“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Still pissing—apparently I really had to go—I turned towards the voice. My vision blurred, but I could make out her face. I’d probably know it anywhere. She’d starred in my dreams for the better part of a decade.
I popped the bottle off my lips. “The fuck am I doing?The fuck areyoudoing?” I pointed at her. Or tried to. Why were there three of her? One was more than enough.
“I’m not the one flashing his ass to the neighbors while taking a piss on my front lawn,” Kalea spat at me.
“You meanmyfront lawn. I bought, I get to piss on it.” I glanced down and realized that I was apparently done peeing. “Oh. Well, I still bought it.”
I bent to pick up my shorts off my ankles, but the world started to spin. And spin. And kept spinning. Why was the darkness blinking at me? Was there supposed to be a palm tree floating over there?
“Lesu Kristo!” I didn’t need help translating that cursing. “Pick up your fucking phone, Aloiki!”
I laughed. “Why do people keep forgetting how much Aloiki hates phones? It’s like none of you know him at all.”
“Just…stop talking. I can’t even understand you. And pull up your fucking pants!”
I looked down at my pants. Whoa! WasIfloating too? My feet were up in the air, not down on the ground. I lifted my legs more to try to reach my shorts, but ended up just doing awkward crunches and failing. “I have incredible abs,” I reminded Kalea. She should know that. It was important.
“Motherfucker!” Kalea stomped over to me. Was she making the earth shake? I felt like I was on one of those vibrating beds.
I blinked up at her very irate face and informed her, “I lost my virginity in one of those.”
Kalea scratched her head. Did she haveukus? She muttered something about dating mai tais. Ew, gross.
“Whiskey’s better,” I told her, lifting my hand to show her. Wait, where was my bottle? “Have you seen my whiskey?”
“I told you to stop talking!” she snapped, kneeling down next to me. “I can’t even understand you, you’re slurring so badly.”
“Your face is slurring badly,” I shot back at her. Definitelya good comeback. I tried to pat myself on the back for that one, but ended up slapping myself in the forehead instead.
“Just stop,” Kalea begged, raising her hands like she was getting arrested. I loved handcuffs. They were so much fun. “Can you at least lift your ass off the ground so I can pull your shorts up?”
Lift my ass? Of course I would lift my ass up. What did she take me for? A toddler? After much huffing and puffing—all on her end, I was sure—Kalea managed to get the band of my shorts up around my hips again.
“Okay, let’s get you up.”
“I can walk!” I snapped. I did not need her help for anything! “You ruined my life!”
I was halfway sitting up when suddenly what I’d been resting my back on moved away. I fell backwards onto the hard, jagged surface I had been lying on. “Ow,” I whined.
“I ruined your life? You ruined mine, you fucking asshole!” Kalea shouted, moving away from me. “Stay out here! Get hit by a car! See if I care!”
“Kalea!” I called after her. I managed to turn myself so I could see at least one of her. “Don’t go please…”
She stopped, turning around slowly.
I pointed towards my feet. “Can you get me my whiskey bottle first?”
Kalea let out a shriek of fury that rattled my brain as well as the ground I laid on before stomping away.
Sunlight poundeddown on me like a resilientpahu, a tribal drum. I glanced around, not entirely sure what was happening. I smelled grass and an earthy, mineral tone, butalso something nasty and acidic. Oh, that last one was probably me.
Vague, undefined memories from the day before assaulted my head as I rolled to my feet. My whiskey bottle was nowhere in sight, but aMcDonald’sbrown paper bag was suspiciously placed by my hip. Did I buy that?
Reaching for it, it felt warm. Not from the overhead sun warm, but fresh from the greasy depths warm. Cracking it open, I got an immediate and intense whiff of aSpamand Portuguese sausage breakfast platter. There was also a large fry in the bag.
Something yellow caught my eye, and away from the road in the grass was a large yellow coffee cup with a black lid.