Disingenuous

1. Knight

May 20, 2018

Jackson was famous. If nothing else about him was particularly important, he still had that. He told himself that a lot when things were feeling especially difficult. He was famous, and that made him matter.

He knew it was true because when you typed J-A-C-K into the google search bar, his name was the second suggestion that came up. If you clicked on it, there was a whole web page about how famous he was.

Jackson Knight. Rock star. 31 years old. Coveted brown eyes. Shaggy brown hair. So many tattoos. The fans drooled.

All the important points were there. That was the evidence. He mattered. His mother could be proud. She wasn't, but that wasn't the point. She could be. That was key. Could.

At least he had a rockstar name, he thought. Jackson Knight. He'd been told there was a certain ring to it, but he'd always thought the fact that his initials were still J.K. was kind of a cosmic joke. Sometimes he felt that part was probably fitting too.

He didn't know why he was thinking about this while his friends were in his living room watching the soccer game, but he was. His thoughts tended to wander, especially with other people around. It was just the norm.

He was sitting in a chair next to and slightly behind the sofa. He'd chosen that seat to be next to the table up against the wall which he'd affectionately labeled his "Booze Table." It was really more like a bar, but it was just a fold up table that was sagging slightly under the weight of so many bottles and he always thought it would be disrespectful to home bars everywhere if he called it that. He could afford a real bar anyways. He'd chosen not to build one. That meant he had to call it what it was. A "Booze Table."

Anyways, he'd sat back there so he could have easy access to the table and so that nobody would try to track how many times his cup was refilled. Nobody would really care, he thought, except for Seb of course. Seb didn't say anything, but Jackson had caught him quietly watching too many times.

Seb was sitting on the floor a few feet infront of him now. From his seat behind him, he could see with unruly blonde hair sticking up a bit. He knew for sure he was a little drunk because he was doing that thing he did after too many drinks where he rocked his head. At 20, he was the youngest in the room, and he was certainly treated like it. That's why he'd been banished to the floor. Jackson almost felt bad for him, but certainly not enough to offer him his chair.

On the curving sectional, spread out to prevent Seb from joining them, were three other men. They were all closer to Jackson's age, but he didn't really keep track specifically. The closest was David, and by Jackson's observation, he was also drunk. He didn't have any body language to prove it, but since he'd been sitting next to the table, Jackson knew. The other two were Patrick and Roosevelt. They were mostly sober. Roosevelt was sat in the middle and had a beer, but Patrick didn't seem to drink that often and held a Sprite instead. That was something Jackson had noticed.

The Timbers were losing on the tv. He also noticed that.

"I'm just going to do it!" David exclaimed out of nowhere. He raised his hand sloshing his drink in the process, and looked around at everyone excitedly. In the dimness of the room, the TV reflecting in his eyes made then practically glow with the backdrop of his dark brown skin. "100 dollars says the Timbs turn it around before the end!"

"You're on!" Patrick agreed enthusiastically. "The games almost over! They're done for."

"I thought we agreed we weren't going to encourage David's gambling," Seb sighed with a shake of his head.

Jackson couldn't remember who had invited everyone over. He didn't actually like soccer, but Seb seemed pretty interested so it might have been him. He did that sometimes when he seemed to think Jackson needed to talk to more people.