Page 86 of The Good Boys Club

There was a vending machine on ten. Cian always complained about how there was never anything healthy in them, but I didn’t care. Neither of us could afford to be choosy right now. I used my credit card and bought one of every type of chocolate bar. After rooting around in the desks on Ci’s floor, I located some thick parcel-style tape and stuck each candy to the inside of my jacket. Then I took the lift to the roof.

I found Cian perched on the end of a barren planter, staring out over the city. The motion-sensor lights of the office building had switched themselves off, and the only thing illuminating him was the soft glow of the moons on his cheek and the lights from the office block opposite.

He wore his fancy suit without a tie. He had a foot up on the planter opposite him, and his breath puffed out in little white clouds in front of his face. He looked peaceful.

And so beautiful.

I’d thought it before, how beautiful my friend was, and at the time it felt like a weird thing to notice. But now . . . now I could happily gaze at him all night.

He heard my footsteps and turned his head.

“Mash?” Cian held his hand above his brows, shielding his eyes from the newly activated motion-sensor lights. He squinted in my general direction.

“Wanna smoke?” I joined him on the edge of the planter, put both my feet onto the opposite one, and removed a joint from my inside jacket pocket.

He was swaying a little, and stank of booze. His teeth and the inner creases of his lips had been stained purple from the wine he’d drunk earlier—still beautiful, though.

Cian shook his head. “I’m starving. Remember last time, what happened when I was hungry and got high?”

The memory came crashing back to me. “Oh my gods, when we went to the cinema? Yes, I remember. Man, you werefuuuuucked.What were we even watching, anyway?”

It was during the first year of our master’s. We’d rented another tiny townhouse in the suburbs of Remy, and smoked a blunt in our garden before heading to the closest multiplex. The high always hit Ci harder than it did me, and for the entire duration of the ads and trailers he’d whinged so loudly about how hungry he was, several people stormed out to complain. Luckily, the manager was a gorgeous human woman in her thirties, and well, those were my specialty. She let us off with a warning, and in the process I managed to snag three jumbo boxes of popcorn. Cian polished them all off, leaving an inch at the bottom of the third box because,“I’m not an animal.”

“It was the film where all the kids have to kill each other on an island,” he said.

“Yes! That was it. Damn, that movie should not have been as funny as it was. Anyway . . .” I lit the joint, took a drag, offered it to Ci.

“I don’t want to go downstairs. I hate them, Mash. Well, I hate most of them. I don’t hate James or Giddy, but Giddy’s not here, and James is busy, and I don’t want to seem clingy. If I get themunchies, I’ll have to go back down there to get food, and I want to stay up here forever and fester. Worse comes to worst, we’ll cook up the rats and pigeons.”

“Well, I can’t offer you any rats or pigeons right now, but I do have . . .” I opened my jacket to reveal half the chocolate bars I’d taped to the lining.

“Oh my gods.” He slapped his hand over his mouth.

I opened the other side to show him the rest. “Dog friendly too.” Not that Cian had a problem with chocolate, but it meant I could eat a few without shitting myself later.

“You’re . . . Mash . . . this is . . .” He seemed lost for words, but then pulled himself together. “Got any Peanut Goobers?”

I held the joint between my lips and wriggled Cian’s snack free.

He accepted them, opened the bag, and looked off into the distance. “I saw you kissing Jo.”

“She kissed me. I pushed her away.” Was he . . . jealous? “She’s drunk. Actually, I think I’m the only person here not drunk.”

“I’ve had three bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon,” he said, a little too proudly.

“You gonna chunder?” I asked, looking around for the most appropriate thing we could use as a vomit receptacle. The planter probably. Might get fined if we splattered someone fourteen storeys down by hurling over the edge of the building.

“Nah, not yet. Maybe later if I feel like it.”

I relit the joint, took another drag, and passed it to Ci. He accepted this time without question.

“I’m thinking of quitting,” he said after he’d finished all his peanut candies.

“Weed or work?”

“The job. This.”

“You say that every year at Winter Fest. That you’re gonna quit in January and then you never do,” I argued.

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