“Can I bum a smoke?” Chrissy asked as she watched AJ roll his eyes.

     “Do you even own your own pack? Have you ever owned your own pack?” AJ asked as he pulled out a Marlboro for Chrissy.  He whipped out his lighter and lit her cigarette.  Chrissy inhaled and smirked at AJ and as she exhaled she muttered “Fuck You”.  AJ and Chrissy had begun hanging out a few weeks ago after he made yet another trip into the diner.  He had apologized about his behavior earlier and she was cool about it.  They began to talk a lot more and realized they had quite a bit in common, but also enough to keep a friendship interesting.

     “Bite me AJ.  Like you've never bummed a smoke in your life,” she said.  AJ raised his eyebrows and looked at her.

    “Believe me, I've bummed.  However, I always make sure I have some and only if I've run out do I bum.  You NEVER have any.”  Chrissy smirked at him and took another puff on her cigarette.

     “I’ll pay you back, I swear.  One day, you'll open your door and see a carton of Marlboro Reds with a big, fat red bow on it and think of me!  You'll be paid back McLean.  So shut the fuck up and enjoy the fact that I'm in your company today.  It's not everyday that someone such as yourself gets to chill someone such as me,” she said.  AJ stared at her and furrowed his brow.

     “Right.  I'm honored to be in your company Ms. Chrissy.  If ever I should forget that I am in such royalty, steal another cigarette from me and I’ll quickly remember.  God forgive me?” he pleaded teasingly as he raised his hands to the ceiling.  They both sat on Chrissy’s couch smoking.  It seemed it was becoming a nightly ritual now.  They would hang out, whether it was watching movies, or going out to eat and then they came back to either one of their houses and sat around.  A couple of times they talked for hours and a couple of times they just ended up falling asleep on the couch.  AJ took another puff and exhaled.  He watched Chrissy do the same.

     “Ya know, these’ll kill you,” he said as he lifted his cigarette up.  Chrissy nodded.

     “Yeah, I know.  I'm quitting.  I swear,” she said.

     “Remember that first time you smoked one and you got that buzz?”  Chrissy nodded and smiled.

     “Nasty habit though,” she said as she inhaled again.  They both sat around and finished their cigarettes.  AJ and Chrissy sat around quietly.  They were more comfortable now so the silences weren't so harsh anymore.

    “Hey, ya know what we need?” Chrissy proclaimed.

    “Alcohol?” AJ answered.  She nodded and jumped up off the couch.   Chrissy bounced into her kitchen, slightly buzzed from the many cigarettes she had smoked.  She opened up her cabinet and looked around and smiled when she found what she was looking for.    She walked back into the living area and plopped back down on the couch, a bottle in her hand.

     “This was all I had, but at least it's good,” Chrissy said as she unscrewed the lid to the Captain Morgan’s Rum.  She poured some for the both of them and they drank it straight, and quickly.

     “That's some good shit,” AJ muttered as he put his glass back down on the table and laid back on the couch.

    “You want another one?” Chrissy asked.  AJ shook his yes and he watched as he poured another glass of rum for him.

    “Ya know, the only time I've ever gotten sick was when I was drunk on rum,” AJ said pensively as he took a swig from his glass.  Chrissy laughed.

    “Weakling,” she said.  AJ gave her a Fuck You look.

    “So, you've never been sick?”

     “I didn't say that.  Just not on rum, that's all,” she said.   AJ nodded.

     “Lemme guess, you're more hardcore.  Twenty-five shots of tequila and you're still standing, right?”  Chrissy laughed.

     “No, it's not quite that bad.  I can drink a few people under the table, but my stomach is not made out of cast-iron or anything.  Don't be getting any ideas Alex,” she said as she smiled.  Chrissy yawned and pulled her long, curly red hair out of her pony-tail.  AJ grabbed some of it in his hands and twisted his fingers up in the spirals.

     “Have I ever told you that you've got the best hair?” he said.  Chrissy smiled.

    “Thanks.  It wasn't always this nice or long,” she said.  Chrissy grabbed her hair and put it back in a messy half ponytail.  “It used to be so short, like almost bald,” she said, smiling at him.

    “What's with the smile?” he asked, touching her shoulder gently and smirking.  Chrissy shrugged.  “I'm sleepy,” He continued,  stretching his arms out and yawning a little.  Chrissy thought he was about to leave and she didn't want him to, not yet.

    “You wanna know why my hair used to be so short?”  AJ gave an excited nod and set down his glass excitedly.

    “Well,” she began with a hint of embarrassment in her eyes.  “One night, me and two of my friends, Emma and Kyla, were all hanging out.  One of us, I'm not sure who, thought it'd be fun if we had a sleepover. We could do girlie things like paint our nails, and have girlie gossip.  And, since were just over twenty-one, we could go into the liquor cabinet because it's something we always wanted to do when we were younger but we never could,” Chrissy said as she shook her head.  The memory brought a smile to her face.  She continued on.

    “Anyway, so, we all go over to Emma’s house and we're just hanging out.  We watched a little television, read a few teen magazines, cuz afterall, you're NEVER too old to read YM.  I don't care what anyone says,” she said as she nodded her head matter-of-factly.  AJ smiled.  “So, like I said, we're watching television and stuff, and we're getting bored.  Emma said we should play Truth or Dare, just like when we were younger.  Kyla and I thought it'd be cool, but we had another kind of Dare in mind.  Instead of like running around the neighborhood buck ass naked, we'd have to make these stupid drinks mixed with all kinds of alcohol.  Whoever was left standing, well, they were the winners.”  AJ looked at her with confusion.

