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At the end of the night, Neil decides to blame it all on Allison.
Maybe it did start with him, when the upperclassmen were haphazardly laid all over the girls’ living room, complaining about being hungry and not knowing where to eat. With the exception of Renee, of course, who is sitting upright on the couch, Allison’s head pillowed on one of her thighs, crocheting some sort of bee stuffed animal. Neil assumes it is for Betsy.
Really, it started with Allison groaning, slinging an arm out and interrupting Matt explaining the comfort of Indian food to Neil. “You know what I could fuck up right now? Mexican food.”
“We ate Taco Mama yesterday,” Neil says. They all turn to him with various shocked expressions on their faces, though Renee is kind enough to keep the judgment out of hers.
“Neil,” Dan starts, “Taco Mama is not actual Mexican food. You know this, right? It’s important to me that you know this.”
“It’s literally a–”
Neil is rudely cut off by Allison. “Do they have real margaritas with unspecified alcohol amounts? Do they have the chips, salsa, and queso that accompany only the best of gossip? Does Taco Mama have that slightly run down, homey feeling that any local Mexican restaurant worth its salt has? Absolutely not! ” She says all of this in the most dramatic way possible, in typical Allison fashion, with pauses and hand waving. She sat up sometime during her rant. Renee didn’t miss a beat in her crocheting, giving the conversation the occasional glance.
“Neil, you’ve been to an actual Mexican place before, right?” Matt says, slowly.
Neil is genuinely afraid to answer, but the others are looking at him so expectantly, he knows not answering will just make them assume he’s never eaten actual food. “Other than the places you guys have taken me, my mom and I never ate in restaurants. Fast food was rare, much less sit down places.”
After a moment, Dan definitively slaps her palm against the small table in their living room. It’s one of the non-standard furniture pieces the girls included in their room that makes it feel so homey to Neil. It’s some hot pink, cheap thing that they most likely found during their frequent late night trips to Wal-Mart or Target, and will definitely be trashed when the girls graduate in less than a month. Neil silently wishes he could keep it, just for the memories. “It’s decided. We’re going out. Is El Paisita good with everyone?”
Allison nods. “Absolutely. Renee, you good to drive? This calls for a margarita night.”
“It’s a Monday,” Neil says, protesting futilely. One thing about the Foxes he learned very quickly is that the day of the week never matters when they’re given a drinking opportunity.
However, Dan, Matt, and Allison’s eyes light up like he just handed them a winning lottery ticket. Renee finds a stopping point in her crocheting with a sigh, fondly looking up at Allison. “Neil, you’re a little baby genius,” Allison says, a devious smile on her face.
Neil doesn’t want to know. Matt says it anyway.
“It’s Margarita Monday .”
Neil really does blame it all on Allison. They haven’t stepped two feet outside the Tower when they come around the corner to face Andrew and his. Nicky is walking the fastest out of all of them, chatting enthusiastically about something to Aaron, who looks like he couldn’t care less about what’s being said. Andrew and Kevin walk a step behind, and more than a step apart. Neil guesses Kevin probably made another comment he shouldn’t have. With finals coming up, he’s been more unbearable than usual, constantly taking it upon himself to over explain anything, which usually wouldn’t be out of character, but he’s expanded his tendency to subjects outside of Exy. It’s horrible.
“Off in such a rush?” Nicky quips when they’re close enough, slinging an arm around Allison’s shoulder with a grin. Allison practically cackles, not letting go of the wrist she has taken to dragging Neil by.
“The most rushed I’ve ever been. Nicky, our little Neil has never been to a Margarita Monday before. Or any Mexican restaurant on any given day ever.”
“We went to Taco Mama yesterday,” Neil stresses.
Nicky, like the upperclassmen had, acts like this is a crime. “Neil! You’re literally better at Spanish than I am! How? ”
What truly chastises him, however, is not Nicky’s dramatic gasp. It is the widening of Aaron’s eyes, the wrinkle of Kevin’s nose, and the slight downward twitch of Andrew’s lips. If they think that this is a problem, Neil might actually be wrong, for once.
“So that’s what you’re doing tonight,” Kevin says firmly. “I mean, as long as you’re back for night practice–” Andrew promptly turns from him and walks in the direction of the Maserati. Fortunately, the rest of the Monsters know that this is a signal to follow, or you’re staying here , and they catch up to him immediately.
Allison’s smile only grows. “Margarita Monday with the Monsters. Oh, Neil, for once I’m actually grateful for your childhood trauma.” Even a smack on the shoulder from Dan doesn’t stop her from laughing as she pulls them all to her car.
It’s with a shock that Neil realizes he was completely wrong to assume the restaurant would be slow, with it being 8 pm on a weekday in a college town. It's easily the busiest restaurant the upperclassmen have dragged him to so far. They spot Nicky, somehow already waving from a large party table in the back. With a quick explanation to the host for who they’re there with, they join him and the rest of the Monsters. Neil raises an eyebrow at the five pitchers on the table, filled to the brim with some sort of green tinged frozen drink.
