Even though Halloween was still weeks away, it seemed as though the whole town was already prepared for the festive occasion. Decorations were set up in front of almost every house I passed by, varying from jack-o-lanterns to Styrofoam tombstones (I wondered how they didn’t blow away in the wind) and everything in between. Scott and I hadn’t adorned our house yet, which made it appear bare and boring in comparison to some of these beautifully furnished homes that managed to scare and amaze me at the same time.
Every year, Scott and I always decorated the front of our house (and sometimes the lawn, too) so extravagantly in an unrequited attempt to one-up the neighbours. Though, our neighbours never really knew we were trying to outdo them with the decorations; they probably thought that we were just getting into the Halloween spirit.
Another tradition we had for Halloween was throwing a party at Crawford Comics. It was originally my dad’s idea, but once he passed away, Scott and I decided to continue on with it. It was one of the ways we preserved his memory (Mom’s too, since she was usually the one who planned and set up the parties, and co-hosted them). People were allowed—encouraged, really—to show up in costume if they pleased. We supplied refreshments, music, and snacks, and held a contest to award the person with the best or most creative costume. The winner received a free action figure, or whatever else we happened to have.
Scott always insisted we throw the party a day before Halloween because for some unknown reason, he actually enjoyed handing out candy to kids. In costume, of course (Scott, I mean). And he never really cared how late they came since he was awake most of the time anyways.
The leaves crunched under my shoe with every step I took, and the chilly air—cool and crisp—made me shiver and shove my hands even deeper into the pockets of my sweater, trying (and failing miserably) to keep warm. Thankfully, the library was only a few minutes away; I could already see the big brick building at the end of the street. I sped up my pace to a speed-walk.
As soon as I entered the library, I sighed contently as warm air met my cold skin. I made my way past shelves upon shelves of books until I reached the section of the library that was reserved for computers and tables. I took a seat at the table I met Hunter at last time we had a tutoring session, unsurprised to find it completely unoccupied. I always arrived promptly on time, and Hunter (most of the time) was expectedly late. It didn’t bother me since I was used to disorganized people—it was a perfect word to describe my brother.
A few moments later, just as I was getting a head start on my math homework, someone plopped down onto the chair across from me with a half-grunt half-sigh sound, and I knew that it was Hunter before I even looked up.
“Ready to do some work?”
“I don’t wanna do any work,” he grumbled. “I’m tired and pissed off and unfinished homework is the least of my worries right now.” He was the only person I knew who could sound so irritated even though he kept yawning at least a few times during each sentence. Well, besides Scott, of course.
Then I finally glanced up. Whoa. He looked almost as bad as Scott, if not worse. At least Scott combed his hair so it didn’t look like a rat lived on top of his head. Hunter appeared as though he hadn’t slept at all last night. Homework could wait; I deemed this situation way more important, whatever this situation happened to be, exactly.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “What happened to you?”
“My sister happened to me.”
“I meant specifically,” I clarified.
“Didn’t sleep at all last night,” Hunter mumbled. He rested his arm on the table and then buried his face in the crook of his elbow. Jeez, how many restless people did I have to deal with every day? It was a wonder how I got any sleep sometimes.
“Well, what happened?” Why was it that whenever someone had a problem, they always had to confide in me? Was I the only person that didn’t have to deal with any major issues right now?
“My sister is a slut, that’s what happened.” That answer was still too vague for me.
“Hey, don’t call her that.” I never met his sister, but I felt the need to defend her, seeing as I was a sister myself. And because I had a brother and knew just how annoying they could be sometimes.
“Why? You don’t even know her.”
“So? It’s still not nice,” I chastised.
Hunter looked up simply to roll his eyes at me just for rebuking his behaviour. I heard him mumble, “Nice my ass” under his breath, but pretended not to hear that.
“And besides,” I continued, “what does that even have to do with you not being able to sleep?”
“Because—“ he yawned and shot me a pointed look “—our bedrooms are right beside each other, and I can hear her banging random dudes! And it went on for hours. Kept me up all night long.”
The last thing I wanted to do was talk about the far-too-personal aspects of Hunter’s sister’s life, but I guess it was one of the obligations of being a good friend.
