Last Straw

Won't Be Denied

"Glad you're entertained by my suffering." He frowns in general, sipping some coffee.

The man can drink coffee any of the day, it doesn't matter. Nothing keeps him awake after he closes his eyes. It's like a super power because if I drink caffeine after four I'm up all evening.

"I appreciate your contributions." A smirk playing at my lips.

"Easy for you to say, you never pissed yourself." My lip trembles as I attempt to choke down my laughter, but it's no use, and I burst out once again.

After a few seconds, Amelia says "If you think about it we all peed ourselves in public at least once, but as it's only humiliating in the middle of your life. It's totally ok for old people and babies, why not us?"

Now there's a stoned Amelia for you.

That must be some good ass weed. "Damn, maybe I do need to hit that."

"Thought you'd never ask." Excitement in her voice as she passes me her joint.

"Oh, here we go," Max smiles as I take a toke, there's a smile in his voice, and I know I have free range to do as I like. I largely prefer cigarettes to weed which he well knows since that one time Amelia smoked with me after the club and I was still up when the sun rose chatting to him.

At night I'm a chatterbox.

Max loves that side of me.

This side.

"You know it's funny most of your fans think you guys are like these super hot, cool, angsty rivals who only think about racing." Amelia redirects the conversation.

Charles winks, "As long as they believe I'm cool that's all that matters."

"And they are angsty."

"I am not!" Max takes offense, knocking shoulders with me to punctuate his feelings.

"Please! You're so broody."

He doesn't see that?

Amelia doesn't leave me out to dry, nodding while she says "One hundred fucking percent."

With a deep sigh "Fuck. Well at least piano fingers has got to be worse than me."

Charles lurches with laughter at his choice of words, "We should do a youtube and show people how it really is."

"Nah. Most people will never really know us, so all that matters is the ones who do." Max with the deep thought.

"Damn..." I whisper as the moment settles over us like smoke. Lingering in the air long after the words are gone as we all contemplate what he just said.

That's something we could definitely have a deep discussion about.

"Isn't reputation what lasts after we are all in the ground?" Amelia asks.

"A little, so it's not like I don't understand reputation is important. I think it's one of the reasons I was so aggressive with my goals in my formula one contract, because I wanted the reputation of a winner."

"Agreed, I made that mistake early on and got stuck with no progress on the teams part."

"Can't win them all." I say.

"I do." Amelia says with a twinkle in her eye as she looks to Charles "I always win."

He knows what she is asking before he even says it "Do you guys want to play cards?"

"I'm in-" I scoot closer to edge of the bench Max and I are sharing. When Charles is done shuffling he passes each of us a mound of cards. The four of us are quite the competitive type so there's no way this game can lost long.