One Wild Night

  apparently my dad’s idea, and he’d called ahead reserving all of the outfits for tonight. My dad was dressed as Iron Man. Wayne was Spiderman. Russell, my forty-five-year-old teammate, was dressed as Luke Skywalker. I burst out laughing as I saw my father-in-law. He’d apparently not wanted to go for a superhero tonight; instead, he opted to go as a 60s pimp. He was decked out in a purple velvet suit, fake gold jewellery and a wide-brimmed, purple velvet hat with leopard print trim on everything. He grinned at me and pulled on the collar of his suit jacket, pouting, trying to look like a pimp – but not pulling it off in the slightest.

  “George, you are way too funny. This is where Rosie gets her craziness from!” I chuckled, shaking my head as I snapped a couple of photos of him while he posed with my dad.

  Someone slapped my shoulder so I looked around to see Ashton had come out of his changing cubicle. He was Batman. I laughed and elbowed him in the fake rubber abs and shook my head. “Very sexy,” I commented, rolling my eyes at him.

  “Later we’ll see who would win if Batman were to fight Zorro like you always wondered,” he suggested, grinning wickedly. “I’ve hired a wrestling ring and we’re gonna see which superhero, or pimp daddy, would come out on top of a superhero battle.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. This was something we’d discussed a lot whilst drunk over the years – which superhero was the best. For me, Zorro kicked ass every time.

  I laughed and looked back at George, who was busy strutting in his suit and three-inch platforms. “Just don’t hurt my father-in-law. Rosie would bitch me out big time if he couldn’t walk her down the aisle tomorrow.” I laughed at George and shook my head. “You look way too comfortable in that outfit, George.”

  He grinned and nodded. “I used to wear this kind of thing all the time when I was a kid.”

  I frowned. “Just how old are you exactly?” I asked, laughing.

  “Still young enough to kick your ass,” he said, shrugging and smirking at me.

  “Leave that fighting talk for later,” I suggested, grinning.

  Ashton looked around everyone. “Are we all ready?”

  I shrugged, looking for anyone that was missing. There were only eleven of us here. “Where’s Rick?” I asked, frowning. We all turned back towards the changing rooms; there was one curtain still shut. “Rick, you ready, bud?”

  A loud groan came from behind the curtain. “I’m not going,” he replied, his voice muffled.

  Ashton and I both exchanged a quizzical glance before heading over to the offending curtain that was shielding the last member of my ‘pussy-whipped party’. Ashton pulled it back quickly and there stood Rick, dressed in a full, skintight Superman outfit.

  His eyes widened, as he looked over first me, and then Ashton. Suddenly, his brow furrowed and he shook his head as his hand shot to his crotch which was pretty much exposed in his tight and revealing outfit. He looked around the group standing behind me, consisting of The Green Lantern, Captain America, Optimus Prime and a couple more.

  “Oh, man, this blows! Why do I have to be the only one in actual spandex? You guys get muscle suits, and I get spandex? Someone up there hates me. And, to top it all off, it’s freaking cold outside!” he whined, shaking his head fiercely. “I’m not going out in this. There must be something else,” he stated, looking around quickly.

  Ashton grinned and rolled his eyes. “You’re going as Superman! There wouldn’t be much of a battle if Superman wasn’t there, now, would there?” he teased, slinging his arm around Rick’s shoulder and guiding him out of the changing room. Ashton looked down at his watch. “Now it’s time for the pièce de résistance! It took me forever to arrange this, so you’d better appreciate it!” he said, grinning at me excitedly.

  I frowned at him quizzically. “What are we doing?”

  “You’ll see,” he replied, as the other boys whooped and hollered excitedly.

  Tears of joy stung my eyes. This was easily one of the best things that had ever happened to me. I was snapping photos like a madman as the Jimmy Meddler walked down the carpeted aisle towards the wrestling ring where we were all standing. I couldn’t breathe properly, and I was seriously making myself look like a punk. Luckily for me, everyone had the same awed expressions as I did; my dad was actually covering his mouth and jumping up and down.