“You have a brother, right? Imagine if you could hear him and some girl—“
“Okay, okay, enough,” I interjected before he could get too far into his imaginative description. He was painting a picture in my mind that I didn’t ever want to see. “So why don’t you just tell her to stop?” I suggested. What else was supposed to say? I wasn’t adequate enough when it came to offering advice in these kinds of situations.
“Oh believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything. Nothing worked.”
“Well then why don’t you—“
“Charlie, this has been going on for about two weeks now, and I have no idea how to stop it. She brings home a new guy every night—probably picks them up from a bar or something—and then takes them home to screw them senseless. I don’t like to think of my sister as a whore, but she’s not really proving it otherwise.”
Exhaling deeply, I decided to stay silent because I honestly had no idea how to respond to Hunter’s little tirade.
Hunter must’ve taken my silence as a cue to expand on his story because that was exactly what he did. “She does this every year around this time.”
“Why?”
He kept his gaze down, picking at an imaginary loose thread on his shirt. “The anniversary of my parents’ death was about three weeks ago.” He gave me a sad smile. “It’s weird because they died around the same date, but a year apart.”
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think Hunter would care for consoling condolences, so I just said, “Yeah, that’s weird.”
Hunter leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh. “I dunno, maybe she’s just looking for some kind of affection. We rarely got any from our parents once we became teenagers.” That made me want to go over and give Hunter a great big hug and tell him that he was too precious for the harshness of this world, but I didn’t think appreciate that, especially not in public.
“Interesting theory,” I mused quietly. I didn’t think he heard me.
“But I just want her to stop, y’know? It’s…” He paused to rethink his choice of words. “I don’t get any sleep and she’ll get a bad rep. I don’t want that, it’s not good for either of us,” he said, marking the end of his mini rant.
“It’s okay,” I piped up. “Everything will all work out.” Or so I hoped, for Hunter’s sake.
He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair and flashed me a tired smile. “Sorry, it’s just that I’m kinda annoyed and I didn’t know who else to talk to. Aaron would think I’m a pussy if I ever told him something like that.”
“You’re not the only one with sibling problems,” I said suddenly, even startling myself with the unexpected outburst. It wasn’t fair how Hunter got to discuss his problems and I didn’t. I always kept my thoughts and emotions bottled up because I never had anyone to talk to. I couldn’t talk about it with Scott because right now he was one of the main issues I had to deal with. Now was my perfect chance to just let it all out. If I had to listen to Hunter’s problems, then it was only fair that he listen to mine.
“Oh?” he asked like he heard me incorrectly. “Is something up with your brother?” I appear to have piqued his interest a bit. His story prodded my curiosity, but I didn’t think he’d be intrigued by mine.
“My brother, Scott, he found out recently that his girlfriend was cheating on him. They went out for more than two years. He wanted to marry her! But after he found out and they broke up, he just turned into this…robot. Well, he had insomnia, so he was kind of a robot before, but now it’s even worse. He doesn’t eat or sleep, or do anything, really.”
Once I was done explaining everything, it felt like every tense muscle in my body began to relax, and some of my stress just faded away and then vanished, almost as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. It felt so good to finally open up to somebody after years of holding it all in. I felt ten times better than I did a moment ago.
“So what are we going to do about it all?” I asked.
Hunter bounced up in his seat and it seemed like all of a sudden, his energy had been rejuvenated. A wicked grin lit up his face, making me wonder if I really wanted to know what he was thinking.
“I have a brilliant idea!” he announced excitedly. “It’ll—maybe—help us with both of our sibling problems.”
It didn’t sound too convincing, but I was willing to try anything. “Okay, what’s your idea?”
“Well, I was thinking, maybe if my sister got a boyfriend, she wouldn’t keep sleeping around with other guys,” he said mischievously. “And you said your brother just broke up with his girlfriend, which means he’s single, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Charlie, don’t you get it? We should set my sister and your brother up. Maybe if they started dating, they’d both be happier.” Hunter gave me a grin, one that wasn’t unlike a salesman’s when they tried to sell you their product. I must say, Hunter could be very persuasive when he wanted to be. And the fact that he used just what I wanted (for my brother to be happy and himself again) in his pitch, it actually made me consider going through with this crazy idea of his.
