Everyone cheers when Joe and I enter the dressing room, both carrying trays of shots. There's absolutely no chance of us getting a table in the club on Halloween so we make use of the employee space—the music is just as enjoyable here, if not more. The others've got a head start while Joe and I have been on shift. They've set up a foldable table at the centre of the room, everyone gathered on vanity chairs around it, sufficiently drunk for two am.
I place a tray of shots on one end of the table and Joe on the other. Sarah and I are strictly on a Red Bull diet so I sit between her and Parker, currently making up sea shanties in accordance with their Sea Hawk costume.
'Now that we're all here,' Rishi says, shaking the bag of Zombie Dice theatrically, 'we can play.'
He tries to explain the rules to Joe and Eilidh who've never played before but he's so drunk that the instructions are barely decipherable, especially not with Caleb butting in with equally undecipherable jokes. Rishi doesn't dignify them with reactions. He keeps his natural Derry drone, better suited for Mermista than the poshness of Duchess.
'And we play like men,' Rishi concludes, pumping a fist in the air in imitation of a soldier about the enter battle, 'so each shotgun you get is also a shot. Unless you don't wanna take one, in which case it's a sip of water.'
Joe inspects the card Rishi hands her to track her brains and shotguns. 'Are you sure this is a good idea?'
'Oh, it's a terrible idea.' Rishi switches momentarily into Duchess: 'But we cannot surrender now, darling.'
Half an hour later, Caleb falls off his wheelchair, and I decide it's time for a break. Eilidh, who is relatively sober because she's got too much muscle to ever get drunk, lifts him back into it. The chair is dressed up as Emily the Bot and he talks to it like he expects a response. The three of us head outside for some fresh air while the others rush to dance.
When I find Joe in the club twenty minutes later, though, she's leaning against the wall between the bar and the employee door, holding a plastic cup of water as she catches her breath.
I try not to look because we're friends and the whole attraction thing is gonna pass, but the leggings and leotard give me information about her body I would've been better off never finding out. Joe seems to prefer baggy clothes; if she wears a sports bra as a top, it's always paired with men's trousers that give their best effort to cover up her curves. In general, the masc style is what I'm drawn to more but I'll need electroshock therapy to erase this costume out of my brain.
As in: Her thighs and the space between her thighs. I bet Joe knows how to use a strap-on well effectively. She– No. Don't think about that. Erase!
'Admiring anyone specific?'
Joe nearly spills her water as I materialise beside her. She pushes me away with a limp brush of her hand on my arm, a lacklustre "don't sneak up on me like that". Her attention returns to the crowd dancing to Dracula's Wedding for a moment before she processes my question.
'No.' She huffs, shoulders slumping. 'How do people do it?'
'Do what?'
'The sex stuff.' I start my best attempt at a sex ed lesson but she cuts me off. 'It was bad for me to get into a relationship so early—I never got any practice. It would've been fine to be awkward about it at uni cause everyone is, but at twenty-six, it's just embarrassing. Maybe I should let my mum arrange my marriage.'
YOU ARE READING
NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | ✓
RomanceNicolás Velez is done with casual sex. Listen, yes, he might've slept with everyone in his flat within the first week of living in halls and had a respectable run on Grindr, but what eighteen-year-old wouldn't? He's almost twenty-four now, though...
