Page 63 of Inbetweeners
“No, the faster I’m drunk, the better.”
“Who was he?” Harry asked.
“Our boss,” Nix told him as he made Emmett’s drink.
Harry picked up Cat. “He’s a sad guy, isn’t he, Cat?”
“Sad as in miserable?” Nix asked.
“He’s unhappy.”
“What gave it away? The scowl on his face? The thunder in his eyes?” Nix raised his eyebrows. “The fact that he didn’t hug you?”
“I…” Harry hesitated. “He’s just so unhappy. I could feel it. I mean you two are both sad as well, but Tar… That was another level of unhappiness. The sort that looks as if it can’t ever be fixed. That’s what Cat thinks too.”
“You can read Cat’s mind and you’re not even drunk?” Nix chuckled.
Emmett took the measuring jug that Nix held out. “Thank you.”
He drank half of it in one go.
“No margarita glass, no salt, but that was lovely, thanks.” Emmett smiled at him and Nix’s heart lurched.
“What happens when you’re drunk?” Harry asked. “Does it make you happy? Do you fall asleep, trip over, get cross, start fighting, begin crying, become affectionate, act recklessly, behave in an embarrassing way or take all your clothes off?”
“Yes,” Emmett said.
Harry laughed. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done when you were drunk?”
Emmett finished what was in the jug and held it out to Nix. “Again, please.”
Nix made him another. Lighter on the tequila.
Emmett dropped onto the couch. “I remember wanting a Christmas tree. So, I dug one up and woke with it in my bed. Wanting it in bed was a bit weird. Probably weirder that it was mid-July.”
Harry and Nix gaped at him.
“I was home for the weekend. My horticultural endeavours didn’t go down well in that house, as you can imagine. Hole in the garden, trail of soil all the way to the bedroom and a horrible mess in the bed. I panicked when I woke and flailed around because I thought there was a squirrel in there with me. My father almost sent me for therapy. He thought I’d tried to fuck a fir tree. Even drunk, I had more sense than that.”
“Do you remember why you got drunk?” Nix asked.
“Yes.”
It was clear Emmett wasn’t going to say more.
“Why?” Nix asked.
Emmett sighed. “I asked them why they hated me. And they told me.”
“Why?” Harry asked.
“Why I asked them? Or why they told me? Or what they said?”
“All of those,” Harry told him.
“I asked them because I was drunk. I don’t know why they told me. Maybe they thought I’d never go home again and they’d be spared the sight of me. What they said? No, not ready to divulge that.”
Nix made Emmett’s drinks weaker and weaker, but he was already tipsy. They put some crappy rom com on the TV that Harry had asked for, and Emmett cycled through happy, angry and sad as they’d watched. Nix sat next to him hoping that he might get stuck on affectionate, though he’d go for Emmett taking his clothes off. Neither happened. Harry fell asleep on the couch after the film ended, and Emmett staggered to the bathroom. Nix could hear him throwing up.
