A harmless whiskey-guzzling contest turns into a tense question and answer session.
Layne Parrish and Serena Rojas star in DRINKING GAME, a thriller-ish short story exclusive to this blog. This is the only place you’ll ever find this free story!
1900 words.
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Layne Parrish sat back from the console and rubbed his eyes. A long night of focusing in one spot had left him bleary and tired. Thirty minutes until shift change, and he relished the promise of sleeping in his own bed tonight. Rarely did field work happen so close to home.
The chair squeaked as he leaned, stretching. The aging spy let a rumble escape his lips as he rolled his head and neck around. “He’s asleep.”
Sitting four feet away at her chair inside this nondescript RV, Serena Rojas yawned and removed her headphones while she squinted at the time on her phone. “Think there’s any chance he’ll wake up during our shift?”
“I observed the target take an extra sleeping pill with his scotch, so he’s not waking up unless there’s an earthquake.”
Layne watched Serena study the surveillance footage, the grainy black and white hidden camera inside the target’s bedroom. A flicker of something curious flashed in Serena’s eyes, and she smiled. “He’s totally out?”
The man had slid between the sheets sixty seconds ago, and Layne could already tell he was snoring. “For the next six to eight hours, I’d say it’s guaranteed.”
“Still a bit until our relief arrives,” Serena said.
“You want to get some quick shut-eye? I can handle staring at this screen until our shift is up.”
She tilted her head toward the cabinet in the kitchenette. “I had something else in mind.”
Layne raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
Serena grinned as she rose from her chair and strode into the kitchen. A built-in breakfast nook looked like a diner booth, with a collapsible table that folded up from the wall. She raised the dinette table and motioned toward it without turning around to look at him.
Layne stood, arms crossed, although he had a pretty good idea where she was headed.
Serena removed the bottle of Lake Verna Rye from the cabinet and held it to the light. She tossed her eyes toward Layne. “Yeah?”
“I thought we were saving that for when the op was over.”
Serena shrugged. “That sounds like the weasely tone of someone trying to weasel out of facing me one-on-one.”
“Is that right?” Layne asked with a snicker. “You want to challenge me to a drinking contest? You know I outweigh you by a hundred pounds.”
Serena stood firm with the bottle in her hands, looking like nothing in the world could persuade her off this current path. “You don’t know how much I weigh. And is that a yes or a no?”
“I guess that’s a yes,” Layne said, turning his palms up in surrender. He glanced past her at the screens. Target still sleeping, mouth open, snoring away.
“It’s your game, you make the rules.”
Serena set the bottle on the table and opened the cabinets, where she plucked half a dozen shot glasses. She placed three of them on one side of the cramped table, then three on the other. With no more clean mugs or glasses to be found, she scoured the bathroom for a couple minutes, then emerged with a stack of flower-patterned Dixie cups. Layne watched her line the paper cups next to the shot glasses. Eighteen small drinking receptacles now littered the table.
“Nine each?” Layne asked.
Serena removed the cork and poured a slew of shots across both sides. “To start with.” She pointed. “Have a seat.”
“I could take a couple on my own first, to balance out the weight difference.”
She shook her head. “We start the same. Now, sit, unless you’re going to chicken out…”
He slid onto the cushioned seat and rested his hands on the table. “I think I can handle myself. Rules?”
Serena sat opposite him, two feet away, her eyes locked on his. Layne saw an intensity there he associated with preparation for a life-or-death gunfight. This woman had her eyes on the prize. She probably had some heart-of-a-champion theme song in her head at the moment.
Serena downed each of the three shots in the shot glasses in quick succession. After the third one, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and blew out fiery whiskey breath. “The first three are prep work, before we start the actual game. Go ahead.”
“Roger that,” Layne said, then he guzzled the first shot. It had a sweet burn, almost fruity. He downed the second, and that one tasted even better. The third, he savored for a few seconds, sipping from the shot glass. “This is good whiskey.”
“I don’t really drink whiskey, so I’ll take your word for it. It’s time to start the game.”
Layne drummed his fingers lightly on the flimsy table. “I didn’t realize we hadn’t started yet. So, my game master, let me ask again: what’re the rules?”
“Take two shots, then tell a story.”
“What kind of story?”
“A story about an operation gone wrong. Something from your time with the team. Before you got old and had to retire.”
“I was forced out, was I?” Layne asked, smirking. “Is that what Daphne told you?”
Serena knocked back two of the Dixie cup shots. She took a few deep breaths afterward, and when she looked up, her eyes were already bloodshot.
“My second operation, working with Daphne’s team. We were after a student in San Diego who had connections to Mexican cartels. We got there, the student tried to light us up, and we returned fire. Two civilians in the apartment next door caught stray bullets. Both died.”
“That’s terrible.”
Serena stared at Layne. “I’m at five, and you’re only at three. It’s your turn.”
