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The diner was packed. People and families from all over the town filled the room; young people, old people and even a newborn baby could be seen as the three friends entered. Jackson had been growing rapidly in the last few years and here, on a busy Saturday night, it really showed. Ellie noticed Dina looking at the baby but she couldn’t read her facial expression. Was her girlfriend excited to have a baby of her own? Was she as scared as Ellie? Probably, but Ellie couldn’t help with that as she still hadn’t found the courage to ask. Jesse didn’t notice any of this as he pushed through the crowd, hoping to find an empty table. In the back corner of the room, he found a red sofa crammed into the small space between two walls. In front of the tattered sofa was a large wooden table and on the other side of the table sat two chairs. Perfect. When Ellie finally got Dina’s attention, the couple moved quickly to where Jesse was stood waiting.
As Ellie and Dina took their seats, Jesse smiled and headed towards the bar. He returned with an assortment of bottles, as well as a decent amount of glasses. Dina stared longingly at the alcohol, her brown eyes wide and focused on the different labels on the bottles prohibited from (but right in front of) her. She saw whiskey, beer and… some unlabelled shit which she didn’t even recognise, but that someone clearly liked as the bottle was almost empty.
“Where did you find that?” asked Ellie, confused.
“What the fuck is it?’ Dina added, whilst moving her head to take a closer look.
“It’s good!” claimed Jesse, not answering either of their questions.
Then, taking Dina out of her temptation-fuelled daydream, Jesse deliberately placed a plastic bottle of apple juice in front of her. The woman sighed as she poured the cold liquid into her glass. Ellie smiled, then looked over at Jesse who had sat down before he began pulling two shot glasses out, seemingly from nowhere.
“Why do you-“ Ellie stopped speaking mid-sentence to allow herself to make a disgusted face as she watched Jesse fill the glasses with the remains of the strange, nameless concoction. She picked up the glass and inspected the drink suspiciously before drinking it in one sip. Immediately, she raised her eyebrows and coughed, a reaction that made Dina laugh. Soon after, Jesse took his glass and downed its contents calmly before leaning back in his seat (which was the sofa he had claimed after a slight argument with Ellie, who thought that Dina should have it).
Dina looked around and peered at all of the other tables, some filled with groups of children and some filled with older people. Every other Saturday, the owners of the diner held a ‘Jackson Game Night’ where each table was given a board game they could enjoy. Not everyone had to play, of course, but it was recommended that those who didn’t stayed near the bar rather than the tables to make room for those who were playing. Ellie pulled two games from the carpeted floor - Jenga and Monopoly. Jesse suggested they play Monopoly first and the others agreed. Dina wanted to be the banker, Ellie used the dog piece and Jesse used the top hat. The two drunk friends were very competitive with this game, both wanting to win for bragging rights. They stayed focused for hours, the trio laughing and talking like they were kids again. In the end, no one really won.
“Fuck you!” exclaimed Jesse after Ellie had bought his best property. Dina shot him a look, as if to say ‘Be quiet, there’s kids around’. The game wasn’t finished yet, but he pushed the board to the side and suggested they play Jenga instead. When she was done laughing, Ellie agreed. As she picked up the Jenga box from the floor, Jesse tried to throw a small dice at her head. He blatantly missed, and Dina tracked the object with her eyes as it flew past her head. Ellie sat up, holding the box, and realised what he had done.
“You are so drunk!” she said, not realising how embarrassingly slurred her own speech was.
“Of course I am, I came up with the idea for a reason!” claimed Jesse.
Dina started to wonder how much they had drank. She looked at Jesse’s two large, empty glasses and the half-full beer bottle next to them. Next, she looked at Ellie’s one empty glass and only slightly-drunk beer. She silently judged Ellie for getting so drunk so quickly, before looking down at her half-drank apple juice. She had felt too sick to finish it, but the others didn’t need to know that. She had made a promise to herself not to ruin the fun for them.
By the time Dina finished thinking about her apple juice, the Jenga tower was already set up.
“Dina, you first.” suggested Jesse, not wanting her to feel left out. She smiled and carefully removed a block from the middle of the tower. Nothing fell. The group had been taking turns removing blocks with no changes for a few minutes until a small voice emerged from behind Ellie and Dina.
“Dina?” uttered a small, blonde boy who was barely taller than the table leg.
“Mhm?” replied Dina with a polite smile.
