Staggering out of the bar with my new potential colleagues, I don’t have any idea what time it is, but I know I should probably head home. The good news is that everyone who works at Houdini’s is a student, so we all walk home the same way. It’s like I’ve found my perfect friends and colleagues in one neat little package. It’s funny that they’re, like, ten years younger than me – at least – but we seem to be on the same wavelength. Plus, they think I’m their age, which is a huge boost to my thirty-three-year-old ego.
Jezebel hooks her arms around my neck with the familiarity of someone who has known me all my life. In fact, the entire Houdini team seem to have fallen in love with me.
It’s been a great night. I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with new people, making them laugh, playing Beer Pong with them – even if I am terrible and I hate the taste of beer.
‘I don’t wanna call it a night,’ Jezebel whines, her breath smelling so strongly of beer I hold my own, so I don’t have to endure her secondhand beer fumes.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Sam suggests. ‘Ring of Fire!’
‘Yeaaaah, Ring of Fire,’ Jezebel replies. ‘You’re coming up, right, Mia?’
‘Erm…’
I suppose I could hang around for a bit… well, it saves me making my own way home, especially seeing as I’m a little tipsy. Plus, I’m enjoying bonding with my new teammates.
‘Come on,’ Sam insists.
‘OK, sure,’ I reply.
‘Let’s do this,’ Sam yells meaningfully as Jezebel removes the office keys from her bag and unlocks the door.
‘So, you guys are allowed to hang out here after work?’ I ask cautiously.
‘Not really,’ Jezebel replies. ‘But no one will ever know.’
Once we’re inside Houdini’s, everyone works together to clear a space in the centre of the room, just like they did when they were showing me how to reset the game rooms earlier. Bully disappears inside the Houdini room and remerges with a deck of cards. He spreads them out in a circular shape in the middle of the room while Jezebel places an empty cup in the middle. As we all take our places in a circle around the game set-up, Hayley and Lea walk out of the offices with two bottles of various spirits each.
‘Ring of Fire!’ Sam screeches excitedly.
‘I don’t know how to play this one,’ I admit. I thought about pretending I did, but I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of my new friends. There are eight of us sitting on the floor, ready to play – Jezebel, Sam, Hayley, Bully and Lea from earlier, along with two guys whose names I don’t remember.
Everyone in the room cries out in shock.
‘What? You don’t know how to play Ring of Fire? And you went to uni?’ Sam says in disbelief.
I don’t even know if this game existed when I was their age, but even if it did, I had other things on my mind back then. Even though I went to university, I never really did the student-life thing. You know, living on a diet of nothing but noodles and cheap booze, doing minimal studying on minimal sleep – that sort of thing. Studying always came before socialising for me.
‘Sorry,’ I laugh.
‘It’s OK, she’ll pick it up as she goes along,’ Jezebel insists. ‘Let’s just play.’
‘Basically, we all have a drink in our hands, and we take turns at picking up a card, and what everyone does depends on what card is pulled out. You go first, Mia.’
This sounds like a very confusing game for drunk people to play. Too much to remember.
‘OK,’ I say confidently. I reach out and carefully select a card, turning it over to show the room what it is. ‘Four of hearts.’
‘Fours are whores, so all the women have to drink,’ Sam tells me.
I laugh as I sip from my plastic cup. Oh wow, it’s neat, cheap vodka. I’ve already had a few tonight, and I don’t think I’m the seasoned drinker I used to be.
Sam goes next.
‘Eight,’ he announces as he flips a card over, ‘Eight is mate, so Mia, I choose you. Every time I drink, you have to as well.’
‘OK,’ I laugh.
A few other people take a turn, with a variety of consequences. If someone gets a two, two is you, so they pick a person to have a drink. Three is me, which means the player drinks. Seven is Heaven, which means the last person with their hands in the air has to drink – which is me, every time, because I keep forgetting what all the numbers mean. The worst one of all is when a king is drawn – each time someone has turned over a king, they’ve poured a little bit of their drink into the cup in the middle of the ring, making one nasty-looking cocktail.
I take my turn, turning my card over to reveal the fourth and final king from the deck. I go to pour some of my drink in the cup, but Sam stops me.
‘That’s the fourth king, Mia – that means you’ve gotta drink the king’s cup.’
‘I’ve gotta drink that?’ I squeak in shock, because it looks disgusting. But put it down to how much I’ve had to drink already, put it down to the fact everyone is chanting my name, put it down to peer pressure, put it down to whatever you want, but I grab the cup and chug the contents, draining every last drop to a room full of cheering and applause. As I finish, Sam launches himself across the floor, throwing himself at me for a celebratory hug. I quickly wriggle free from his grasp and fix my dress so I’m not flashing my underwear.
