“Water! Water!” I panted, frantically trying to wipe the taste of butt spray off my tongue with my fingers, but nothing eliminated the burn. Frantic, I dipped my hand into the atrium’s koi pond, scooped up some water, and flushed my mouth with soggy fish shit.
Quinn’s hysterics hit a fever pitch. I wasn’t positive, but I was pretty sure he might actually have peed himself a little bit. Which would have served him right, the little shit.
“You’re going to have to get used to that, Kyle,” Keith said, after catching his breath. “They’re going to make you eat all kinds of crazy crap on the show.”
“Nothing… and I meannothingwill be that disgusting,” I said coughing. “Let’s see how funny it is once you spin!”
Keith grabbed the spinner and took his turn. I felt somewhat redeemed when he got the baby wipe flavor. He tried to play it cool like Jake had, but quickly broke down and had to rinse his mouth with whiskey like the rest of us.
“Well, thanks, Quinn. That was awesome,” I said, expressionlessly.
“You’re just pissed because you ate skunk spray. I found my booger quite pleasing,” Jake joked.
“Oh, did you?” I challenged. “How about another round then, J?”
“That’s okay. I’ll pass.”
“Hey, how come you call each other J and K, but Quinn isn’t Q and Keith isn’t K-squared?” Casey asked.
“They’ve been doing that since they were seven or eight,” Keith shared. “J-K, get it?”
“Huh?” Casey’s face was twisted in confusion.
“Just kidding,” Jake elaborated. “J. K.”
“When we were kids we used to get into all kinds of trouble, so we came up with the tagline J K to ease the punishment,” I explained.
“No way!” Casey laughed. “That’s ingenious.”
“Yeah, it really wasn’t,” Keith countered. “They tried that shit on me when they destroyed my skateboard, and I still beat them both with what was left of it.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about your skateboard,” Jake laughed. “We set it on fire, right?”
“No. You blew it up.” Keith frowned as if he were remembering the day quite clearly.
“How’d you manage that?” Casey asked.
“With a firework,” I explained. “We strapped it on, lit it, then sent it down the ramp. It was awesome until it exploded… then it was epic.”
“The firework was called the Red, White, and Bomb! What did you expect?” Keith complained.
“Why didn’t you use your own skateboards?” Casey asked.
“We didn’t want to ruin ours. Geez, Casey. Use your brain,” Jake teased.
“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry.”
“And they thought their little tagline would save them.” Keith shook his head. “So naïve.”
“I don’t remember any of this,” Quinn whined.
“That’s because you were still walking around with shit in your diaper,” I said.
“I missed out on everything! It sucks that I’m so much younger than you guys.”
“Yeah, well, at least you have your whole life ahead of you. We’re all old and washed up,” Keith said with a dramatic sigh.
“Oh, yeah, a group of hot, young washed-up has-beens,” Casey laughed, fanning her hand in front of her face. “If we could all be so lucky.”
