“Does everyone understand the game?” she asked in a deeper voice than he expected.
The group nodded their heads, although Kam didn’t know the rules he figured that it would be easy enough. The waitress nodded then pulled out six shot glasses and started filling them with vodka. She handed each of them a shot “Cheers!” she shouted as she downed her shot. The other four did the same with Kam looking confused. In the end, he just sighed to himself and took another shot.
After everyone finished their shots the waitress pulled out two cups for each person and set them in front of them. She then pulled out a hose and sprayed water into the left cup of each person. After that, she grabbed a notepad from her back pocket and asked the group for their drinks. They each gave their drink order.
Amy went first ordering a vodka cranberry, followed by Deacon who got a Moscow mule, then Berry who embarrassedly ordered a sex on the beach, and finally Day ordered herself a margarita.
“What about you, Handsome?” She leaned a bit on the table as she asked Kam in a Sultry voice for his drink.
Kam found that he quite liked it. She is a beautiful woman and if he had the chance he would spend some quality time with her. But Kam shook the drunken fantasies out of his head and went with his better judgment.
“Ima just sip this water for a bit,” he said holding the glass of water up to his mouth.”
The woman nodded her head not at all upset at his decision. The rest of the group gave small whistles and hoots toward Kam. Day even nudged his elbow a bit and told him to go for it. Kam ultimately just ignored it, he could feel the alcohol starting to get to him. The night was still early and he didn’t want to ruin it by getting too drunk.
The bartender then turned around and started to fix the drinks for the group. During this time Kam made sure to get a good look at…the asset on display. And fortunately, the small uniforms helped tremendously.
Their server turned around to ask Day something about her drink and caught Kam looking during that time. Although he thought he should, Kam didn’t look away from her and for a second they locked eyes. The waitress winked at him before continuing her work.
After another five minutes, the rest of the group had their drinks and they were finally ready to start. The group game then started with Amy spinning first. For the next two hours, the group stayed in Harry’s Drinking Carousel playing their signature game. They had a ball playing the game and messing with each other during the process.
The game was basically trivia, giving Kam an innate disadvantage. But after sitting the first two rounds he was to get the hang of it. Though he still did terribly and had to spin a lot, he was able to stave off being drunk with a lot of water.
When Kam started drinking again the atmosphere at the table got even more boisterous.
During this time he even started actively flirting with the waitress, he made sure to not take it too far as she was at work and he didn’t want to become one of those people.
Fortunately, she reciprocated his energy. In the end, they had to leave as they were each starting to get drunk and they didn’t want to spend all their time in one place. And they needed to pee bad.
When Kam was paying for the drinks, he felt someone slip something into his pocket on their way out. He quickly checked it and saw it was a piece of paper with a name and number on it. He looked around for the culprit and saw the waitress at their former table looking at him. She did the “call me” sign before pulling her cart to a new table. Kam smiled and put the piece of paper in his wallet before following his friends out.
He had learned something pretty interesting about this group while at the table.
During their time at the table, he learned about how responsibly the group drank overall. Whenever they were drinking something from the game they would always follow it with some water. They made sure that they were taking in just enough alcohol to feel a buzz but never get too drunk. While the amount looked different for each person they all knew their limits pretty well. Kam figured that it was a must for them to, with Day being around. He was honestly surprised by how much alcohol she could put down without getting sloppily drunk.
While it wasn’t that big of a deal, it did give him some insight into the people he was dealing with.
After everyone finished their bathroom run they met back up again.
“Alright, what’s next!” Deacon said a bit too loud, causing people to look at them.
He shrunk his neck and asked again. This time in a whisper “what's next”
“I wanna go dancing!” Berry declared
Her declaration was supported by both Day and Amy as they nodded their heads.
“Dancing it is!”Amy cheered.
“Aye aye Captian,” the group said as they led Kam through the menagerie of tents at the park. Kam was truly surprised by the number of tents that could fit in the central area. He made a mental note to come to visit the park during the day some time to get a good look at it.
As the group walked Kam took note of all the people outside of the tents doing their own things. He occasionally walked past the odd group or couple arguing about something. Sometimes people were fighting, but they were quickly broken up by the security here. There were a lot of people kissing and feeling each other, he could guess how their nights would end.
Now and again he could see people doing drugs, he didn’t see people doing anything heavy like heroin or meth. But he did see bags of mushrooms, weed, and some cocaine. At first, he was surprised as nobody even tried to hide it. They were even offering random passerbys on the street some, many of which accepted.
Kam was also offered a couple of times, he was tempted but his friends told him some things that made him change his mind.
Deacon told him that he would have to pay and while it was legal to do it there was a big risk that came along with it. Unless he was buying it from a trusted source, it was more than likely laced with something. This was especially true for people offering it for free. It was common knowledge among residents, but not with new people. They told him to look at the wrist of the people saying yes, and quickly Kam noticed that majority of the people saying yes had blue wristbands. The rest he assumed just didn’t care about the potential drugs being laced.
After Kamara listen to this he reprimanded himself. He had forgotten that although this world was better than his old one it was still stupid to trust strangers. What he was doing now was stupid. In his last life- he wasn’t in his last life anymore so it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that he had let the allure of the world get to him and forgot that these people are humans still, just not as violent for some reason? He did have some trust in these four, they had been nothing but helpful and kind to him since he’s met them.
He had no reason to doubt them right now, but overall he still had to be more careful. He would have his fun, but he had to be smarter about it.
“Don’t worry man, if you wanna try anything just tell me. I know a guy that could hook us up. Is everyone ok with that?” Deacon said as he patted Kam’s shoulder pulling out of his thoughts.
“I think we should wait till next time or when we can all just relax. Let's not spoil the newbie's first day out with drugs.” Day answered from ahead of the two
“Yea it's better to do it in a safe area like one of our homes. While you're probably going to be ok doing it here, theirs still a chance of something going wrong. Plus I have a class tomorrow.” Amy added
“I would prefer to wait also.” Berry voiced her opinion
“I'm fine with waiting,” Kam said he felt that the group was right plus he felt it would be better to have his first drug experience in this life be with a small group of friends.
He would wait a couple of weeks before bringing it back up, by then he should know if he could trust them.
“Alright, just let me know when and I got yall” Deacon said as he put his hands in his pockets.
“We know,” the three said
“Thanks, Deacon” Kam patted him on the should this time before going back to his people watching.
The group walked for about ten more minutes. By this time they were starting to sober up and some were looking for more drinks to keep their buzz going.
Fortunately, the group made it to their destination, a large white tent with the words Dance Hall painted in black on it. Kam thought it looked a little plain compared to the other tents around the area that have flashing lights and people outside to entice customers.
But the number of people going inside of the tents let him know that clearly, they knew something about this place that he didn’t. So like most of the night, he decided to follow his friends to see what was happening.
Noticing his initial skepticism Berry spoke up “It might not look like much but it's one the best dance clubs here. If you like dancing you’ll like it here.”
Kam nodded “I’ve never been dancing.” he admitted
Berry gave a surprised look “Oh, you will have so much fun!”, she then grabbed his hands, her hands covered by the cloth of her sleeve, and pulled Kam inside of the tent.
Kam looked back at the group as he was pulled into the tent with Berry, all he could see was their confused looks as they followed them in.
