Page 96 of All Right No

Rock Giant made a so-so action with his hand. “It’s well stocked if you like frozen or tinned. I managed to grab some milk and eggs from the farmer next door, and there’s a bread maker that I… Well, I played with it last night right after I arrived. He took the lid off an oversized pan and revealed the results.

“Why’s it in a pan?”

“There’s no bread basket.”

“Are those mushrooms in it?”

“Fuck off, they’re… Okay, it’s leek and mushroom bread…and cheese. It’s cheese and leek and mushroom bread, and there’s baked eggs to go with it.”

“Sounds scrumptious.” Spook tore a piece off the end of the loaf and stuffed it in his mouth. “It’s good.” He gave it a thumbs up. “Let’s have some more with butter on it.”

Paul slapped the back of his hand with a spatula when he reached for it. “Get your dirty mitts off. I’ll slice it, and you can set the table.”

Confused, Spook looked around, and exchanged a nonplussed look with Ash. “What, the coffee table?”

“It’s a table, ain’t it? Ash, you sort us some brews.”

Brews, yeah, he could do that, but why would any of them want sobering up? He cracked open three of the beers he’d bought last night. “It’s traditional,” he claimed when Spook gave him some serious side-eye. “A century back, everyone had beer for breakfast.”

Beery breakfast, turned into even more beery elevenses as they polished off the vegan chocolate. Yet more ingredients were thrown into the bread maker in the hopes of producing a Christmas cake. The result was boozy fruit loaf, but no one cared. It washed down well with yet more beer, and eventually helped loosen their vocal chords.

Paul started singing first, making some mad attempt to impersonate Xane singing a Christmas carol.

“That’s a rubbish impression.” Spook laughed into his beer bottle.

“Yeah, well you do him then.”

“I don’t want to do him.”

“Do someone else,” Ash encouraged.

“No.”

“It’s no good, mate. Spook never puts out. You ought to know that by now.”

Spook flipped him a matching set of Vs with his fingers, which for some unfathomable reason, Ash found hilarious. Everything seemed crazy funny at the moment. “I reckon he left plenty of ladies buzzing with pleasure after they played with his dick last night.”

Spook growled low in his throat. He’d already blown a gasket before the gig yesterday when he caught wind of the fact there were Black Halo branded dildos on sale, each apparently modelled on the band member’s own members. There had been some heated words spoken already over how they’d even come into existence, since no way had any of them voluntarily stuck their dicks in a mould. Okay, so Xane totally admitted it, and Ginny had… Well, never mind. He wasn’t thinking about that, or her.

“Yours was the dick that sold out,” Spook spat.

Rock Giant beamed as if he’d been offered a compliment. “My awesomeness is finally appreciated.”

“He can’t help being the biggest dick… Oops, I meant having.”

“Fuck you, Gore.”

“No tah, that thing would split me in two.”

A few stupid words exchanged between friends shouldn’t have meant so much, but the banter sparked a warm glow inside Ash’s chest where there’d earlier been only a vast open hollow. He rose unsteadily, swaying onto his toes and knocking into the table in the process.

“Sit down, you dope.” Spook tugged on his wrist, tipping him to one side from the waist.

“Don’t wanna.”

“Jeez, he’s wasted.”

He wasn’t. At least, not nearly as badly as he wished he was.