Kids These Days

Chapter 21: Ronan

I wake up on Andy's couch the next morning with a pounding headache. I'm wearing a shirt that isn't mine and a pair of dress slacks, and one of my socks is missing. Also, there's someone tugging on my hair. When I crack open my sleep-crusted eyelids, I see it's a pudgy child with Cheerios in her red hair. Little gremlin.

"Spiky," the gremlin says.

I pull the blankets over my head and roll to the other side of the couch. The AC unit whines as it pumps lukewarm air into the house, carrying with it the distant sounds of a TV talk show and a basketball bouncing on the pavement outside. "Kindly fuck off." My mouth tastes like the bottom of a bottle of tequila, and I think I'm sweating pure alcohol. I would pray for death but I'm pretty sure I'm already in hell.

The gremlin eyes me warily. "What does 'fuck' mean?"

"Uh... it's a bad word that you shouldn't say, like shit. Or damn."

"Shit," she says thoughtfully.

I nod. "Exactly."

The floorboards creak and Andy Hill slouches unceremoniously into the living room, wearing a faded Rascals t-shirt and a pair of grungy sweatpants. There's still glitter on her cheeks, but her smudged mascara and blood-shot eyes ruin the glamour of her look. "You'd better not be teaching my cousin swear words, Ronan Lockwood, or I'll have hell to pay from Joyce."

"What does 'hell' mean?" the gremlin asks, chewing on a strand of her red hair.

"It means I'll buy you ice-cream if you don't tell your aunt," Andy replies sweetly. "How does that sound, Annabel? I can also rent all of the Starwars movies from the library."

"You know I like Star Trek better!" The gremlin -- or Annabel, I guess -- sticks her tongue out at Andy and runs upstairs, shouting her new favorite swear words at the top of her lungs. A few seconds later, I hear a woman shout indignantly, "Andrea Hill!"

Andy pinches the bridge of her nose. "Thanks for that, Ronan."

"What? It's free speech."

Andy rips away my blankets, tossing them into a pile on the ground. I glare at her. She glares back. Thirty seconds into our silent staring-contest, she relents and says, "Okay, asshole, you win. Talia just woke up. She wants to go to the library."

"What time is it?"

"Two in the afternoon."

I let out a string of curses that would make Andy's gremlin cousin proud. "I'm not going to the library on a Sunday afternoon."

"It's a Monday afternoon, and yes you are. You agreed to this last night."

"I can't be held accountable for the things I say while drunk!"

Andy rolls her eyes. "I know it's stereotypical to call a gay guy a drama queen, but seriously, you are such a drama queen. Go drink some water and brush your teeth."

"Excuse me?" I'm so flustered and hungover, I don't know what else to say. I might actually be blushing. (Did I tell Andy about my thing with James? Even worse, did I tell her about my thing with Jesse? How drunk was I last night?) "I don't --"

"Drink some water," Andy says slowly, like she's talking to a child. "And please brush your teeth. You have horrible morning breath, and you smell like a frat house carpet."

"That's not -- I'm not --" I'm spluttering now, and to make things more embarrassing, Andy is staring at me like I've completely lost my mind. Finally, I give up trying to form a coherent sentence and demand, "What is your problem?"