Lola shrugs, totally unfazed.“You wear this blindfold.Someone else holds the mic.And if you want to make it funnier, you spin the person around until they don’t know which way is up.Duh.”
I laugh as Aubrey walks over and plops down on the couch next to me.
“This is gonna be one of those nights,” she mutters, pulling a throw pillow into her lap.“I can feel it already.”
“Lola doesn’t do chill,” I say, nudging her with my elbow.“You knew what this was the second you walked in and smelled fire and sugar.”
Aubrey exhales a slow breath and moves closer to me, speaking softly.“Yeah, but you know what?Some part of me… the really naïve, stupid part of me thought maybe tonight we’d do normal people things.A board game.A face mask.Perhaps we’d talk about our feelings—”
Lola gasps suddenly, as if a lightning bolt of chaos just struck her brain, and darts back into the kitchen, nearly wiping out on a rogue sock skidding across the hardwood.
“Oh no,” Aubrey laughs, watching her disappear with wide eyes.“She’s sprinting.That’s never good.Not in socks and not with that glint in her eye.”
“Heaven help us,” I mumble.
Liz sniffles beside me, dabbing at her eye with the sleeve of her oversized hoodie.“I’m going to miss this,” she says, voice thick with tears she’s trying to blink away.
Aubrey shifts closer and wraps an arm around her, pulling her in gently.“Yeah,” she says, her smile softening.“Lola’s crazy.But she’s sweet, funny, and somehow always gets away with everything.I swear, I’ve never been able to stay mad at her for more than two seconds.”She glances back toward the kitchen and raises a playful eyebrow.“What part are you going to miss the most, Liz?The spontaneous combustion cookies or the risk of being knocked unconscious by karaoke?”
“All of it,” Liz says, letting out a laugh.“The dumb stuff.The not-actually-singing competitions.The almost-burning-the-house-down bonding rituals.”
“And the glitter,” Aubrey adds with a mock shudder.“You know there’ll be glitter.”
Liz laughs harder this time, wiping at her cheeks.“There’s always glitter.”
“I swear to God, if she comes back in here with a piñata, I’m leaving,” Aubrey says.
A loud crash echoes from the kitchen.
“Lola!”we all shout in unison, already bracing for whatever new disaster she’s brewed up.
She reappears in the doorway, smiling brightly.One hand holds a ridiculously fluffy pink blindfold, while the other carries a bag of rainbow glitter.
“You guys,” she says breathlessly, “I totally forgot I bought sparkles for this.Blindfolded karaoke just got a glow-up.”
There’s a moment of silence before we lose it.
Aubrey’s head drops into her hands as she bursts out laughing, snorting.“This is how we die,” she wheezes.“Smothered in sugar and suffocated by glitter.”
Liz doubles over, gasping for air.“I can’t… oh my God, I can’t… ” Her laugh turns into hiccupy little sobs, tears spilling freely down her cheeks.
I slide off the couch in a completely undignified heap, clutching my ribs.“I’m gonna pee,” I manage through the wheezing.“I swear to God, I’m gonna pee.”
Lola grins, completely unbothered, and holds up the pink blindfold again.“So… are we doing glitter karaoke or what?I also have glow sticks.”
That sets us off all over again.
Liz slides down until she’s lying on the carpet.Aubrey crawls off the couch to join me on the floor, still snorting uncontrollably.
Through it all, there’s this warmth—a reminder of why nights like this matter, because no one else understands us the way we understand each other.
Hours later, the chaos has finally eased into something quieter, softer around the edges.
The room has shifted in the quiet way that time does when you’re not paying attention.When laughter fades and bodies settle into corners of the couch with fleece blankets draped over their legs, remnants of snacks are scattered across the coffee table.There’s glitter on the rug.The karaoke mic lies abandoned upside down in the beanbag, and someone’s stuck googly eyes on the popcorn bowl.
It’s well past midnight, but no one is ready to call it.The energy has softened into something calmer now.Dim lights.Bare feet.The occasional yawn, muffled by a hoodie sleeve.One of Liz’s socks is hanging off the back of the couch, and no one knows how it got there.
Lola sprawls across the floor, braiding Liz’s hair without asking as Liz scrolls through her phone.Aubrey is curled sideways in the armchair, nursing a cold drink she should have finished hours ago.The steady hum of a mellow playlist plays in the background—quiet enough that no one really hears the words, just the mood it creates.
