Calem looked around as the lights dimmed. Swaying slightly on his feet, the alcohol hitting him harder than he'd admit, he began trying to add things up. Between prying questions from Liah, the impression he'd gotten that Cynthia was the hellish hybrid of troublemaker and meddling aunt, and the shit-eating grin he'd spotted on Liah's face just now, he was beginning to suspect that something was up. Now he had to figure out if he was going to hang around, or find cover before the crazy hit.
A Simple Summer Party (#13)
The jig was up, and this time it wasn’t Calem’s fault.
No.
This time Cynthia had been brought down by her own hubris (and her drunken inability to untag geo-locations when sending smartass images to the person who’s house she was breaking and entering into.)
Her own existential crisis had been bad enough, she didn’t need guilt.
Leaning her chin on her hand she spots Calem, appearing to make a break for it. He seems a little ruffled, not to mention unstable, and Cyntha realises she never got that full report from Liah. She’d been- Er- distracted....
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” she chides.
The young man stiffens, caught in the act, and slowly turns his glower towards her. Cynthia replies with a forced smile, patting the seat opposite her at the kitchen counter-top, “Nah, I don’t care. Sit.”
Surprisingly he obliges with little complaint and even accepts the drink she presents him with, eyeing her with caution until he finally mutters; “You’re plotting something.”
“I have been plotting to get you to make-out with Barry or Dawn or both all night, but that’s a lesson for another time,” she sips her own glass of... she’s pretty sure it’s rum... with the sombre aura of a jaded old man conned of his fortune. The accusation seemed of little consequence now. “Connor, sometimes you think you’re in control and then like... You do dumb shit because you’re human and other people get dumb about it ‘cause they’re human and well... You know? Basically we should just fucking be nicer because we’re insifnicant specks in the universe and like, we’re all gonna die someday.”
In the back of her mind there claws a beast with glowing red eyes and the roll of thunder. It brings with it calamity and fear and vast, endless galaxies until Cynthia chases it away with a sip of her mystery(?) rum.
She takes a deep breath through the nose. She will not behave like a weeping teenager at her own party. She had a little more class than that - thank you very much.
“So what ’m saying, Connor,” she leans towards Calem and clacks her drink clumsily with his. A gesture of a truce that was easily missed thanks to her questionable motor functions. “Is lighten up and enjoy the moment, yeah? Kiss someone cute because you might not be able to tomorrow.”