“But they don’t even know each other,” I pointed out.
“Then we’ll introduce them. Set them up on a blind date, maybe. I don’t know. We’ll figure out all the details later,” Hunter told me, unable to cease bouncing in his seat in excitement.
The things I did for Scott… “Fine,” I agreed benevolently, noticing the complacent look on his face. “How do you propose we do this?”
“Well,” Hunter said with this impish glint in his eyes, “I have a few ideas.”
***
“No,” I answered, finality lacing my tone. I shook my head for extra emphasis. “Absolutely not.”
“Please?” he pleaded. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get him to stop with the ardent doggedness. And he was like this all day, so dead-set on undergoing all of these ridiculous schemes he’d conjure. Currently, we were arguing over Hunter’s latest and (arguably) greatest idea; one I didn’t imagine my brother and his sister—or anyone, really—would want to be subjected to doing.
“Must we?” I heaved out a petulant sigh.
“Yes.”
“But—“
“It’s the best thing we’ve come up with so far,” he argued. I thought otherwise.
I pondered for a moment for before giving him a reply. “If we go through with this—if, as in possibly, but not certainly—what are we going to do? And how?”
“Easy,” he remarked. “There’s really only two things we need to do. One, get them so drunk that by the end of the night they won’t be able to tell up from down. And two, lock them in a motel room together and wait for the magic to happen. See? It’s simple.” If he was going to be that confident, he should at least come up with a more realistic plan. Like either of our siblings would do any of that. I predicted an ‘I told you so’ in Hunter’s near future, right after I would prove him wrong about this whole ordeal.
“Well then why don’t we just skip the first step and just lock them in a motel room together? Now it’s simple and less time-consuming.” I couldn’t believe I actually suggested that.
Hunter groaned at my naivety. “Charlie, would you willingly go into a motel room with some random stranger sober?”
“Fine, I guess you’re right.”
He threw me a cocky grin and I just barely managed to suppress the inevitable roll of my eyes. “Well, duh. Of course I am.”
We had been thinking up plans all afternoon and this was the one I agreed on? There was clearly something wrong with me that must’ve been affecting the decision-making part of my brain. I didn’t know what possessed me to think that this whole thing was a good idea. It sounded adequate enough (at most) at first, now it was just kinda questionable.
But I trusted Hunter with this, and if it didn’t work, it didn’t work. Hopefully he wouldn’t try to press this matter any further if it didn’t.
“Now that we’ve got that all settled out, how about we head on over to Just Pie for some milkshakes?” he suggested. “My treat.”
I couldn’t refuse an invitation for free milkshakes, so I nodded, silently accepting his offer. I packed up all of my books and binders, and Hunter waited since he didn’t bring anything. Disappointingly, we hadn’t actually gotten to the tutoring part of the tutoring session.
“Did you need any help with your homework?” I asked studiously. I didn’t want him to fail on my account, so I was just making sure.
The suddenness of my question seemed to have caught Hunter off guard. “Uh, no. Why?”
“Just checking. I don’t want you getting held back again. That’d defeat the whole purpose of assigning me to be your tutor in the first place.”
Hunter laughed and with a slight wave of his hand, he said, “Don’t worry, okay?”
That didn’t really ease my apprehension, but I let it slide. Though he seemed pretty positive for someone who was living through his senior year for the second time around.
Once we exited the library, all we had to do to get to Just Pie was cross the street since they were straight across from each other. But something—someone, actually—on the other side of the street made me skid to a halt as Hunter fumbled and tried not to trip over his own feet, trying not to bump into me.
“Hey, why’d you stop?” He sidled up beside me and as soon as he caught me staring blankly ahead, he averted his gaze to try and figure out what I was looking at with such intensity. He must’ve not found anything remarkably strange or conspicuous because he had to ask, “Hey, you okay? Something wrong?”
I mumbled a response that was even incomprehensible to me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Scott, who was walking on the sidewalk right across the street—exactly parallel to where Hunter and I were standing. He passed Just Pie and continued on his way until he reached a door to a place a few stores down. My brother just walked into a bar.
