Tori's POV
*DING* the doorbell went
"Fuck yeah!!! PIZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" That was Paulie, running to the front door.
"About time! Took 'em all bloody night!" That was Solo, kinda grumpy because we had been waiting for two hours.
"I call dibs on the first slice! Pizza was my idea, remember?" That was Lenny, running after Paulie.
The other three headed to the door as well, grumbling about how late the pizza was and how hungry they were. I sat in my chair shaking my head. I swear these guys are all secretly another age.
Paulie was eight, with ten-year-old Lenny. Solo was 43, a father with more than a little style. John was your typical 12 year old, relishing in his farts and tweking whenever possible. Lukas was a bit of a 14 year-old geek, with all the animal facts and whatnot. In that case, he could probably also be classed as 88, another David Attenborough. Samson was 20, with smooth moves and trying to act like he was still a teenager. That was all the boys, actually. They tried to still appeal to younger markets by behaving like teenagers. Goofballs.
I headed off to the door to pay the pizza man but when I got there I herd a car drive off and the boys already had the pizza open on the kitchen bench and were getting plates out from my cupboards.
I frowned. "Who, my I ask, payed the pizza guy when I was not here and my wallet was outside with me the entire time?"
"I did." Len piped up. 'Why? You're my guests, you're not allowed to pay for the pizza!" I said. I pulled a fifty dollar note out of my wallet and tucked it into Len's wallet sitting on the table.
'No!" he said, taking the note out again and shoving it inside my wallet purposefully. "It was my idea to get pizza. It wasn't even that much anyway!!"
I grabbed the note out again and this time shoved it into the pocket of his boardshorts. "You are my guests and I will not allow you to pay for the pizza that I ordered!" I argued.
"But you’ve provided us with so much food already, if anything we should be giving you money right now!" Len retorted dropped the note down my dress.
This had now turned into a full-blown argument between Len and I about who paid for the pizza, finding creative ways to give each other the money whilst the boys sat watching in front of us, eating the pizza that was beginning to go cold. Let's just say that at one point Len found a fifty-dollar note down his shorts and then it was shoved down my throat.
In the end Lukas reached out and snatched the note from my hand. "Here's an idea," he said. "How about I keep the note?" At that Paulie and John jumped on him and tried to prise the tightly-gripped note from Lukas' fingers. Samson shrugged and picked up another slice of Hawaiian while Solo sat contentedly munching on a meat-lovers slice.
After about a minute of wrestling between the three guys, Len had had enough. "OI!" he shouted. "Did any of you stop to think that this note is actually Tori's?" he may be the youngest of the group but certainly seemed the most mature at the present moment. "Nah," I retorted. "It's Len's note! Shove it down his fucking throat like he did to me!" Len glared at me and I smiled sweetly. So much for mature.
At this point the wrestlers had stopped wresling and and begun to devour the last slices of pizza, the fifty left sitting alone on the bench, a little crumpled.
"Alright, I'll take the note. But only because y'all" - I pointed to the five eating pizza - "ate all the pizza and I feel sorry for LennyBoy as pizza was his idea." I gave in and took the note off the bench before tucking it securely into my bulky wallet. Not that I had a lot of money in there, it was just filled with gum and reciepts. Mostly gum.
We decided to settle down a little and watch some movies so while Samson, Lukas, John and I prepared snacks, Len, Paulie and Solo chose some movies.
We had the radio on as we got out the lollies, popcorn and chips so the four of us in the kitchen danced around the area goofily, because (a) I'm a horrible dancer and (b) I thought that the boys could do with some less-serious dancing.
When the four of us got back to the lounge, bowls of food in hand, Solo was holding up a four-movie set. "Pirates of the Carribean marathon?" he asked and I laughed. "I haven't watched all four movies in a row since I was 16 and On Stranger Tides came out!" I cried but we still settled down to watch the tetrology on the two three-seaters that lived in my lounge.
Obvoiusly, I only technically had room for six people, having two three-seaters but we all know that when companies say "seats three" they actually mean "seats three super-fat people", so I just sat myself in between Paulie and John (Lenny was also on the couch) with minimal squeezing-in required.
John's POV
By the middle of the fourth movie (On Stranger Tides), Tori had all but fallen asleep, her head lightly resting on Paulie's shoulder. Someone on the movie yelled "Jack!" and Tori jolted awake.
"Someone say my name?" she said in a voice that did not quite seem her own. Paulie looked down at her. "They said 'Jack'" he said and she looked at him, raising her eyebrows and nodding slightly, implying that that was her name, and that he was a total dipshit for not knowing.
Concerned about this reaction, Paulie reached for the remote and paused the movie. "Your name is Tori," I explained and she stared at me blankly for a few seconds before saying "Right, Tori. Let's get back to the movie." and promptly pressing play on the remote in Paulie's hand.
Still concerned, Paulie paused that movie again and looked at Tori. "Tori, what the hell was that?" Len said, peering at her. "Nothing, I just went into my Jack Sparrow mind," she said. Well, that explained the strange accent…
"If I watch too much Pirates of the Carribean, I go into that mindframe. Mr. Gibbs said "Jack!" and I was all like "Someone say my name?" because that’s who I was inside. When Paulie tried to correct my hearing I was thinking 'I know he said 'Jack', ya dipshit. That's my fucking name, dumbass.'"
We laughed at her thoughts and she shushed us before continuing her story. "So then John said that my name was Tori and I was thinking 'Tori, huh? I know someone called Tori. She's spending the day with Justice Crew today. I wish I was her. Wait, I am her, you dumbass!'" We laughed again and unpaused the movie.
From then on whenever someone on the movie said "Jack!", we all went "Tori!" and laughed.
After the movie finished we sat up, stretched, and began gathering candy wrappers scattered around the room from Solo and Paulie's wrapper fight during Dead Man's Chest.
Samson announced that we should probably head off home, considering it was about 12:30 by now and the rest of us agreed, thanking Tori for a great day.
"No!" she cried. "I cannot let y'all stay with me, hang out and make me smile for an entire day and then kick you out at the end of the night!" she said. "Y'all are going to stay here with me tonight, nonnegotiable." she crossed her arms and stood in front of the six of us.
"What's with all the 'y'all's, we're not living in Alabama!" Lukas chuckled and Tori shrugged. "I like the word. Also I enjoy a lot of YouTube, a lot of Southern YouTubers and, consequently, heaps of 'y'all's." she explained and we shrugged. Fair enough.
Solo tried to tell Tori that it was late and we should be getting home but Tori was a champion persuader, I realised. She could talk a cow into milking itself. So we stayed.