Dogs

Dogs

Chapter 1

"What a party." He sighs, leaning back on his palms.

Naomi shrugs, rolling her eyes and stretching just a little too seductively.

"Conga's line's ok." She replies and he follows her eyes to take in the object of her attention.

There is a pause as he studies the dance formation critically. It is a comfortable pause, one they're used to; the kind of pause where they judge the world together and always come to the conclusion that they've won. Sometimes he's not even sure what it is that they've won, but he figures that if he's doing the judging, it would be a bit shit if they lost.

"It's only two people long." He grins.

Naomi laughs. "But they really look like they're having fun."

He looks back to the conga-line. It is his grandmother's ninetieth and it's not even midnight yet but a dramatically unimpressive evening is already beginning to wind down. When the conga-line drops to two people, it's always a bad sign, he figures. The fact that the two figures, too drunk to manage anything other than a circle, are his aunt and his granddad, doesn't exactly help the image or his mood.

It all seems a bit unfair, really. Granddad is so drunk he's lost his false teeth but Tom's stone cold sober; has to be at a party where everyone's related and they all know he's underage.

Still, Naomi's right as always... they do look like they're having fun.

She stretches again and stands.

"I'm going to join in." She says, matter-of-factly, and saunters onto the dance floor, disco lights flashing red, green, and pink through her blonde hair.

He no longer wonders how she does it; throwing her inhibitions out the window like that.

Naomi grins, laughing as she points out Tom's Granddad's teeth lodged precariously in his pocket, and puts her hands easily on the old man's waist. Tom wonders if she's genuinely enjoying herself or if she's being sarcastic. With Naomi it could be either.

He had always known she was different... right from when they'd first met, he had known.

Tom sighs, wishing someone would take pity and pass him a beer. Grandfather and aunt was infinitely better than grandfather, aunt, and girlfriend - especially as Naomi begins to urge them up to the stage. If she somehow manages to manoeuvre drunk Granddad up steps the old man couldn't even handle sober, Tom knows she'll point him out. She will make him join in. She's probably only dancing so she can do that. She likes to embarrass him.

Deciding to hide himself from the inevitable, Tom stands, sauntering easily to the bar. His mother is out of sight and he can see the 'fun uncle' that every teenage boy needs to have.

Fun uncle can barely stand, but he supplies Tom with what he needs, enough that Tom is able to ignore the not-so-fun comments that fun uncle makes about his girlfriend's arse.

Still, Tom finds he has to agree...

Back in his seat and blessedly forgotten, Tom finds himself watching her. It's not a coupley thing and of course he's not being romantic - she wouldn't let him live it down if he ever did something so ridiculous - but he can't help but think about how different this night is from the one where he first met her.

Taking a sip from the beer, Tom sighs contentedly and allows himself to wonder, once again, how he ended up with a girl that was just so different. He'd known it straight away. Hadn't even known her name, but he'd fucking known that... well, she'd been hideously drunk for starters, and she'd made absolutely no effort to hide it.

Knowing she was different wasn't the big thing; knowing he liked it, that was what had confused him.

She was drunk. So, so drunk. More drunk than should have been possible, really. But it wasn't irritating, as most women would have been. And it wasn't endearing either, which was the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and what they all usually aimed for, regardless of how regularly they missed the mark completely.

No. She was drunk. And it was just funny.

He would remember that night, later, as the closest he would ever come to offending her, no matter how often he would try over their long future.

She sat on the kitchen top, ignoring how sticky it already was from two hours of rowdy pre-drinks. She was just swinging her legs absently, humming some tune or other to herself.