It was only five o’clock. My brother should’ve been at Crawford Comics; there were still a few more hours until closing time. So why was he at a bar? He wouldn’t go near any form of food or drink since he and Tiffany broke their relationship off, and now, all of a sudden, he was going to get drunk in the afternoon?
For a university student, Scott didn’t drink that much. Sure, he and his friends sometimes played a few drinking games, but really, that was it (at least, that was what he told me). For someone with about a million friends that were all frat boys, he sure did a good job of ignoring the substantial amount of peer pressure I imagined him to deal with.
Ever since our parents got involved in that drunk driving accident a few years ago, Scott would always limit himself to only a few drinks. Enough to satisfy himself, but never with the intention of getting intoxicated.
So why was he at a bar, presumably to do the one thing he was against?
“Charlie? Hey, Charlie? What’s wrong? Talk to me,” Hunter said, and I began to snap out of my concerned thoughts and back into reality. He snapped his fingers in front of my face, which then (somehow) progressed into waving his hands so close to my face that I could feel the palm of his hand brush against the tip of my nose a few times, and finally, he resorted to pinching my cheeks lightly, as if I were asleep and he was trying to wake me up.
I took a step back and absent-mindedly swatted his hands away. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry. You spaced out for a second there.” Hunter cleared his throat sheepishly. “Is everything alright?”
“No,” I replied truthfully. “Did you see that guy that just walked into the bar?”
“Yeah…”
“That was my brother.”
“So?” Then it was like something clicked in his brain, because he nodded understandingly. “Oh. Hey, well then that perfect!”
I stared at him blankly. “It is?”
“Yeah. This makes the whole plan a hell of a lot easier.”
“Are you suggesting that we follow through with this crazy idea of yours right now?” I asked in disbelief. “But… But we didn’t even fully develop the details!”
He shrugged. “We’ll improvise. Charlie, now’s the perfect time. All we have to do is get my sister over here and then we can initiate the first step of the plan.” No matter how much he tried to conceal it, I could hear the giddy alacrity that seeped its way into his tone.
I knew that it wouldn’t be any use trying to argue with Hunter and his tenacious excitement. I hadn’t known Hunter for a very long time, but I knew that if he wanted something really badly, he’d do whatever necessary to attain it.
“Fine,” I acceded, succumbing to Hunter’s plan. “Fine, we’ll go through with this little escapade of yours, but if it doesn’t work, can we just give up on the whole thing?”
He took a moment to ruminate, running a hand down the side of his face thoughtfully. “Okay, deal.” He stuck out his hand and I grasped it lightly, giving him a few solid shakes to properly seal the deal. I may not have realized it yet, but I just might’ve made a deal with the devil.
“C’mon,” he said, jerking his head in the general direction of the bar after I finally let go of his hand, “let’s go find your brother before he gets drunk and does something stupid he’ll regret tomorrow?”
I scoffed playfully. “Like making him go through with our plan isn’t stupid?”
He placed a hand over his chest, feigning hurt, and let his jaw drop in mock-surprise. “I’m hurt,” he told me in an innocent voice that I never thought he’d use. He stayed frozen like that for a few more seconds before breaking out into a grin so broad it made me smile along with him.
After traversing across the street (by jaywalking, which I reluctantly agreed to because there were no cars around to run us over and no police officers nearby to haul us to the slammer), we approached the bar—Toxic, as it said on the neon sign outside—and cautiously peered in through the front window. I spotted my brother sitting at the bar so he had easy access to the bartender, with a shot sitting in front of him. He traced the rim of the shot glass with his finger, but didn’t actually drink anything yet. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
It intrigued me how Hunter could stare through the window so casually, as if he were window shopping instead of spying on his friend’s older brother and plotting to set him up with his sister. Maybe he had done this before. Either that or he was simply a good actor.
“Okay, so what’s the plan again?” Just like when I studied, it helped me remember things when I (or in this case, Hunter) repeated them.
“One, we get our siblings drunk. Two, we lock them in a motel room together,” he recited. “Understand?”
