Sober Up

all my friends, we smile at party time (but we forget to smile at anything else)

April 9, 1982

As Steve walked into the party, he waved at a giggling group of girls in the corner. He scanned the crowd and, once he noticed the man he was looking for, walked over toward Tommy. Once Steve reached him, they shook hands and slapped each other on the back, greeting each other in typical teenage boy fashion. They started talking, discussing the basketball game the night before last, and Steve flashed a grin at some girl walking by. As she blushed, Tommy's expression seemed to sour a bit.

"What's up, man?" Steve asked, detecting the mood shift, and wanting to cheer up his friend. He had learned over the years that unhappy people meant bad things were coming, and he didn't want anything bad to happen tonight.

"Nothin'!" Tommy said hurriedly, and Steve was too scared didn't care enough to press. He just nodded and walked towards the cooler of beer. He grabbed a bottle and popped the top off with the bottle opener that was laying on the counter above the cooler. He leaned back against the counter casually and began to sip from his bottle.

"So, how's it going with you and Carol?" Steve asked, trying to make polite conversation and distract Tommy from whatever was eating at him. He thought he did a pretty good job of sounding normal, but he didn't really have any comparison for what normal sounded like.

"Fine," Tommy responded, seemingly annoyed with something. He huffed and turned away from Steve, and Steve furrowed his brow a tiny bit, trying to figure out what was making Tommy mad and how to fix it. After a while, he felt himself becoming annoyed and decided to find some other people to hang out with.

"Good for you guys! I'm gonna go talk to some of the guys from the basketball team," He said, successfully masking his annoyance and escaping the conversation all at once. Steve walked away from Tommy, knowing that he would be upset but not really caring. He saw one of the freshmen who had just joined the basketball team and went over to go greet him.

"Hey Jason, how's it going?" Steve said, slapping him on the back as he walked up.

"Pretty good man, how about you?" Jason replied, ducking away from Steve's hand.

"Good," Steve said simply. Jason just nodded and went back to his previous conversation. Steve hung around for a while, just taking in all the sights and sounds around him. Sometimes he thought that he was more relaxed at some random stranger's house during a party than he had ever been in his own home. This was where he was in his element, and he could just put up his favorite facade. Here he was 'King Steve', and everyone adored him. Here he could be Steve 'The Hair' Harrington, and his classmates could revere him. No one called him weak or useless, and he could just have some fun.

Eventually, he got bored of just listening to Jason and his friend talk about how cool they were now and began to scan the room. His eyes landed on a girl, and he decided that now was the point in the evening when it was time to find a female companion.

He began walking over to the group of girls he had just seen and as he reached them, he started talking to the specific girl that had caught his eye. He sidled up next to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, and he decided to go with a semi-cheesy pickup line tonight.

"You know, your smile has been lighting up the room all night, and I just had to come and say hello," he said to her. He watched, proud of himself, as her face flushed and she giggled out a thank you. Steve continued chatting with her, finding out that her name was Jessica and that she was currently single.

After learning that little tidbit of information, Steve said "How could such a beautiful girl as you be single? Any guy would be lucky to have you,".

"Thanks!" she said, blushing even harder than she had been before and looking up at him through her eyelashes. She smiled, and Steve's instincts told him that this girl would be willing to be with him for the rest of the night.