Drinking Games

With the holiday weekend approaching, I stayed late at work on Thursday. I had nothing better to do and figured I could use this time to impress the boss enough to make me a permanent employee (with health insurance!).

In the car I turned my phone back on since the Scott debacle and found out I had two voice messages. The second one was from Christopher, who wanted to know if I wanted to come over and watch movies either tonight or tomorrow. I pumped my fist in the air. Karma had rewarded me! The universe acknowledges closure and my kickass work ethic and provides me with another date.

After dinner with friends, I arrived at Christopher's a little after 10 o'clock. I was even bold enough to pack an overnight bag and bring it inside his apartment. We flipped through channels while deciding which movie to put in, either Saw (his choice) or Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (my choice, which turned out to be cute when I watched it the next night).

When Saw was over, I opened my bag and brought out Drinking Jenga, a homemade game in which I took the blocks of Jenga and wrote typical drinking-game rules on them. When you pull a block, you have that rule to complete. Christopher doesn't have cable, so I brought some things to do besides watching the public-access Christian comedy channel. He was suspect of the game at first, but quickly liked it.

After a few games (and subsequently a few beers), we decided to take a midnight walk in the city. His borough is safer than my old one, and it's become a thing we've done over the past couple of visits. His apartment is so small (we both can't stand in the New York-style kitchen at the same time; we have to take turns) that it feels good to get out for a change of scenery.

Around 4 a.m. I grew so tired I couldn't keep my head up. Christopher shuts off the t.v. and announces it's time for bed. With the last bit of energy I had left from the week, I sprint towards the bedroom and belly-flop on the bed. Christopher laughed as he tugged the sheets out from under me. He turns out the lights and makes his move, but I stopped him.

"What are your intentions?"

"What?"

The drinking-game beers must have made me brave. "What are you intentions?" I repeated. It was dark in the bedroom and I couldn't see his face, but the fact his arm still rested on my stomach was a good sign.

"With what?" he said, clearly stalling.

"With me. What are your intentions with me?" I rolled over and put my head on his shoulder. His arm still laid across me.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked back. The tone of his voice told me he was asking my opinion, and not acting out in frustration.

"I don't want you to say anything. I just want to know the truth." I sighed, "I'm really not interested in playing games."

"Me neither," he agreed. He paused, "What do you want?"

"No!" I laughed. "I asked you first!"

"Well now I'm asking you."

I thought back to the games part of what I said, and how I'm really only interested in playing games like Drinking Jenga. They're more fun and have an ending to them; you can stop playing any time you want. "I like you, Christopher," I said simply and plainly. "And I want to take things slowly and see if there is a future for us." I thought back to a conversation I had once with Jack in which I sprung the DTR, and I thought about how different that conversation was to this one.

"I like you too," Christopher said back to me. "I wouldn't call you and play Drinking Jenga with you and lay in bed naked with you if I felt otherwise," he explained. "I think relationships don't stand a chance if you don't have an underlying friendship basis for them and that's what I'm doing here."

"I just don't want to be your dirty little secret like I was last time." I know M-Joy gave me some sound advice on letting that stuff go, but I had to make my feelings known about it first.

"You weren't."

"You didn't tell your friends about me."

"Yes I did."

"You're so stone-y," I fumbled. "I've had a few beers so I can't think of the word, but stone-y like stone, not like high."

"Stoic?"

"Yes! You're so stoic. You don't reveal anything about yourself and I need to feel validated in this."

"Well I did tell them about you."

"I told my friends about you tonight," I admitted.

"You did? What did you say?"

"I said you look like Ray Liotta without the pockmarks."

"You think I look like Ray Liotta?"

"Yeah, you both have green eyes."

"What did they say about me?"

"Nothing. Harvey was laughing too hard about the pockmark comment I made. She thought it was funny. My friends--"

I was about to say something about her inviting Christopher over for the next beer-pong tournament, but he had begun to kiss me and did not stop.