“Yeah. Just one problem: I’m eighteen.”
He blinked. “So?”
“So the legal drinking age in Ontario is nineteen,” I reminded him. “They won’t serve me any alcohol.” Hunter got held back a year, which meant he was already nineteen. I, however, was only eighteen and still underage. Not that I would order any alcohol for myself, oh, no, not after how my parents died, but it might be helpful if I could order drinks for our siblings. It was a bar, after all, and I’d appear incongruous if I didn’t.
“I can see how that might be a problem,” Hunter mused. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “I know exactly what to do.”
Placing a hand on the small of my back, Hunter guided me a few stores down until we were standing right in front of Just Pie. He held the door open rather chivalrously, and the first thing he said to me as soon as we stepped inside was, “Out of all the girls here, which one looks the most like you?”
I was taken aback by the bluntness of his question. “What?”
“Don’t ask, just answer.”
I scanned the diner as thoroughly as I could without looking like a creeper. Finally, my gaze fell upon a girl with brown eyes and dirty blond hair. Our hair colours didn’t exactly match, but they were close enough, and so were most of our other facial features. I think I found a match.
“How about her?” I nodded my head in the girl’s direction. “The girl in the blue plaid shirt over there.”
Hunter’s grin contorted into a devious smirk. Before he could ask him what he was going to do, Hunter approached the girl (who was sitting alone at one of the tables) and sat down right beside her.
I wasn’t sure what else I could’ve done other than watch, so that was just what I did.
The girl—who kept glancing at the door every few seconds as if she were expecting someone—appeared both surprised and confounded when Hunter plopped down in the chair next to her. They shook hands and presumably introduced themselves, at which point the girl’s befuddlement transformed into fierce annoyance.
Hunter’s charming grin never left his face as he talked to her and only after he slung an arm over the back of her chair had I begun to realize what he was attempting to do.
A backpack—her backpack—was hung up in the back of her chair by one of the straps, with the zipper wide open. Hunter inched his hand closer to it while diverting her gaze and keeping trained on his attractive face as he spoke. He must’ve asked her to do something because she got up and trudged over to the milkshake bar with an eye roll and an agitated huff. Meanwhile, Hunter rifled through the contents of her backpack when she wasn’t looking and pulled out a wallet. He pulled some kind of card out of it and shoved it in the front pocket of his jeans, dropping the wallet back in the bag. As he surreptitiously shot me a wink and two thumbs up, he saw the girl walking back toward the table so he casually leaned back in his seat and drummed a simple beat on the table with his hands. I had to admit, the execution of his pick-pocketing was good, even though I didn’t really approve of it.
As soon as the girl returned to the table carrying two milkshakes, Hunter planted a fake apologetic look on his face and mumbled some excuse to her. She actually looked kinda relieved. Hunter threw a crumpled bill on the table (probably to pay for his milkshake) and hastened out of the diner, dragging me along with him.
Once we were outside, he handed me the card he stole from that girl.
“Don’t worry, I’ll return it later,” he assured me before I could say anything. “Here you go—“ Hunter snuck a glance at the name on the card “—Sarah Bennett.” It was a driver’s license. And apparently, Sarah was nineteen. Perfect.
“Well you’re welcome.” He stared at me expectedly.
“Thanks,” I replied shyly, staring at the picture on the ID. “But this doesn’t really look like me.”
“No one looks like they do on their ID.” Hunter exhaled deeply. “That was harder than I thought it’d be. I tried to hit on her, but she kept telling me off ‘cause she had a boyfriend.” He rolled his eyes and muttered something incoherent under his breath.
The short walk back to Toxic (the bar Scott was at) was mostly in silence. Then, as soon as we were standing outside the bar, I thought of something we might’ve missed. “What about your sister?”
He stopped and turned around to look at me. “What about my sister?”
“How are we going to get her here? We need to get both of them drunk, right?”
Hunter slapped his hand on his forehead in a very slapstick manner. “Shit. I forgot.” Then, after a few seconds, he declared, “Oh! I know what to do!” He took out his phone and began to text rapidly, occasionally grunting profanities whenever he misspelled a word and needed to hit the backspace key about a million times because it was so slow. Finally, after a lot of strenuous effort on his part, he dramatically jabbed the send button with his index finger and exhaled deeply. “There. All taken care of.”
