I backtrack to the bathroom and bend down to reach the very back of the cupboard under the sink. There’s a bunch of random crap in here to hide the three plastic pill bottles with my name printed on the prescription labels. I pop my evening dose into my mouth and then hang my head under the sink faucet, washing the pill down with a few gulps of water. After I double check that the bottles are still hidden, I head out to make my way over to Stéphanie’s place.
There is an actual cake in the apartment when I show up. It’s hard to tell since a few pieces are missing already, but I think it’s supposed to be shaped like a dick. Pop music is blasting, and the tiny living room/kitchen is filled with girls in mini dresses dancing and drinking champagne. Ace is the only other guy in sight.
This is a very ideal situation.
“Save me!”Ace shouts over the noise, getting up from the couch and meeting me by the door.
“Save you?” I repeat. “Mon gars, look around you. This is paradise, man. This is what happens when rock stars die and go to heaven.”
Stéphanie pops up by Ace’s side to say hi to me, and Ace throws an arm around her shoulders.
“No,” he corrects me, “thisis what happens when rock stars die and go to heaven.”
He glances at Stéphanie and I pretend to gag.
“This”—he gestures around the room with his free hand—“is just a shit show.”
One of the girls trips over the arm of the couch and lands on her back on the cushions. The piece of cake she was holding smears all over her chest.
“Lucy’s having too much fun eating dick!” someone shouts.
I turn back to Ace. “Paradise, man.”
By the time Matt and Cole show up, we have all the furniture in the room piled up by the wall to make a dance floor, and I’m showing off my ‘Single Ladies’ moves. Learning that routine was the gift that keeps on giving. Stéphanie’s friends are standing in a circle around me, cheering me on.
“NO!” I hear Matt roar, just as I look up to see him shutting the apartment door behind him and his girlfriend.
The song is almost over. I’m about to drop into my break dance speciality to finish things off: the worm.
“Not the worm!” Matt keeps shouting. “You’re so fucking bad at the worm!”
One of the girls hears him too and starts chanting, “Do the worm! Do the worm!”
The rest of my audience joins in with her, so of course, I do the worm. Matt might think I suck at it, but the girls go crazy and take turns hugging me as soon as I’m done. Stéphanie turns down the music after that, and everyone boos for awhile until she threatens to kick them out if they don’t quiet down. They’re soon distracted by the new people in the room, and I take the chance to grab myself a piece of dick.
Cake. Dick cake.
“Cole’s by himself.”
I look over my shoulder to see Stéphanie standing behind me as I cut a piece of the cake. She’s speaking in French for once, and I continue in the same language.
“Ouias,” I agree, “not a good sign.”
Things between Cole and his girlfriend Roxanne have been even rockier than usual lately. They break up and make up so often it’s like watching a ping pong match, but nobody likes having to see Cole brooding and moping around whenever the ball flies out of the court.
Not that anyone who doesn’t know him well could tell his Roxanne brooding from his normal brooding.
“Where’s your littlelapin, by the way?” I ask.
I’ve had my eyes on Molly’s bedroom door all night. I was hoping she might turn up and see some of my dance moves—because that’s a gift everyone deserves—but I guess she’s out for the night.
“Oh, she’s home,” Stéphanie replies. “I told her we could have the party somewhere else if it was going to bother her, but she said it was okay. I know she’d say that even if it wasn’t okay, though. Poor Molly. I need to get these girls out of here before I get us evicted.”
“She’s been in her room this whole time?”
Stéphanie nods and swipes some of the icing off my cake before walking away.
I stare at Molly’s room for a moment before I turn back to the kitchen counter and cut another piece off the now mostly destroyed dick. Plopping it onto a plate, I carry it with me across the apartment and raise my hand to knock on the closed bedroom door.