“I thought margaritas weren’t frozen,” he says as he sits in the empty seat in between Andrew and Allison, who has already eagerly began pouring a pitcher into two of the empty glasses. One she fills more than the other, and she saves it for herself, pushing the other to Neil. Andrew raises an eyebrow at Neil, his hand resting on the table opening in an offer. Neil shakes his head, taking a straw and opening it.
“The frozen ones here are stronger,” Kevin explains, already finishing off his first glass. Neil is shocked at how he’s managing, considering how cold the drink must be. Then he thinks about Kevin’s alcohol dependency that they’re going to need to address one day and stops thinking. “More than likely they do this so that when the ice in the drink melts, the margarita isn’t watered down too–”
“Shut up and drink your marg, Kevin,” Nicky says, borderline distraught.
“Where’s the chips,” Allison complains after loudly slurping down a good quarter of her drink. “I can’t talk shit with no chips.”
The chips in question are set on the table approximately two seconds after she says this, and her eyes light up. She turns to the waitress, eyes big and pleading. “Could we also have queso?”
“How many bowls would you like?”
“How many can you give us?”
The waitress’s eye twitches slightly and Neil takes pity on Allison for her desperation. “Three small bowls, please.”
After she leaves, Allison turns to Neil dejectedly. “Neil. That is not nearly enough queso.”
“You’re lactose intolerant, Allison,” he says, taking a sip of his drink. He stills, not in disgust, as he expected he would, as he does with most cocktails, but in pleasant surprise. It’s lime flavored, not too sweet, and honestly, it’s the best drink Neil’s ever had. Andrew taps his pinky against Neil’s, another silent question. Neil just nods with a smile, and Andrew fills his own cup. Neil realizes, and smiles wider with the thought, that Andrew was waiting until Neil decided, so it wouldn’t be too obvious if Neil didn’t like his own. He squeezes Andrew’s pinky with his own, a private moment of gratitude, before turning back to the table.
“How many tacos do you think I can order for them to still think I’m sane,” Matt asks Dan, but loudly enough for the table to hear over their own conversations.
“Infinite amount,” Nicky says.
Allison chimes in with a solid, oddly specific, “Eight.”
“Four,” is Kevin’s modest response.
“The menu says the normal serving is three,” Renee offers.
The others are silent, then Dan places a hand over Matt’s and with an out of place serious expression on her face, says, “Order as many as you fucking want, baby.”
The night only goes downhill from there. Neil and Nicky have to do most of the ordering for their food, both of them appalled at the Foxes butchering of simple Spanish words on the menu. Somehow, a glob of queso winds up in Kevin’s hair. Matt spills half of his margarita down his shirt. Then, as Allison is frantically attempting to get a small spot of salsa out of her white skirt, Neil spots the freshmen from across the restaurant.
“No,” Neil whispers, suddenly on guard for no reason. The whole table goes silent and follows his gaze.
“They wouldn’t, would they? Would they?” Nicky says, voice desperate.
Tragically, Kevin pillows his head in his arms, and says, “They would.”
For some reason, it’s all six of them that have entered the restaurant, even though they don’t get along in the slightest, but it’s Jack that spots them first. He quickly elbows Sheena and points, the two taking on devious smiles. Neil can see one of the others, the defensive dealer Allison has taken a fondness to that’s named Celia, as she sighs and starts muttering while looking up at the ceiling in a way that looks like praying. The boy next to her is Matt’s favorite, named Peter, and he looks just as pained. The others Neil doesn’t pay much attention to off the court. He thinks the names are Jess, Lake, Rori, and maybe Tristan. Maybe.
The time it takes for him to consider what their names actually are is the time it takes for them to reach their table. Jack starts off strong with, “Well, decided to introduce the little freak to society, have we?” Then attempting to laugh it off as the upperclassmen fix him with exasperated looks, ranging from glaring to disappointment. Kevin keeps his head in his arms. Nicky loudly sighs. Neil thinks he hears Aaron mutter something along the lines of I just wanted enchiladas and a marg.
“No invite for us? This looks like a team event,” is what Sheena unwisely follows Jack’s comment with. Various noises of disagreement leave the table.
Suddenly, Kevin picks his head up and turns around. His movements are staggered, and it's obvious that getting four new pitchers for the table was a bad idea. He points at the group, and says, “We associate with you out of necessity. If I believed inviting you would improve your performance on the court, I would have. But it won’t. So now, I want to drink this margarita and listen to Allison talk about who in the tower is fucking who. I want you to go to a corner of this establishment where I can’t see or hear you. Goodbye.” He turns around again and takes a bite of his cheese quesadilla that Nicky ordered him off the kids menu. “Who the fuck let me order this?” He demands, waving a drunken hand around. “It’s completely empty calories.”