As Sam sets up the next game, I can’t help but notice that Jezebel is looking upset. I scoot over to her, talking quietly so only she can hear.
‘Do you like Sam?’ I ask her.
‘I hate him, he’s such a sleaze,’ she replies quickly.
‘Yeah, but do you like him like him?’ I ask.
‘Is it that obvious?’ she replies. ‘He’s not interested in me. I’m ploughing my way through Matcher at the moment. Not having much luck there either.’
Ergh. Matcher is a dating app I researched for a book not too long ago. I feel so lucky I’ve never had to put up with the crap women get on those things.
‘So you need to be very critical of potential matches,’ I advise. ‘Don’t just look at their photos and read their bios, look in the background of their photos and read between the lines of their bios. Keen to seem like more than just your average beardy, buff, banterous Matcher boy, blokes will use euphemisms – sometimes without even realising it. Like, if they say that they “live for the weekend” then they’re probably boring on the other five days of the week. Those who are “brutally honest” are probably just rude. People who “tell it how it is” generally have no filter.’
As Jezebel starts laughing, I realise I’m babbling.
‘Sorry.’
‘No, tell me more,’ she insists. ‘You’re so much wiser than all of us.’
That’s because I’m old.
‘If they insist their mates made them sign up for the app, they’re too proud. Worst of all, if they say they’re looking for an “open-minded girl” then run a mile because what that really means is that they’re looking for 50 shades of wehey! – like, they’re the kind of guy with a very particular set of skills… no… wait… that’s from Taken…unconventional desires, that’s Fifty Shades, right? I haven’t read the book, or watched the movie, but I know the meme.’
‘You’re so funny,’ Jezebel insists. ‘I really hope you take the job.’
‘I’m really thinking about it,’ I tell her, hiccupping loudly at the end of my sentence. It’s been so long since I drank this much.
‘So, if we can get Hayley and Bully to stop getting off with each other for, like, ten minutes,’ Sam yells for the benefit of the happy couple in the room, ‘we can play Spin the Bottle: Truth or Dare.’
Oh God. I’m an engaged lady. I can’t play Truth or Dare with a bunch of kids.
Before I know it the game is underway. I just need to hope and pray it doesn’t land on me.
It’s amazing how many rounds I get through unscathed, while other members of the group reveal a series of embarrassing facts, take off random items of clothing and swap saliva with whomever they are told to.
Sam spins the bottle, which, thankfully, flies past me, landing on Bully, who is sitting opposite me.
‘Truth,’ he says.
‘OK,’ Sam starts, a cheeky glimmer in his eyes. ‘If you and Hayley had to have a threesome with one of us, who would it be?’
‘Mia,’ he replies. His answer takes me aback, causing me to spit my drink out.
‘Huh?’ I say, wiping vodka from my chin with the sleeve of my dress.
‘We both think you’re really fit,’ Bully tells me. ‘We’d love to get together with you sometime.’
‘I’m flattered,’ I laugh, unable to hide my awkwardness. I don’t care if I have to drunkenly make my own way home, this is definitely when I leave.
‘Mia, I dare you to bang Bully and Hayley in The Hole,’ Sam says.
My eyebrows shoot up at his words, until I remember The Hole is a room here.
‘It’s not my turn,’ I say, laughing it off.
‘Come on,’ he insists. ‘We can all watch in the office.’
‘I’m an engaged lady,’ I insist, waving my left hand around like a dancer from a Beyoncé music video so they can see my ring.
‘Of course you are,’ he laughs. ‘You all just need a little encouragement.’
Sam ushers Bully and Haley into The Hole before picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder, plonking me down on the floor next to them and running out, locking the door behind him.
‘I’m not having sex with you,’ I tell them, very matter-of-factly, just in case they thought I might. ‘Do you guys come up here and play games often?’
‘Yeah,’ Hayley replies. ‘Ever since the manager got the sack.’
Wow. These guys are like teenagers with free house while their parents are away for the weekend. They just get drunk and get off with each other – I’ve heard of close friends, but this is ridiculous.
‘Let me out, please,’ I shout, waving my arms at the CCTV camera. I wait 30 seconds, but no one comes. ‘I said let me out you little cu—’
Jezebel opens the door.
‘Come on, Mia,’ she insists. ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
How very kind of her.
‘Come on,’ she says, ushering me out. ‘Have another drink with me.’
‘No, thanks,’ I tell her, refocusing my eyes, trying to determine if I’m sober enough to walk home. I grab my phone from my bag to see a couple of missed calls from Leo, and the fact that it’s 3:02 a.m. Shit. I’d better get an Uber and get myself home to my fiancé.