  We were in the famous recording studios where my childhood heroes smacked the shit out of each other for our entertainment. I was literally standing in the ring where my heroes had stood, watching as the most incredible wrestler in the world walked towards me. His jet-black hair was covered by a red bandana the same as usual, and a black vest with ‘The Meddler’ was covering his muscled chest. My mouth dropped open in awe as he climbed into the ring, standing there at a mammoth six-feet-eight. At age fifty-nine, he still took my breath away.

  When he made a growling sound and tore his shirt in half, throwing it at my feet, I just about lost it. Now it was my turn to scream like a pre-pubescent girl who had just been hugged by Harry Styles. Ashton clapped me on the back, grinning like an idiot. We’d spent many an hour when we were young and stupid trying to re-enact some of this guy’s moves. He probably loved him just as much as I did.

  “This is a wedding gift, from me to you,” he stated, snapping photos of Jimmy Meddler on his cell phone.

  I stepped forward and prayed my voice would work when I spoke to the man I always wanted to grow up as when I was a kid. “Oh, man, I’m your biggest fan! I was a total Meddlermaniac when I was younger; I still am. I’ve watched all your movies at least a hundred times. I had them all on video back before DVDs were even invented. You. Are. Awesome,” I gushed, raking my eyes over him, shaking my head in bewilderment.

  He grinned and held out his hand to me. “You must be Nate Peters. It’s nice to meet you. I always wanted to meet my biggest fan,” he joked, laughing his booming laugh that just made my eyes widen as I tried not to squeal and throw myself at him for a hug.

  I giggled. Actually giggled like a little girl. I knew I needed to grow a pair, but I just couldn’t. Jimmy Meddler was standing in front of me; this was a dream come true. Christ, I love my best friend!

  “Can I get a photo with you? My fiancée has a little thing for you, too. Right, George?” I said, turning to look at my soon-to-be father-in-law.

  He nodded in confirmation. “Oh, yeah, she used to have posters of you and everything.”

  Jimmy grinned and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me to his side. I laughed and tilted my head back to look at him. Jeez, he’s tall! I was six-foot, but he even made me feel small.

  “So, is your girl hot? Maybe I should meet her,” Jimmy teased as we posed for photos.

  I laughed. “I really need to kick your ass if you’re thinking about making a move on my girl. She’ll love me even more when I tell her I gave The Meddler the smackdown,” I replied, laughing.

  He raised one eyebrow and pulled back looking at me challengingly. “In your dreams, Zorro. You’re not big enough to smackdown Jimmy Meddler.”

  “Meaning no disrespect to you here, Mr Meddler, but when I tell my girl about this tomorrow, you’re having your ass handed to you regardless of the outcome of tonight,” I joked, winking at him.

  He burst out laughing and slung his arm around my shoulder, almost making my knees buckle under the sheer weight of it. “You’re all right, Zorro. You’re all right,” he replied, nodding.

  “The Meddler has agreed to teach us some moves and ref the superhero battle,” Ashton said, grinning excitedly.

  I groaned as I lay on my back, gasping for breath for probably the eighth time in three minutes. We’d been play-fighting it out for ages. Jimmy Meddler was showing us his moves; how to fall without getting hurt, and showing us the tricks to being a professional wrestler. I was having the time of my life. The only thing that would make this better was if Rosie and DJ were here, too. We’d had the superhero battle already, but none of us were taking it seriously because we were all too eager to get in the rin
g with The Meddler. Ashton and I had got to the end, beating everyone to prove that Zorro and Batman were the biggest badasses of all heroes, but we both quit before seeing who would win. Apparently, we were short on time because they wanted the ring cleared because there was an actual show being filmed in an hour.

  The Meddler grinned and pushed himself off me, holding down a hand to help me to my feet. I rubbed at my back, groaning as I looked at him in awe. I looked back to Ashton. “Please tell me you recorded that! Jimmy fucking Meddler just did a powerslam on me!” I cried excitedly.

  He nodded quickly. “I got it. Do a suplex now!” he said eagerly.

  Jimmy laughed and shook his head. “That’s enough for today. The poor guy is getting married tomorrow, that’s enough punishment for one lifetime,” he protested, grinning at me.