     “Whoever won in Truth or Dare?”

     “We were playin’ this as twenty-one year olds having a sleep-over.  Explanation required.  Don't think so,” she said with a valley-girl accent.  AJ rolled his eyes.

    “Continue,” he said.

     “Anyway, so we get a bunch of liquor out of the cabinet and start to play.  No one takes the truth, cuz it's a hell of a lot funnier to see Emma drink something that tastes like smelly sweat socks.  Anyway, we keep on drinking and we're getting pretty fuckin’ toasted.  We're getting pretty bored with just daring each other to drink nasty-ass drinks, so we decided we'd actually make real dares.  So, you know, one of us dared someone to run around the house nude.  Someone else dared someone to make a prank phone call to one of their co-workers.  Pretty stupid and teenage shit, but hell, it was funny,” she said as she laughed.  AJ smiled.

    “Anything is fairly funny when you're three sheets to the wind, that's for sure.”  Chrissy nodded in agreement.

     “Anyway, so we're getting into this dare thing and finally, Emma was all, ‘Hey Chris.  I dare you to cut off all your hair.’  I kinda looked at her and giggled.  Kyla kinda looked at me and was all, ‘Hey, if I had to call my boss and tell him I wanted hot sweaty sex with him on the copy machine, you could at least cut your hair off.'  I didn't think they'd let me go through with it, so I got up and went into the bathroom and found a pair of scissors.  I kept waiting for them to tell me that they were kidding.  I mean, my hair, was freakin’ beautiful. It was so long and curly.  It hung at the middle of my back and everyone was always playing with it.  But NO, they didn't say anything!” Chrissy’s eyes got big as she got further into the memory. “ I started to cut my hair and they just started laughing.  Hell, I was laughing.  I ended up cutting it all off, I mean, I wanted to buzz the rest of my hair off, but that's when the bitches finally told me to stop. You know, I didn't think it looked bad when I did it,” Chrissy laughed.

     “You actually cut all your hair off?” AJ asked.

     “Dude, ‘cut my hair’ off isn’t even the right term.  Hacked it off is more like it.  It looked so fuckin’ terrible.  It was all chunky and fucked up.  The next day, I just cried and cried because it looked so fucking terrible.”

    “Did your friends feel bad?”

    “Well yeah.  It looked awful.  I don't think they felt as bad as me though.  I looked like a leprechaun, seriously.  All I needed were some pointy ears and a hat, and Id have been set,” she said as she laughed at the memory.  AJ ran his hands through Chrissy’s hair again.

     “At least it grew back,” he said quietly.  Chrissy smiled and nodded.  There was a silence between them.

    “C’mere,” he whispered to Chrissy.  She scooted over to him on her couch and nestled herself on his lap and placed her head in the crook of AJ’s neck.  He wrapped his arms around her and began to play with her long red curls.

    “Well, I'm glad it grew back,” he whispered.  Chrissy laughed slightly.  Their heads were a little slushy from the cigarettes and rum, but they both just brushed it off.  Chrissy sighed.

    “Thanks Alex.   I appreciate you listening to me and my stupid antics,” she whispered.  AJ laughed.

    “Anytime.  They say I'm good at it,” he said with an eyebrow raise.  Chrissy smiled.

    “You are.”  Chrissy lifted her head and looked straight into AJ’s eyes.  They both smiled at each other.  Chrissy kissed AJ on the lips, just as a friendly kiss.

They stared at each other again, and this time AJ kissed Chrissy, but it was more than a friendly kiss.  AJ pressed his lips hard up against Chrissy’s and ran his tongue over her lips until she opened them up to allow his tongue inside.  They began to kiss passionately and AJ lifted Chrissy up off his lap and laid her down on the couch as the kiss continued.  Chrissy ran her hand through AJ’s short brown hair as he continued to wrap his fingers up in her long spirals.  He began kissing her face, her eyelids, her nose, her earlobes as Chrissy sucked gently on AJ’s neck.  He ran his hands down her neck and onto her chest and under her shirt.

    “Time to get rid of this,” he said breathlessly as he lifted her shirt up.   She sat up so he could take it off completely and  smiled as she began to lift up his shirt bringing it up over his head.  Chrissy looked at him with frustration as she saw he was wearing an undershirt, but he gave her a very forgiving puppy-dog look.

    “Sorry,” he said with a smile.  Chrissy just laughed.

    “Just more to unwrap.  It's okay,” she said breathily.  She lifted up the undershirt and threw it off of AJ and onto the floor.  She stared at his lanky, yet muscular frame, concentrating so hard that AJ was the only thing she could see in an otherwise blurry room.  She ran her hands over AJ’s chest and he laughed slightly.  He began kissing her again, laying  on top of her and kissing down her neck, leaving a trail of small hickeys down her body.  She ran her hands over his back, massaging his muscles and relaxing him even more.  They kissed passionately again and she rolled over onto AJ, sitting on his stomach and noticing  his tattooed belly.  Chrissy smiled.

    “What's this?......... 69?.......... Dirty boy,” she giggled excitedly, AJ only smirked at her.  Chrissy knelt down and kissed the tattoo, dipping  her tongue into his bellybutton making AJ moan slightly.  Chrissy grinned at his obvious pleasure as she continued to kiss around his bellybutton continuing  in a line up to his chest, setting AJ on fire.

    “Come here,” he growled, coaxing  Chrissy up gently and kissing  her hard on the lips.  His hands were lost in her hair and their minds were lost in each other.