The freshmen are retreating in the background as Nicky shakes his head. “Sometimes we measure meals in happiness, not calories.”
The table is empty of plates, only chips and drinks remaining when the next occurrence happens. Neil didn’t think it would be as big a deal as it was when he looked over at the open window into the kitchen, where one of the line cooks was cutting up a steak. He is slightly leaning on Allison’s shoulder, having been shoved off of Andrew’s when he tried to poke his cheek, when he says, “That chef is using my father’s favorite brand of knives.”
Their group goes silent, Allison removing Neil’s head from her shoulder to join the group in staring at him with various unsettled and concerned looks. It’s in this moment of silence that the couple at the table next to them decides to escalate their argument. The woman slams her hands down on the table, dramatically standing up and yelling.
“ No! It is not my fault that your whore of a son gave half the soccer team chlamydia! Everyone knows that stepmothers aren’t actually supposed to raise the children!”
It takes approximately three seconds for their table to start cackling. Kevin is drunkenly beside himself, Aaron actually cracks a smile, and Andrew’s mouth twitches as Neil giggles into his shoulder. Okay, he might be drunk. Kevin was definitely not lying about how strong the frozen margaritas were.
It’s at this moment of unified contentment that Kevin looks at his phone, then drops it loudly on the table with a resolute, “Fuck.” With dying giggles from the rest of them, Kevin follows that with, “I have a sociology research proposal due at midnight.”
Neil hasn’t seen the team this united since their game against the Ravens. Allison immediately tracks down their waitress and pays for their entire meal, along with a tip of at least fifty percent shoved into her hand by Neil. Dan takes Renee’s water and replaces her straw with a new one before demanding Kevin drink it, then following Allison to retrieve her car. Nicky and Aaron leave to get the Maserati and pull it to the door for when Kevin is in a walkable state. Matt, Neil, and Renee are tasked with getting him to said walkable state while Andrew watches, a hint of amusement on his face. Most likely, it’s invisible to everyone but Neil.
“Kevin. Kevin, my man, just think sober thoughts.”
Kevin groans, looking at the two pitchers he single handedly emptied like they personally wronged him. “What do sober people think, Matt? What do they think? How do I do that?” With a slow shake of his head, he says, “This is why I don’t drink tequila.”
Matt stops. Andrew looks up from his phone. Even Renee winces slightly. “Kevin, is this your first time consuming tequila?” Matt looks the most concerned he’s ever been for Kevin’s well being.
Kevin nods tragically. Neil actually thinks he sees a tear in his eyes. “I'm loyal to vodka.”
“You’re an idiot,” Andrew replies. “Get up. We’re getting this done.”
“I don’t have legs anymore,” Kevin says, seriously.
After trying not to laugh his ass off watching Matt and Renee to team up in carrying Kevin to the car, apologizing deeply to their waitress and the host Kevin almost knocks over on his way out, they’re finally back in the Tower, the whole lot of them cramped around Kevin as he sits on the floor and types away at his laptop. They sit and talk as quietly as they can, no one wanting Kevin to start screaming about distractions again. Neil gently rests his head on Andrew’s shoulder, playing with his fingers as their hands rest, joined, in Neil’s lap.
“Being drunk is fun when you’re not getting stitches,” Neil whispers in Andrew’s ear.
Andrew sighs, like Neil is his biggest inconvenience. “Every word that leaves your mouth is a tragedy. Someone should follow you with a tuba and make sad noises whenever you speak.”
This only makes Neil giggle again.
“Done!” Kevin proclaims, turning his laptop around for them all to read.
Dan is the one who, cautiously, leans in close and does so. “Discrimination is a bad thing, people should stop doing it ,” she reads aloud.
“This is an hour’s worth of work, Kevin,” Nicky says, almost pained. “It’s ten thirty.”
“I’m going to turn it in,” Kevin declares, and it takes everyone that’s close to him to take the computer away before he actually can.
After this, Renee, as the only one that is both sober and caring, is the only one actually helping. She hangs over Kevin’s shoulder, following his words and pointing out needed corrections, while Matt and Aaron are for some reason in a heated debate about another show from their childhood that Neil is not rushing to tell them he hasn’t watched. Allison and Dan are attempting to paint each other's nails while Nicky watches and gives his opinion on what color they should use for each finger.
Neil’s head has moved to Andrew’s thigh, where Andrew is now twisting his fingers through the strands, scratching at his scalp occasionally. There’s some Taylor Swift song playing from Allison’s phone, one from an album that the entire room had to debate in order to decide on. It’s one of her recent indie ones, Neil thinks. Kevin said the piano notes would help him concentrate.
“I wish things could stay like this,” Neil says, quietly enough that only Andrew can hear it.
Andrew hums in response. “That’s the margarita talking.”
Neil rubs his nose against the fabric of Andrew’s shirt and tries not to think of how soon this will all have to change. “Yeah. Probably.”