Layla

“No, she said nice things to him, Rock. Don’t ruin the moment,” I admonished, catching him when he swayed again.

“She said he wasn’t poop, he was shit, girl.”

“Yeah, that’s sweet, though,” I argued.

A glass of water appeared on the table in front of Cyh, and we all followed the arm attached to the hand still holding it, our heads moving up at the same time.

“Hey, Kapono,” Jacinda greeted, throwing her arm out in a wave and hitting him in the crotch. “Can I call you—” she stopped when she realized he wasn’t standing next to her anymore and looked around. “Hey, where’d he go?”

“A magician,” Cyn squealed. “Okay, who’s got the wand?”

“Jesus, you guys are dangerous,” Mark chuckled as he bent over to pick something up from the ground next to Rockie.

“Oh, hey, he found Kapono. I thought it was a hobo, which rhymes with Kapono!” Rockie clicked his fingers like he’d just discovered the answer to life’s biggest mystery.

Kapono had his teeth gritted and was glaring at Jacinda. “You hit me in the balls.”

She gaped up at him, her head tipped back. “Was that what the squishy thing was?”

“Squishy things—plural—and yes,” he growled, standing slightly hunched over.

His eyes slid to Cyn when she choked on her drink and spluttered, “You hit him in the testicularees?”

“Apparently. I just thought I’d hit a ghost or something,” Jacinda whispered, glancing at Kapono nervously.

Either Cyn was the best drunken actress in the world, or she’d perfected the ability to tune him out like he genuinely didn’t exist because she didn’t even look at him as she burst out laughing.

“I’ve heard that sucks when that happens. I once kicked a rugby ball to my brother and his friends when they were training, but no one told me or even warned me that those things shoot off in weird directions and spin like a mutha.”

She held her finger up and took another mouthful out of her glass. “So, rugby balls are shaped like an oval with pointy ends on either side—”

“Like a football,” Roque added.

Cyn tipped her head back to look up at him. “No, they’re round, mate.”

“They most certainly are not,” he argued firmly, and I had to hazard a guess that he’d likely played the game once upon a time.

“They are. Round like a ping bong pall.”

I blinked at the description, but it made perfect sense to me, and my head was beginning to thump again, so I waved it away.

“Cyn’s talking about British football, not American,” Mark interjected, looking at me worriedly.

Did I have egg on my face? Ugh, just the thought of eating eggs made me want to throw up.

Roque frowned at him. “You mean soccer?”

Over that part of the discussion, Rockie clicked his fingers at Cyn. “You can’t stop there, I’m invested in this story. So, you had the ball, kicked it, and it spun?”

She looked confused for a moment, like she’d forgotten what she was telling us, but then made an “aah” noise.

“Yeah, I was pissed off because it’d hit me, but I didn’t know it was going to go to the side instead of straight ahead, did I? And it was spinning, too. Crazy stuff.”

When she didn’t add anything, Kapono looked like he was going to throttle her.

“That’s it?” Rockie’s shoulders slumped.

“Yeah, apart from where it hit this guy in the knackers, and I had to run for my life.”