He wasn’t so sure about this game anymore. Serena was already slurring her words, and he had a nice warm buzzy feeling from the three quick shots. They hadn’t eaten since dinner four hours ago, and he’d hoped to drive home tonight, not pass out in the RV’s cramped bed. Or worse, the foldout couch, which would definitely give him back pain tomorrow.
What was Serena after?
“I don’t know if I like these rules.”
She glanced down at the shots and made a pouty face. “Are you forfeiting? You got a white flag you can waive, Boy Scout?”
With gritted teeth, he threw back two of the Dixie cup shots. “Here you go: I hunted a target while I was on vacation once. The day before my wedding. I refused the mission, but you know how persuasive Daphne can be. And now it’s five to five.”
Layne caught a hint of disappointment in her eyes. Maybe at the story he’d selected. He was starting to see this game was a fishing expedition, but he wasn’t sure yet about Serena’s intent.
“Okay,” she said. Like snapping a neck, she whipped back two more shots, then let out a fire-breathing belch. “My next terrible operation was the sixth one, working for Daphne.” Layne could definitely hear the slur in her voice, and her eyelids were drooping. “In Joplin, Missouri—of all places—we were monitoring a guy who was making homemade explosives. He knew we were on him, so every step was critical. But someone typed a 1 on a timesheet that should’ve been a 7, and long story short, the surveillance schedules got mixed up. The target had no eyes on him for several hours. He used that time to escape, and the next day, he blew up a parking garage in town. Four injured, no dead. Millions in structural damage.”
Layne held the next Dixie cup in his hand. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Kicking your ass at a drinking game? It’s seven to five now, if you hadn’t noticed.”
When she didn’t seem interested in truthfully answering his question, Layne sighed and downed the shot, plus one more. He could definitely feel it now. Warmth in his chest. Little pulses of his brain buzzing.
“Let’s hear your next story,” Serena said as she swayed back and forth in her chair, like a top beginning the end of its spin. They each had only two shots left in front of them left, but Serena made no effort to refill.
“Okay, let’s see,” Layne said. “My first op was pretty rough, actually. We were in Seattle. There was a target in a house, but no one had warned us there would be a dog…”
Serena leaned forward and glared at Layne, breaking his concentration. “Cut the crap, Layne. What happened in London? Daphne says it was the ‘mission that broke Layne Parrish,’ but the report is mostly redacted and no one will tell me what happened there. Why do they call it that?”
Layne spread his hands on the table as the full scope of Serena’s plan wormed across his half-drunk brain. “Ahh, that’s what this is about. You’re going to drink yourself into a coma just to learn the salacious details about London? That’s seven to seven.”
Serena hoisted the next shot, holding it up as if needing Layne to witness. She downed it, tossed the Dixie cup onto the table, then said, “Okay. Time is now. Now time. Go time. No more of this stoic bullshit, Layne. No more of your reserved, guarded, strong-men-don’t-cry shit. I want to know the dirty details.”
Layne picked up the shot and drank it to keep pace with her. “You think I’m hiding my feelings? There’s nothing to say about London. And it’s eight to eight. One left each.”
“If there’s nothing to say, then why won’t you say it?”
He unclenched his jaw and heaved a cleansing breath. “Fine. London was a shit-show. Mistakes were made and innocents died, just like your bystanders in San Francisco. I decided I would never again agree to an operation that wasn’t on my terms, and that meant quitting the team. Is that enough? You want a description of the dead bodies the human traffickers left behind?”
For a few seconds, silence settled in the room, with the drone of the vehicle’s air conditioner taking center stage. Layne checked the monitors again. Still no change from the target.
Serena sat back and offered him a flat smile. “I’m sorry.”
“No harm done. Sorry if I raised my voice a little there at the end.”
Her head swayed. “Sometimes, Layne Parrish, I look at you.”
“Like you’re doing right now?”
Her eyes dimmed. “I look at you and your blue eyes and your square jaw and big muscles and I wonder if you’re really real.”
“If I’m real?”
Serena wiped a spot of drool from her lips. “You know how people are… with their big ideas and their deceits, and I’ve seen a lot of deceits. I’ve seen so many cheats. Cheaters. People who cheat. But you, Layne, you’re like water. Pure and clear. And I wonder… how can that be? How is it the Boy Scout doesn’t have dirty hands? Is he washing? Are his sins secret like…”
For the next few seconds, Serena’s volume lowered a little at a time until her words faded away. Her eyes dimmed and her shoulders slumped, and her chin dipped lower and lower, until it almost touched her chest.
Then, seemingly wide awake, she sat up and guzzled the last shot in the row. She held the Dixie cup in her hand and then tossed it over her shoulder. Splats of whiskey shrapnel followed the cup.
“One day,” she said, eyes nearly closed, “I’m going to figure you out, Layne Parrish.”
She tried to speak again, but a hiccuping burp came out instead. And like hot butter sliding off the edge of a pancake cliff, Serena slipped from the breakfast nook cushion, onto the floor.
Layne picked up his last shot and drank it. “Maybe you’ll figure me out someday, Serena, but not tonight.”