  I held my hand out and slapped him a high-five. My whole body hurt, but that was so totally worth it. “You have just made my bachelor party. This was freaking awesome! Thanks so much for doing this,” I gushed.

  He laughed and strutted over to his bag he’d dumped in the corner. When he turned back to me, he held out his ripped T-shirt and a signed photo of himself. I gasped and practically snatched it out of his hands.

  “Here, I got you this, too,” he said, turning and taking something off Ashton. I held out my hand for whatever it was. This was just too much. Meeting Jimmy Meddler, getting his ripped shirt. This night was incredible!

  Something wet and hard dropped into my hand. I tore my eyes away from his autograph long enough to look what it was. I frowned when I saw a bright pink dildo in the palm of my hand.

  What the hell?

  “Er, thanks. Umm… what’s that for?” I asked, shaking my head and laughing at the randomness of it.

  All the boys were laughing, laughing so hard they were clutching their sides. Ashton was bent in half, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. Even Jimmy was laughing his big booming laugh.

  I frowned, getting even more confused. “I don’t think my girl needs one of these. I can take care of that,” I stated, still trying to work out what they were all in hysterics for.

  That was when I saw what Ashton was holding. Realisation suddenly washed over me as I tried to open my hand to drop the offending object. I turned my hand over, but it was already welded to my palm.

  My asshole friends had just superglued a bright pink dildo to the palm of my hand, and Jimmy Meddler, my childhood hero, was the one who actually passed it to me.

  “You bitches suck,” I groaned, closing my eyes and imagining walking into the ER asking for them to remove this.

  Ashton reached out and grabbed my wrist, flipping my hand over and poking at the bottom of it carefully. That was the moment I really started to hate my friends.

  Apparently, it was a flashing, bright pink dildo. Just pure awesomeness.

  Chapter Two

  The assholes insisted we were to stop at every bar and do a shot; then, when we got to the minibus that was at the end of the road, we would apparently go to the hospital to get the dildo removed. By the time we made it past five bars, I was actually growing accustomed to having it stuck to my hand. It was like a glow stick, and I was moronically waving it over my head to the beat of the music as we laughed and waited for our drinks.

  It was only about eight in the evening, and I was already wasted. When I flicked my eyes around, my vision seemed to take a second or two to catch up with the movement. It was a little disorientating, but considering I had been drunk thousands of times since I was legal to drink – and even before I was legal, too – I could cope with it. However, I could just as easily stop drinking and go home to bed. I could do what I told George I was going to do earlier and call his daughter up for some nasty phone time. She went crazy for that kind of thing. That was definitely being added to my plan at some point in the night.

  Ashton grinned and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “Time for some calls,” he chirped. I laughed. This was something we hadn’t done in a while. Prank calls. He held the phone out, grinning. It wasn’t his phone, we had bought a cheap one specifically for this purpose; the number had been blocked and didn’t receive incoming calls. It was only ever used for our entertainment purposes. “Who wants to go first?” he asked, flicking his eyes around the group.

  Seth took the phone out of his hand, laughing. “Me!” He dialled in a number; I knew it would be one of his family. That was our thing: we each had to call a member of our family and prank them for at least one minute. It could either be one phone call, or a combination of several calls, as long as they lasted over a minute and were all to the same person. If they guessed it was us, then you lost and had to down a shot from the ‘fish bowl’. The fish bowl was disgusting. We literally bought one of every drink and mixed them all together in a huge glass bowl or jug. I winced when I saw Ashton was currently pouring a glass of JD and Coke, and followed it with a Malibu and pineapple juice, then a whiskey chaser or two and some other coloured shots, which made the whole thing turn a blue-green colour. I prayed I didn’t get caught out because that drink was going to taste vile.

  My dad and George had obviously never heard of this game before. My dad shot me an accusing look. “This is why I get dodgy calls every couple of weeks?” he asked. “That one from the Thai laundry factory that told me if I didn’t come and collect my clothes, they were going to take me to court and charge me rent for storing them for so long? That was you?”

