Something (Ian)
Edward made his way up the staircase. He wondered where the others were but was half answered when he found Ian sitting in one of the deck chairs with a glass of what looked suspiciously like whiskey in his hands.
“I thought you didn’t drink whiskey?” he asked, planting himself in the chair next to Ian.
“I don’t,” Ian said and offered the glass to him.
They were staring out at the town below them. Their house was built atop a small hill and was two stories high and a flat room that doubled as a covered lapa.
“Where’s, uhm…what’s her name?” he asked, taking a sip of whiskey.
“Left,”
“Another one?”
“Jip,”
“You know, it might not be that bad if you…well, you know,”
“Sex”
“Well if you put it that bluntly, it doesn’t really sound better. Wait, are you going to answer every question with one word,”
“Jip,” said Ian, then he turned to Edward with a devilish smile on his face. “By now you should know that I’m blunt when it comes to sex,”
“I should. But why didn’t you? She looked more than willing, hell, even I saw her naked,”
“Because she was walking around naked, and I don’t know, guess I’m just not looking for a meaningless fuck,”
“Sometimes I am amazed by how differently we see things,” said Edward, draining the last bit of whiskey from the glass. “On most things we see eye to eye, but then there’s things like this,”
“At least you can say I keep life interesting,” said Ian and passed the whiskey bottle to Edward.
“Now I feel bad, I’m drinking your alcohol,”
“It’s your damn whiskey; I was contemplating chucking the bottle into the street at the next taxi that comes by,”
“That would be a terrible waist of good whiskey,”
“Not if a flaming arrow followed the bottle,” Ian said with that same smile.
Edward stared at his friend, wondering as he so often did what was going on inside Ian’s head, but he gave up on divining the secrets of the universe as quickly as he had started and returned to his whiskey. He had poured himself a second glass and placed the bottle on the ground next to his chair.
For a while all they did was sit in silence and stare out towards the town and up at the starry sky. Outside the town it was easier to see the stars, and since Ian had been sitting in darkness and Edward hadn’t switched on any lights, darkness is what they congregated in.
“There’s a LAN even this weekend, you keen on joining me and JR?”
“No,” said Ed, “got studying to do,”
“Don’t we all,”
“With the frequency you go out, I wouldn’t think so. Where is JR anyway?”
“Out,”
“Out?”
“Out,”
“Out where?”
“No idea, said something about a friend being in trouble,”
“He’s always got friends in trouble,”
“And they usually get him into trouble,”
“Isn’t that how he ended up living with us?” asked Ed, draining his glass for the second time.
“Isn’t trouble how all three of us ended up living together?”
“Good point,”
“Why are you home early?”
“Early? It’s past twenty three hundred,”
“Oh, that it is” said Ian, checking the time on his phone.
“You sure you didn’t have any of the whiskey,”
“Positive, but your cat might have had some,”
“What!”
Edward was on his feet in second, searching for his possibly intoxicated cat.
“Relax, it only had half a glass,”
“WHAT!”
Ian chuckled softly and Ed realized he was messing with him. He nearly threw the glass at Ian, but thought better of it.
“I’m going to bed,” Ian declared, getting up from the deck chair and stretching.
“Hey, Ian,” Ed said as he was half way down the stairs.
“Yeah,”
“She wasn’t your type, anyway,”
“Yeah,” Ian sighed and continued down the stairs.
Edward stayed on the rooftop for a little while longer. He took his iPad from the coffee table and opened a blank sheet in a word processor. He stared at it for a good half hour without typing a single character before locking the device and heading inside.