One: The bonfire's warm but my feelings towards these people aren't

(swear warning)

I try not to drop all the drinks while navigating through the rocks and sticks. I’m biting my lip in concentration (which either makes me look ridiculously attractive or just ridiculous in general). The condensation is making these cans really slippery. I almost drop one when I hear someone by the bonfire shout, “Yo, hurry up already. I’m starting to get wrinkles,” followed by an uproar of laughter.

I set all but one on the ground. I open my can and yell, “Drink up, you ungrateful twats!” I sit on the ground, and wait for them to come to me. Dan is the first one here. He looks at the array of sodas on the ground and gasps, “Where’s the pepsi?”

"In the fridge, coke’s better anyway."

"Bro…"

"Bro," I reply mockingly.

He wipes a fake tear from his eye and grabs a Dr. Pepper. I hear some more moans about the lack of pepsi, but mostly people grabbed coke. Brad, in his typical air-headed manner, pipes up.

"Guys, I heard on the internet that coke used to have coke in it, like actual cocaine." His eyes bug out, expecting a reaction.

So I reacted. “Dude, just about everyone knows that.”

His barbie-esque girlfriend, Sophie, decides that she need to get her plastic nose into this. “Excuse me, Benjamin,” she says purposely ignoring my nickname, “Just because you heard it before he did, doesn’t mean you can be rude about it.”

Brad laughs, “It’s okay, princess,” I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth. “He’s just kidding around.”

"Yeah," she says in her overly nasally voice, "Benny’s just jealous.’

Dan gets a nervous look on his face. He knows where this is going.

Exasperated, I say, “First of all, princess, don’t call me ‘Benny.’” If you want to piss me off in a hurry, you call me Benny. “Second, I’m not jealous of your relationship because, as I’ve told you 5,000 times before, I’m ace and aro.”

She gets her signature confused look on her face,

"Asexual and aromantic, I don’t get sexually attracted to people, nor romantically attracted. And don’t you," Dan puts his hand over my mouth. "Okay, you’re getting my baby all flustered, let’s stop now." But they don’t.

"So you don’t get attracted to ladies, not even a bit?”

"Nope"

"So that makes you kinda gay then, right?"

"You have got to be f*****g kidding me."

Then I hear Dan, “Dan the Man to the rescue!” He full on princess-carries me to bonfire. This is what I get for having a best friend who plays every sport in the history of sporting. He has biceps bigger than my head.

"Dude do you even eat? You weigh like nothing." He sets me down next to the snacks, sweet.

"Nah, bro, I photosynthesize," I say whilst shoving a fistull of doritos in my face.

"Dork."

"Jock"

"Can I tell you a secret?" He leans in close, "You're my favorite nerd."

I whisper back, "That's good, 'cause you're my favorite athlete."

He laughs. Then he rubs my head with his monstrous, tennis racket-like hands (getting nacho cheese dust in my hair, but I don't mention anything). I happen to catch a glimpse of what might be the loosest definition of kissing possible. Brad is forcing his tongue down Sophie's mouth so far into her small (yet impeccably loud) mouth that it's a miracle she hasn't choked. I shudder. Dan turns around and sees the tongue fight going on.

"Dan the man back in action," he says, picking me up and turning me around, then proceeding to throw pebbles at them.

"You realize I'm capable of moving myself, right?" As I'm talking, Sophie screeches like she was shot and starts screaming what I can only imagine to be swears (however I can't understand anything that high pitched).

Unphased by anything going on around him, Dan says "Yeah, but where's the fun in that."

And to be honest, I kind of agree.

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