"The money situation isn't so tight I can't stump up a free month's rent for an...old friend," John acknowledged, trying out the phrase in his mouth: 'old friend'. It felt right, and yet somehow incomplete. Besides, he really could afford a couple of months of free rent. Maybe even three, if Bobby needed it. Not that his family had ever seem the type to run out of money, John thought, and pushed that brief bitterness aside.
John met those words with a glance that read 'Do you have any idea what you just said?', the beer bottle half way to his mouth. "Consensual smacking," he said, and shook his head before the grin came. "Right." He finished the beer and pointed at Bobby with an index finger uncurling from around the bottle. "You walked into that one, Drake. But I'll write something, sure."
Grabbing a napkin from the holder near the stove, he found a biro lying against the kettle for some reason, and popped the cap off, scrawling 'I, St. John Michael Gordon Allerdyce, do solemnly swear and provide testament that should I be a capricious, mean-hearted douche, Robert Louis Drake had my permission to smack me....' He paused then, staring at the napkin, and with a certain wild abandon, found himself finishing the sentence with 'smack me anywhere he sees fit.' He signed, dated and folded the napkin and then shoved it at Bobby with a slight flush to his cheeks, feeling like he'd probably signed his death warrant.
"Normal's fine. I mean, you're just one college kid speaking to another, right? I didn't go back either when I was asked to," John said with a shrug. And what he thought, but didn't say was: I guess we both ended up running away, Bobby. And that felt surprisingly good, as mean as it was.
no subject
John met those words with a glance that read 'Do you have any idea what you just said?', the beer bottle half way to his mouth. "Consensual smacking," he said, and shook his head before the grin came. "Right." He finished the beer and pointed at Bobby with an index finger uncurling from around the bottle. "You walked into that one, Drake. But I'll write something, sure."
Grabbing a napkin from the holder near the stove, he found a biro lying against the kettle for some reason, and popped the cap off, scrawling 'I, St. John Michael Gordon Allerdyce, do solemnly swear and provide testament that should I be a capricious, mean-hearted douche, Robert Louis Drake had my permission to smack me....' He paused then, staring at the napkin, and with a certain wild abandon, found himself finishing the sentence with 'smack me anywhere he sees fit.' He signed, dated and folded the napkin and then shoved it at Bobby with a slight flush to his cheeks, feeling like he'd probably signed his death warrant.
"Normal's fine. I mean, you're just one college kid speaking to another, right? I didn't go back either when I was asked to," John said with a shrug. And what he thought, but didn't say was: I guess we both ended up running away, Bobby. And that felt surprisingly good, as mean as it was.