  I burst out laughing. That call had been awesome. I’d managed to keep him on the line for a good five minutes while he explained he’d never even heard of ‘I bang anything laundry services’. I’d had him on speaker while he shouted the fake name out, telling me to take him to court, that his son was a cop and that he didn’t even care.

  Ashton slapped me a high-five, laughing his ass off. “That was the best call ever. Nate still has the record for that one,” he said, nodding at me proudly.

  Seth waved his hand to get our attention and held one finger to his lips, signalling for us to be quiet. I grinned and chewed on my lip, trying not to laugh too loud and ruin it for him. “Hello, am I talking to a Mrs Monterary?” he asked. I shook my head; he was pranking his mother. “Mrs Monterary, this is Special Agent Pratt. I’m calling to inform you about a pending lawsuit against you for copyright infringement. We have traced over 20GB of illegal downloading from your IP address. As you are most probably aware, it is a crime to download pirated movies, music and literature. A process server from my department will be at your house within the next twenty-four hours to impound your computer and any other devices which are found to contain illegally downloaded material,” he said, holding up his hand for one of those fist punches.

  My dad leant over to me. “This is a lot funnier when you’re on the other side of it,” he whispered, laughing as he watched Seth, who was currently arguing with his mom about how they can’t be wrong because his department never made mistakes.

  After less than a minute, he groaned and looked defeated. “Damn it! How did you know it was me?” he whined, closing his eyes as Ashton poured out a shot glass full to the brim with the toxic-looking drink. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you Sunday for dinner, okay? Yeah, love you, too, Mom,” he replied, snapping the phone shut and sliding it across the bar to me. He sighed and took the glass, taking a couple of deep breaths before chugging it down, gagging a couple of times as he did it.

  I picked up the phone and dialled in Toni’s number; she was Rosie’s sister, and I’d never pranked her before, so I had a pretty good chance of pulling this off.

  When Toni answered, I grinned and launched into my prepared spiel. “Hi there, this is Wayne Kerr from Radio Heat. In thirty seconds, you’re going to be live on the radio because your ex-partner, David, has answered three questions correctly and is currently in the running to win a luxury vacation to Barbados. When we get back on the air, I’m going to ask you three general knowledge questions. If you get them correct, then both of you will win the vaca
tion. Oh, and please don’t use offensive language. We will be live on the radio to over twelve million people,” I lied.

  I heard her gasp and mumble something off the line. “Oh, my God, seriously?” she cried.

  “If you could just hold the line for thirty seconds,” I added before putting my hand over the mouthpiece and laughing as she started rambling about how she didn’t want to go on the radio. She kept asking how I had got her number, had David given it to me, why had he chosen her to answer questions with him. I didn’t respond to any of it, just looked at my watch, waiting for my minute to be up, smirking at Ashton confidently.

  Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice. “Nate Peters, you had better not be pranking my little sister,” Rosie said down the line.

  I laughed. Aww, screw it. “Hey, Stripes. How did you know it was me?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

  “Wayne Kerr, sounds like wanker. I knew it had to be you as soon as she said who was calling,” she responded, laughing.

  I grinned sheepishly. That was another rule; we always had to throw in something obvious to give them a clue. Seth had used Special Agent Pratt; I thought my selection was a pretty good name to use – obviously not. “Damn, you got me. Thanks for that, now I have to drink something that’s gonna make me sick in the morning,” I replied, wincing as Ashton poured me a drink.

  “Go play your boy games and leave us alone. We’re having a long conversation about you and you’re interrupting,” she teased. Rosie had her girls over with her tonight, including both of our moms, our sisters, and Ashton’s wife, Anna.

  “I hope it’s all good stuff,” I responded.

  She laughed. “Not really. You’re not exactly a good boy, are you, Officer Peters?” she flirted.

  I groaned when she called me that. She knew just how to get me excited. I blew out a big breath and shook my head; I really had met my match with Rosie. “Right, whatever. Try not to miss me too much tonight,” I stated, wishing I was back there with her so I could see the smile I knew she’d be sporting. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yep. G’night. Have fun,” she replied before cutting me off, obviously wanting to get back to her girlie gossiping and drinking.