“Can you.. do you want to play UNO with us?” he asked, “We need an adult to watch us play one more game before we go home.” The boy was only four but, as the son of an elementary school teacher, his speaking was more understandable and advanced than that of most of the other kids. Dina looked over at Ellie for permission, who nodded enthusiastically, almost too enthusiastically, to the point where Dina grew suspicious.
Then, Dina replied “Of course!” and got up out of her seat.
Ellie and Jesse watched as she followed the child to his small table, her brown ponytail swaying with each step and her head aimed down slightly to show the boy that she was giving him her full attention. Although they could not could see her face, both of them could sense that she was smiling. Maybe Dina was just happy to get away from drunk people for a while.
As soon as Dina could definitively no longer hear, Ellie leaned forward and whispered:
“I hate kids. Can’t he see we’re in the middle of something?”
“Well, we’re lucky she doesn’t,” Jesse responded, “she’s great with them.”
He nodded his head in Dina’s direction where he watched her take a seat next to the child. He could see her face now, and she was definitely smiling.
“She’s great with everyone.” laughed the auburn-haired girl.
The two of them had always shared a deep admiration for Dina. Even after her and Jesse had broken up, it was never as awkward as Ellie had expected it to be. Dina made it clear that she wasn’t interested in Jesse and Jesse made it clear that he wasn’t interested in Dina. Whether Jesse was telling the truth about that was a mystery that would go forever unsolved.
Dina felt so relieved when a parent of one of the kids offered her a jug of water to take back to the table. Water made her feel better, but the same couldn’t be said for Ellie and Jesse. Nothing could stop them from being drunk and nothing could save them from the horrible hangovers they would have the next day. Dina was glad she wouldn’t have to experience one of those again for a while, but she did wonder if morning sickness was worse. Before he left, one kid - who was so short that his head was only the height of Dina’s belly - hugged Dina to say thank you for playing. She laughed, but had to close her eyes to stop the wave of happy tears that wanted so badly to escape them. Another kid, who looked no older than 3, had fallen asleep in her chair and therefore been carried home by her mother. Dina wanted to be like her.
As Dina was sitting back down at the table, placing the jug of water down as she went, Ellie planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. Dina didn’t appreciate this though - she looked her girlfriend up and down begrudgingly.
“Babe, you stink of beer.” she said, before subtly turning her head in the other direction and exhaling deeply. Dina hid it well, but the strong scent of alcohol on Ellie’s breath had almost been enough to make her gag.
“Water.” she said, making Jesse and Ellie aware of the jug in front of them, “You need it.”
Despite their complaints, she filled both of their glasses with ice cold water. Jesse took a sip and then placed his glass back down on the table, unimpressed. Ellie, however, did what Dina wanted and drank the whole glass. Ellie and Jesse took turns taking blocks from the tower for a few minutes and Dina was surprised at how it had stayed stable whilst she was gone. Her amazement didn’t last long, though, as her and Ellie watched in shock whilst Jesse pulled a wooden block from the most obviously wrong place. The top half of the tower fell quickly, adding more mess to the already disorganised table.
“You’re so stupid.” laughed Ellie, as Jesse pretended to be shocked. The two of them laughed consistently as they attempted to clear up the blocks and place them back into the box; this took much longer than it should have as neither of them were sober enough to think straight. One block even fell into the water jug, an unwelcome addition that Ellie expected Dina to be upset with. When she sheepishly looked over at Dina, however, she found that the poor girl was asleep. Since she had been much quieter than Jesse, Ellie, and also her usual self for the whole night, Ellie never even noticed that she had been silent for the past 10 minutes. The realisation made Jesse and Ellie laugh even more.
When they finally stopped laughing, silence took over as the two awake friends realised that they were some of the last people in the diner. Jesse broke it by offering to tidy up before he left. Ellie knew that her friend, who was probably 3 times more drunk than she was, would do a terrible job of packing away and that the board games would be missing pieces and falling out of the boxes the next time they played, but, after looking over at Dina, who was starting to wake up, she decided to let him do it.
“Yeah.. I should probably get her home.” she said quietly, “I still can’t believe you took the sofa.”
“I needed it! I’m the one with the leg injury here.” replied Jesse with a smile.
As Ellie left, she didn’t even care about the mess she had made. She just hoped that Seth would be the one in charge of cleaning and closing up that night.