“Wow.”
“Yeah. So he makes up this rule that nobody can go to sleep.”
“I think there was some kind of reason... I just can’t think of it,” Xander interjected.
Mike waved him aside. “He made up this rule. So Xander, being the braintrust that he is, decides to make a rule that the first person to fall asleep gets punched by every other guy there.”
“So... how many people were there?” Cathy asked, a broad smile slowly going as she realized where this was going.
“Oh, me, Xander, him, Derek, Jamie, Grendel, Randy, Tommy, Sud, Trevor, Sheldon... everyone. Whole gang.”
“Wow. So, he’d get like... ten punches.”
“Not just punches, Charlie Horses. You’d want to cut off your own leg to get rid of the pain after the tenth one. So that’s all well and good, but around six a.m. everyone’s starting to doze off... except Keenan.”
“Think he was still on Canada time or something,” Xander added, squinting.
“Whatever. Every time I started to doze, he’d come over and clock me in the jaw and then just run away!” Mike laughed, making his fingers scamper away as he did. “Just like that! The fucking monkey would just sneak up, slam me in the face and then run around the court!”
Xander tapped Cathy, his eyes wet with tears. “He’d always catch him and hit him once or twice in the arm and be like ‘you better not do that again’... then five minutes later, it would happen all over again.”
“Where were Trevor and Randy for that part?”
“They went fishing, I think. Said it was best in the morning, we called them crazy, they came back with thirty or so fish.”
“Right.” Mike nodded, pointing at Xander. He could only remain serious a moment before starting to laugh. “God, was that the night we played twenty-ones?”
Xander smiled.
“Forget I asked,” Mike said quickly, raising both hands for Xander to stop.
“Why?” Cathy smiled, looking from one to the other. “What else happened?”
Xander turned to her, still smiling. “He didn’t beat me at a single game that night. Nothing.”
Cathy raised an eyebrow to Mike, who had turned away from the both of them.
“We were playing twenty-ones and I was on a streak. He had, like, one basket.”
“Two,” he chirped in a low voice.
“That one doesn’t count and you know why, don’t make me say it.” He waited for Mike’s retort.
There was none.
“Anyway,” he continued, leaning in closer to Cathy as if the exclude Mike from comment. “I was up fifteen from him, and that never happens, so he and the guys started trying to come up with ways to distract me whenever it was my turn to shoot.”
Her eyes bulged slightly. “Like what?”
“We mooned him,” Mike said, his hands over his eyes.
“You started making dirty jokes.” Xander added, listing off things on his fingers.
“We farted on you.”
“None of it fazed me,” Xander said triumphantly.
“What was it that eventually got to you?” Cathy asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
Xander answered, trying to choke back a laugh. “He kept telling me to picture Sara nude. I didn’t get another shot in all day.”
They all laughed, then it died down for a moment and they all took a sip of their drinks, almost simultaneously.
Cathy smirked. “Does anyone remember that stuff you guys used for non-alcoholic shots one night when we were playing pass the ace?”
“Wake up juice!” Mike and Xander both shouted simultaneously. They both burst into laughter.
Mike swished his tongue around in his mouth. “Man, that stuff was sour.”
“Not that Keenan would ever say so,” Xander scoffed. “After every shot: ‘That’s not sour’... meanwhile, his lips were sucked back far enough to taste his own tonsils.”
“I remember Grendel got out of the game before his lips even touched the stuff,” Cathy sneered at the mention of that name.
Xander kept his eye on the fridge in the corner, tossing each of them a sly look. “Remember ... how to make it?”
Mike grinned.
“Got a pen?” Cathy giggled, grabbing a sheet of paper from under the fruit basket.
Xander handed her one as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to remember. “Pure lemon juice, one bottle,” he said finally.
Mike piped up. “The water solution of dissolved sour candies.”
“Sour kool-aid mix. Seven varieties,” Cathy nodded, scrunching her nose as she wrote.
“That was your idea back in the day,” Xander said accusingly. “We hated you for it then and we’ll hate you for it now. Pepsi. One litre.”
“Milk, I think,” Mike added tentatively.
“Old milk, actually,” she corrected as she jotted it down.
He nodded in thanks.
“And finally, vanilla extract,” Xander smiled, rubbing his hands together as he snatched the list from Cathy and skipped to the fridge, peering in.
“How much do we have?” Cathy called after a minute.
“Only one type of kool-aid,” he fake frowned.
“I’m going to check myself.”
“Fine. There are two. Witch. Also, any limit on how old the milk can be?”
Mike and Cathy both exchanged looks. “No?” Mike asked, leaning forward.
“Good, cause I think this one’s so old it’s actually meat now,” he shrugged as he began pouring the contents of the list into the blender. When he was done he set it to liquefy for a moment, the chunky liquid becoming a blur as it mixed together into a weird shade of brown. “Lord, it’s more disgusting looking than I remember.”
“Hold on,” Cathy chirped, getting up and walking over. She grabbed the rest of the pot of coffee and poured it in on top of the mixture, then turned and smiled at them both. “Now it’s wake-up juice.”
Xander laughed, grabbing three glasses and pouring equal amounts into each until the blender was empty. He brought them over to the table and lay one in front of
