which was slowly replaced with the scraping and shuffling of furniture against both carpet and hard wood. No one seemed to be bothered by what was happening, and if they were bothered by it, they did a good job of masking it. Josh could appreciate that.

Jack was the one to move away first, wide eyes taking in the fluttering of eyelashes and agape mouth his best friend was sporting.

The younger boy wasn’t quite sure what to say, so for a moment, all he did was stare and let his jaw drop open and then closed. His mind was racing too much for him to think up much of a coherent thought, and the only thing he could truly bring himself to stutter out was a quiet, “I did it.”

“So did I,” Jack said, grin stretching his lips before it turned down, just minutely. “Well… I guess I actually didn’t within the year or anything, but I still did it.”

“Did what?” Josh humored, eyes casting a glance behind himself to make sure that their friends weren’t eavesdropping or anything. When he was satisfied with seeing that they were all immersed in their own little conversations on Juliet’s floor, waiting for their remaining spin the bottle players, he turned back around once more.

Jack gave a shrug, suddenly seeming shy as he answered, “I worked up the nerve to kiss you.”

The Briton shook his head, but he smiled nonetheless. Taking his best friend’s hand in his own, he tugged the elder over to the circle of people. When they were both sat comfortably among their friends, Josh leaned over, lips brushing Jack’s ear and tone low so that no one could hear him say, “Maybe this year you could get the nerve up to ask me out.”

The elder boy rolled his eyes, a nod following soon after. “Maybe this year,” he mocked, “you won’t need me to help you remember your resolution.”