“What did you do?”
“I texted my sister and told her that I ran into one of her friends and she wanted to meet up at Toxic. My sister should be here soon.”
I nodded. “Okay, that’s good. Oh, and Hunter, one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“It might help if I knew your sister’s name.”
“Courtney.”
“Courtney,” I repeated to help myself remember. “Got it.”
***
We waited for Courtney to arrive before we continued on with putting our plan into action. She didn’t take as long as I expected her to, and as soon as she stepped inside and didn’t see her friend, she made her way over to an unoccupied table and sat down.
As soon as Hunter pointed her out to me, I could spot the resemblance between the two. They both had the same shade of dark brown hair and eyes to match, with a round face and defined jaw (more so for Hunter, obviously). And not to mention cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. Hunter’s sister looked like she could be a model if she wanted to, and now that I thought about it, Hunter did too. Although, if I ever told him that, he’d probably just laugh and ask what kind of drug I was on.
Hunter and I were seated at a table in the darkest corner of the bar. We both had the hoods of our sweaters drawn up over our heads, just as an extra precautionary measure. This way, neither of our siblings could see—or, most importantly, recognize—us. That would just ruin the whole plan.
“I have an idea,” Hunter told me, glancing around the bar coolly. “I’ll get your brother drunk and you get my sister drunk.”
“Okay,” I drawled out, “but how do we do that? I’ve never exactly done this before.”
“It’s alright. How about I go first and you watch and learn,” he suggested with a wink.
“Fine.”
Hunter took a deep breath and with a reckless grin, said, “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
I watched carefully as Hunter approached Scott, who was sitting on a stool at the bar, tipping his head back to take another shot. A small army of empty glasses were lined up in front of him. Hunter would help guide him to drunkenness. That is, is he wasn’t already.
Hunter hopped on the stool beside my brother and casually ran a hand through his hair. Then, after a few seconds, he addressed Scott.
I was sitting at a perfect table because I was close enough to hear their conversation, but I couldn’t be seen.
“Hey,” Hunter greeted.
Once my brother realized that Hunter was speaking to him, he replied with a simple “Hey.”
“Not for nothin’, man, but you look like shit,” I heard Hunter remark over the loud chit-chatting and clinking of glasses emanating from the rest of the bar. “Rough day?”
Scott scoffed. “Rough life is more like it.”
“I know what you mean, dude,” Hunter responded with a knowing sigh. “But hey, things gotta get better eventually, right?”
“Eh, I guess so.” Scott tilted his head back and swallowed another shot, contorting his face afterwards.
“How about we get some more drinks? They’re on me,” Hunter offered. “Looks like you could use some alcohol in your system. No offence.”
My brother smiled appreciatively as he introduced himself. “Thanks. I’m Scott, by the way.”
“Hunter.” He waved the bartender over and mouthed “Two beers” to him. He probably knew that even shouting couldn’t compete with the raucous din of the bar.
It amazed me how easily Hunter blended into the whole bar scene. He was like a social chameleon. In any situation given to him, he could he could fit in with anyone and everyone around him, no sweat. But unfortunately for me, I was quite the opposite, with my social ineptness following me around everywhere I went.
And that was exactly the reason I was so nervous to talk to Courtney. Hunter had done his part perfectly, smoothly, quickly and efficiently without any mistakes whatsoever. What if I said something wrong, or did something wrong? What if I totally ruined the chances of getting this whole plan to work? I had never done anything like this before, getting someone drunk, let alone a complete stranger. Excuse me for being a bit anxious about this whole ordeal.
As I approached Courtney, I noticed that three empty shot glasses were scattered on the table in front of her and she was currently working on her fourth. I really hoped that she was drunk already and wouldn’t be able to remember a second of this in the morning. It would save us both a lot of embarrassment.
“Um, hi,” I said one I reached her table. I gestured to the chair across from her, silently asking if I could take a seat. Courtney squinted at me for a while before finally nodding.
