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I stick my tongue out at her. I love my crazy best friend and her crazy family. Liv’s parents aren’t actually crazy at all; in fact, they’re pretty close to perfect. My parents, while I love them dearly, are the unstable ones. I’ve practically lived at Liv’s for the past five years anyway. Now, it’s just official.
Liv springs back up onto the bed and starts jumping. Great, we’ve gone from mama bear to five-year-old. “I’m not gonna stop until you say you’ll go out with me tonight. You might as well give up now.” Her breathing is rapid, and she shouts in between breaths.
My head bobs up and down as I watch her. When she lands facing away from me, I reach up with my leg, and kick her right in her bouncing derrière. I bury my head back in my magazine and snicker. She shrieks loudly and hits the wood floor with a thud.
“Ouch! You bitch!”
I move the magazine to the side and hold in my laughter. “What was that?”
Her head pops up above the mattress and she is making puppy-dog eyes at me. “Please go out with me, Tor. It’ll be fun.” She’s whining, which — my fault — usually works. I have a bad habit of enabling my best friend.
Now I hurl the magazine at her. She ducks, and it sails over her head. “Not tonight. All I wanna do is snuggle up on the couch and watch one of those shows where people rummage through storage lockers and argue with each other.”
She climbs up on the bed next to me, and lies flat on her belly. As she rests on her forearms with her fingers laced together, she eyes me like I’m completely hopeless. “I honestly don’t know how you can watch that crap.” She’s annoyed with me, like she always is when we discuss my nonexistent love life. It’s the only time she’s judgmental about my taste in television shows.
I plop my arm across my forehead, and stare at the ceiling. “Their lives are so much more interesting than mine, that’s how.”
Her sigh is overly dramatic. “That’s exactly why you have to go out with me tonight. Please, for me. For your BFFAA.”
I watch her with amusement as she peers over at me, sticking her bottom lip out. She gives me the puppy-dog eyes again, only this time she actually whimpers.
Briefly I consider finding a new BFFAA. As I watch her chocolate brown eyes light up, I can’t hold back my laughter. Like our mothers before us, Liv and I have been best friends since birth. Liv likes to add her own flair to everything, so rather than BFFs (Best Friends Forever), we are Best Friends Forever and Always. Giving it some thought, now that we’re finished with our first year at San Diego State, Best Friends Forever Always Alcoholics, is more appropriate.
Liv’s door slowly inches open. A long arm reaches in through the crack in the door, a lacy white bra dangling from the hand attached to it.
“Tug, cut it out.” Liv sits up in the bed. Her feet hang off the side, and she glares at Tug, who’s standing in the doorway.
Tug saunters into the room, and wraps the bra around his head like
a bonnet, his light brown curls flipping out under it. I burst out laughing, thinking, Little Tug Riding Hood.
Liv reaches over and slaps me on the arm. “Don’t encourage him, Tor.”
“Ouch!” I squeal and rub my arm. That hurt.
“This must be yours, Liv, because I don’t have any use for an over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder.” Tug removes the bra from his head and twirls it around his finger by the strap.
Laughter erupts from me again. I just can’t help it.
Liv levels a warning glare at him. “God, Tug, you’re so disgusting. Give it back.”
Tug ignores her, and holds the bra up in his hands like a rubber band. He flings it across the room before spinning to face me. He smiles wolfishly, and I already know what he’s up to. “Hey, Tor.”
I hold my hand up, offering him a sideways wave. “Hey, Tug.”
“You want to go out with me tonight?” Tug wags his eyebrows. His bright eyes – as chocolate brown as Liv’s – wait for my answer.
Completely straight-faced, I respond, “I’d rather have my nipples chewed of by a pack of wild dogs than go out with you, Tug.”
He begins belting out the lyrics to “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi while stumbling backward as though wounded, and clutching his hands to his chest. When he’s finished singing, he flips his bangs from his forehead dramatically.
Laughter escapes me until I snort.
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” Tug drawls in his best Elvis voice.
This is how conversations go with Tug and me, particularly in the last year. Tug asks me out, and I throw back an I’d rather joke. There have been many. I’d rather suck cow snot through a straw. I’d rather masturbate with a cheese grater. And my personal favorite, I’d rather suck a fart out of your sister’s ass. Living here means I’m going to need to stockpile some I’d rather jokes.
Tug is Liv’s little brother by exactly nine months. Liv is forever joking that after his birth, her parents bought a television. As I look at Tug, I remember how Liv and I bestowed the nickname on him when we were little because he would tug on our shirts to get our attention. Tug suits him, and most people don’t know his real name is Aidan. He’s exceptionally smart, genius-like, which only makes him more offensive at times. He’s younger than Liv and me but graduated high school a year before us. He has a photographic memory and is a wiz with numbers.
