Page 106 of Drama Queen

“Hopefully, we all go again,” Troy quips with a wicked smile.

Kara looks at me, needing reassurance that everything is okay. Moments like this are hard as the “dad” of the group, because it falls to me to hope that we don’t let her down with whatever I say. I know she doesn’t want to lose our friendship, so I reassure her the best way I know how.

“Obviously we all want you, Kara, but like I said before, this can just be casual if that’s easier for you. Our friendships with you come first, and we all respect that. Let’s just enjoy this for now and we can figure things out if we need to when we get home.” I tell her.

She takes a moment to think and looks at each of us in turn. We’re all waiting on edge to see what she says, and when she smiles, we all release a breath.

“Okay, I can do that.”

We all cuddle closer, and within ten minutes someone’s hand starts rubbing the body next to them and we all start on round two. Our impromptu orgy lasts most of the night, and we’re all thoroughly wrung out and hoarse in the morning from yelling out our pleasure. When I wake, it’s to someone laughing their ass off. I lift my head and see Flynn standing outside the tent, holding a piece of paper and laughing. He walks back into the tent, giggling like a madman.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

“We’re getting kicked out,” he giggles.

“That’s not funny!” Troy exclaims, horrified.

“Wanna know why?” Flynn teases.

I sigh. “Obviously.”

“We were too loud with our extracurriculars and need to vacate by noon because our neighbors didn’t appreciate our soundtrack from last night.”

We all start laughing, immensely proud of ourselves for making enough noise during sex to get kicked out. Kara’s theonly one not outwardly laughing, though. She sits up, narrows her eyes at us and harrumphs.

“You assholes, how dare you pleasure all of us to the point of getting kicked out!”

She’s grinning by the end of her “scolding” and she breaks out into giggles which sets off Troy and Flynn, making us all erupt into laughter again.

Six

KARA

The boysand I load the last few storage bins into the back of the trucks before hopping in to head out from the campsite. Part of me is still tickled pink that we were so loud that we got kicked out, and the other part of me is actually a little devastated. Zeke was clear that we didn’t have to commit to anything. We can just be casual. That’s great, except at some point last night when I was looking into his eyes, I realized I don’t want casual. How do I tell them that though?

I had hoped we could experiment for a few more days and that would help me get comfortable enough to talk about it, but that’s clearly not an option. Things are going to feel too awkward at home, so this feels a bit like the end. Not one of them mentioned pursuing something permanent, but I know it’s for my benefit. They don’t want to push me. Warm fuzzies fill me up when I think of how considerate they are, but I also want them to push for what they want. Not just what they think I want. Confusing, right?

We stop on the way out for Zeke to profusely apologize at his insistence, then hit the highway to get home again. When we are a few minutes into the drive, Troy gasps from the backseat and Iwait for him to sit up and hit us with his brilliant idea. The first time he did this, I almost swerved off the road. After a few times, I got used to it, though. Now I can tell the difference between his “I have an idea” gasp and his “I saw something terrifying in traffic” gasp. Yes, they are different.

“OMG we shouldtotallylisten to love songs on the way home!”

Zeke is already mostly out, so I laugh and tell him to go ahead and take over. He creates a Spotify jam session, taking my phone to add me to it. Now he can play music through his phone but still keep mine synced to the car for calls and GPS. Troy fills up the playlist, and soon enough we have all the sappy love songs someone could want. He’s so ridiculous and I love it.

Once we make it home and everyone is settled back in, we go about our daily routines and the camping “event”, as I’m calling it, hasn’t been brought up at all. I’m not sure if they’re avoiding the topic, or just trying not to pressure me, but I know that I’m for sure avoiding the topic. Despite hours of thinking, I still can’t figure out what I want. Why start the conversation when I don’t know where I want it to go? I really wish we’d had more time at the campsite. I think that would have been helpful.

Instead of adulting and talking about my feelings, I throw myself back into my job. Right now I work in the financial department of one of the bigger businesses in town. My goal is to get a job as CFO someday, but I have at least five more years before I can make that happen. Numbers make sense to me, and I have a natural affinity for getting along with people, so it always felt like the right direction. I can work with people and numbers, playing to both of my strengths.

It gets to the point where I’ve now gone almost a month without physically seeing the guys. We still chat with text messages and the odd gaming session, but any time someone brings up a gathering, I find a reason not to go. The four of themlive together, so it’s really just me that’s not present. Apparently, they’re sick of me missing because they informed me via text this morning that they are coming over for the day. It wasn’t an ask.

Honestly, I’m really not in the mood to see anyone. I’m absolutely exhausted and random waves of nausea have been plaguing me for a week now. I know it’s because I’m working too hard, so I just want to lie back and relax. They aren’t arriving until noon, so I take the morning to tidy up my house a bit. I own a modest size two-bedroom house and it’s my pride and joy. I’m the only one who lives here, so it’s easy to keep clean. Unless I’ve been working too much and too exhausted to clean.

The guys show up right at noon, and while I’ve been avoiding them, I’m so happy to see them. I’m smiling like an idiot and internally kicking myself for staying away. After lots of hugs and smiles, we promptly sit down to game. When I say “game” I mean an overly intricate game with cards and rules and convoluted ways of winning. We can’t play anything that doesn’t allow for a shit ton of smack talk and multiple chances to stab people in the back. We used to play Monopoly, but eventually we needed something with more strategy involved. Monopoly got too predictable. Troy also always kicked our ass and rubbed our noses in it.

When we finally wrap up the game, it’s dinner time and I’m actually starving. Zeke begrudgingly agrees to order pizza for us — only after Dan calls him “Daddy Zeke” — and we all settle around in the living room to pick out a movie. Troy pushes for drama, but the rest of us want some action, so it’s the latest action movie that’s picked. I didn’t catch the name but there’s a car chase and explosions, so I’m happy. The doorbell rings and I decide to give Zeke a break and get up to grab the pizzas.

“Did you tip on the phone?” I ask Zeke as I put my hand on the doorknob.

“Yup, he should be all set.”

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