Oh God, how I hated dealing with drunk (or in Courtney’s case, slightly tipsy) people. People are stupid enough when they’re sober. Who in their right mind thought of giving them alcohol? I sounded like Hunter thinking that.
But I carried on with the plan nonetheless, the thought of my brother returning back to his old self brightening my mood a little. I was doing all this for him anyways. Well, maybe Hunter too, but mostly Scott. He was the only family I had left, and I couldn’t forget that.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down. The chair wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the ones at Just Pie. Not knowing what else to say, I asked, “You’re Courtney, right? Hunter’s sister?” Out of all the possible things I could’ve said, that was the one I blurted out? Coming off as a stalker wasn’t my initial intention when Hunter and I planned this, but if she was too buzzed to care, whatever worked, right?
I was right. She was already tipsy, heading in the direction of drunkenness, lucky me. And because of that, she hadn’t really picked up on my question, answering it like it was totally not creepy and lots of random people asked her that every day. “Yeah, he’s my brother,” she slurred. “Why?”
“So we can drink to him!” I blurted out. I ordered us some drinks (a simple shot for me and a Kamikaze for her. What? Scott made me watch Cocktail and all eleven seasons of Cheers with him more times than I could count; I knew a little something about alcoholic beverages even though I might not have wanted to) and we ceremoniously clinked our glasses together with a sharp ping and exclaimed, “Cheers!” Courtney wolfed her drink down, and she didn’t even notice me slide my shot across the table to her.
Drunk people are stupid.
***
The next morning, I woke up hangover-free (obviously). I tried to stretch my arms over my head, but I ended up bumping my hands on something and instantly retracted them. Frantically glancing around, I realized I wasn’t in my bedroom. I wasn’t even in a bed. I was in a car, and I didn’t even own a car so it couldn’t have been mine. It wasn’t Scott’s either, since there weren’t any fuzzy ten-sided dice dangling from the rear-view mirror.
Oh wait a minute… I was in “The Enterprise” as Hunter liked to refer to his car as. A brisk glance to the left confirmed my suspicions. Hunter was lying in the driver’s seat, which was reclined as far back as it could go. His feet were (somehow) propped up on the steering wheel, crossed at the ankles, and his arms were folded across his chest. Soft snores emanated from his half-open mouth.
Suddenly, my recollection of all the events that happened last night flooded back and hit me like a ton of bricks. After we had gotten each other’s siblings drunk, we loaded them into Hunter’s car and brought them to this motel (the one we were presently parked in front of). Hunter didn’t want to pay for a room, so he took his fake cop uniform (he said it was his Halloween costume last year), put it on and randomly chose one of the motel rooms to go to. He knocked on the door and when someone answered (luckily for us, they were gullible teenagers) he said he was with the Maple Valley PD and they needed that room to use for a sting operation. They actually let us use that room. The whole thing was quite amusing, really.
So then, we locked Scott and Courtney inside (well, we didn’t actually lock them inside; we just put them in there and hoped they were too drunk to open doors) and waited. We stayed up most of the night to see if they’d try to escape, but they didn’t. So we ended up talking for most of the night. It felt like a sleepover (except we slept in his car and made sure our inebriated siblings didn’t try to run away in the middle of the night). And when I asked Hunter what exactly we were waiting for to happen, he just said, “They’re drunk and in a motel room. What do you think is gonna happen?”
I checked my watch. It was nine o’clock on a Sunday. I ruminated whether or not I should wake Hunter up. I wanted to go back to sleep (we crashed at about five in the morning and I was dead tired), but I thought that maybe we should check up on Scott and Courtney first.
I poked Hunter in the arm. “Hey, wake up,” I whispered. “Hey, Hunter, wake up.” When I received no response other than a muffled snore, I resorted to shaking his lightly by the shoulders. That didn’t do much either, so I went back to poking his arm.
Eventually, Hunter stirred and mumbled, “If you want to feel my biceps, all you have to do is ask.” Then he flexed (almost elbowing me in the face in the process) and shot me a tired yet cocky grin.
“You know, you’re really hard to wake up.”
“Good mornin’ to you too, sunshine,” he said sarcastically. “What the hell time is it?”
