Page 81 of What We Break
She grins. "Honey, you should've bought it the first time."
Yeah. I know.
I'll go tomorrow.
"If we don't winthe appetizer round, I am personally filing a grievance with the DJ," Reid says. He slams a basket of pretzels onto the scarred wooden table like he's laying down a winning poker hand. "I need those jalapeño poppers, Tony. I need them spiritually."
"We got this," Tony says. He cracks his knuckles, looking way too intense for a Tuesday night. "I brushed up on 80s hair bands. I'm locked and loaded."
I take a sip of my cider. This is a lot.
The Paddock Brewery smells like spilled beer and fryer grease, and every single person in here is shouting over every other single person. It's sensory chaos. Just the kind of place I used to love. Exactly the kind of place Bethany keeps dragging me to. It's not my scene anymore.
But I'm wedged between Reid and Tony, and honestly? I don't hate it.
Partly because these two are genuinely funny. Partly because this is the first time I've ever walked into a bar and had a table already waiting for me. A spot. My spot.
Not my spot. Theirs. But still.
"You guys know there are categories other than music, right?" Angie asks. She's sitting across from me, four months pregnant with dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and a smile that makes it clear why Tony lights up every time he talks about her. Her hand rests on the gentle curve of her bump, and she's currently eyeing Reid's pretzel basket with intense focus. Tony's got his arm draped protectively along the back of her chair.
"Music is the soul of trivia, Ang," Reid says. He slides the basket toward her without asking, and she doesn't hesitate to dive in. "But yes. We also have Blake for the boring stuff."
I look toward the end of the booth. Blake's nursing a dark stout, flannel sleeves rolled up, forearms braced on the table like he's holding it down. He looks like he'd rather be literally anywhere else on the planet.
He's in the corner seat. The exposed one. The one where every drunk idiot stumbling past clips your shoulder. I watched him pick it when we sat down — just walked straight to the worst spot without a second of hesitation. Didn't even glance at the other options. Like putting himself between the room and the rest of us was something his body decided before his brain caught up.
This is only the second time I've really been around him, so who knows. Maybe that's just his face. Maybe he always looks like he's enduring something. I have a feeling Reid was pretty insistent he come tonight. And Reid is a very hard man to say no to.
"I don't do boring," Blake says, voice low. He's scanning the room — watching the people moving around us instead of the TV screens. "I do accuracy."
"Same thing," Reid grins.
I watch Blake for another second. He hasn't looked at the menu, hasn't touched the pretzels. He's just watching the door. Reid served in the military too, but he's currently trying to balance a pretzel on his nose while arguing with Tony about onion rings.
So the hyper-vigilance? Blake thing.
"Alright, listen up!" the MC yells over the speakers. "Round one is 'History of Fast Food.' Pencils up!"
Reid gasps. Actually gasps. Hand to chest. "I was born for this."
For the next twenty minutes, I mostly just try to keep up. Reid and Tony are a force of nature — they shout answers, high-five over correct guesses about the Big Mac, and argue passionately about whether Taco Bell counts as Mexican food. Tony says yes. Reid says it's its own food group. This goes on for four minutes.
Angie eats her growing pile of wings and shakes her head. "You get used to it," she tells me. "Eventually, the ringing in your ears stops."
Blake stays quiet in his corner. He answers two questions — one about the founder of Wendy's and one about the year the drive-thru was invented — without looking up from his beer. Right both times.
"Okay, settle down," the MC says. "Round three. Geography. Double points."
Reid groans. "Geography. My nemesis."
"Question one. Which South American country has English as its official language?"
The table goes quiet.
"Brazil," Tony says immediately. "It's huge. Everyone speaks English there."
"No, idiot, they speak Portuguese," Reid says. "It's Argentina. My cousin went there. Said it was basically Europe."