“Nine.”
“In the morning?” he exclaimed incredulously. His eyes would’ve bugged out of their sockets if only he could keep them open long enough. “Ah, screw that, I’m going back to sleep.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.
I flicked him in the temple.
“Hey! What was that for?”
Ignoring that, I said, “Shouldn’t we check up on Scott and Courtney?”
“Then can I sleep in peace?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
Once we got out of the car, Hunter and I sleepily shuffled over to Scott and Courtney’s motel room, dragging our feet the entire way there. The door was unlocked, just as we had left it last night, and as soon as I stepped in the dingy motel room, I realized that Scott and Courtney were exactly as we had left them last night. They were both passed out in separate beds. It seemed like they had an uneventful night.
“Well… This isn’t exactly how I wanted the plan to turn out,” Hunter mused, frowning slightly.
I crept around the room, assessing it thoroughly. “They’re asleep,” I stated.
Hunter walked over to my brother’s bed and carefully held up the blanket between his thumb and index finger, and lifted it up slightly. He held the blanket away from his body and tried to touch it as minimally as possible. Never trust sheets from seedy motels. You never know where they’ve been (not that I wanted to know, but I already had an inkling of an idea). “And fully clothed. Doesn’t look like anything happened here,” he concluded with a heavy sigh.
“Maybe next time, right?”
Hunter stared at me as a pleased grin lit up his face, making his eyes twinkle. “Next time? Does that mean you’re not totally against helping me set them up another time?” He didn’t even try to hide the excitement in his tone.
“If you think it’ll help Scott, then sure,” I told him, seeing how much it appeased Hunter.
“Not only Scott. My sister too.”
“Even better,” I said, reciprocating the grin. “But only if you think of a plan that doesn’t involve getting them intoxicated.” I didn’t want taking care of a hungover Scott to be a weekly experience. I didn’t imagine Scott’s liver wanting that either.
“Deal. Now help me drag these two to the car. We ought to get them home.”
***
A few hours after Hunter had dropped Scott and I off at home and assisted in getting him to his room, Scott woke up with a terrible hangover, just as I predicted. This was one of the reasons (out of many) I didn’t drink.
“Charlie,” Scott said tiredly, “do you think you could make me some breakfast?”
“Here.” I tossed a bottle of Advil to him and handed him a glass of water.
“What’s this?”
“Breakfast.”
“Wow. Thanks,” he said dryly. “Give the chef my regards.” He still popped two pills in his mouth and gulped them down with a swig of water.
“What did you expect, beer for breakfast? Besides, if you eat any real food it’s just going to come up again and end up in the toilet,” I warned.
“Right.”
I was about to walk away when Scott spoke up again. “And Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about getting drunk. And the way I acted before. I should be the one taking care of you, not the other way around.” He sounded so disappointed in himself. He shouldn’t be; it wasn’t entirely his fault.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re probably still torn about Tiffany. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling now.” I gave him an assuring smile to tell him that it was going to be okay.
Scott abruptly groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. I thought it had something to do with Tiffany, but he quickly went on to explain, “My head killing me. And I can’t even remember a single thing that happened last night. Or this morning, up until I woke up a few minutes ago.”
“Maybe you just had a little too much to drink.” Then before I forgot, I added, “Oh, and I’m not mad at you for getting drunk or anything. It wasn’t your fault.” It was Hunter’s. And mine too, of course, but mostly Hunter’s. After all, he was the mastermind behind that plan.
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Sarah Bennett ;) haha anyone get THAT reference? ;P
Love Drunk by Boys Like Girls on the side ---->
I imagine Maple Valley to be in Ontario (Canada) and that's why the legal drinking age is 19, not 21 like in other places :)
"There are no such thing as bad ideas. Just poorly executed awesome ideas."-Damon, The Vampire Diaries :) sorry, i just like that quote :D
--Amy
Oh yeah, I have a question for you guys. Who's your favourite superhero and why? Or least favourite? Don't forget to give me a reason why. Who knows, maybe your answer will end up in a future chapter :D So tell me your least favourite/ favourite superhero in the comments (and don't forget to give me a reason) :D