Christmas parties were always the same. This one wasn't even with Dan's co-workers, but he'd come out at the behest of his wife, Noel. Cheesy music blared from the speakers in the stuffy banquet hall, the more contemporary releases being notably more offensive than the usual stuff. The hall was littered with round tables that forced conversation had been decorated with festive reds and greens, and gaudy tinsel hung from every spare surface while a miserable looking plastic tree sat in the middle of the room with empty boxes decorated to look like presents beneath it.
Dan stared around the room wondering who else was stuck in the same position he was. A few of the teachers he'd met before; he was thankful the kids weren't there too. One thing he could openly admit was that teachers knew how to party -- underpaid, underappreciated, and after a long week looking after other people's crotch goblins obviously required a whole lot of unwinding at the end of it all. He rose his beer to his lips and eyed the room over the rim of the glass as he sipped the last lukewarm, flat dregs from his beer.
Beside him his wife was chatting away with Evan, a co-worker and his wife. With the conversational topic inevitably drifting to work, Dan and Evan's wife were pretty left out. It wouldn't be so bad if the two of them weren't separated by Evan and Noel sitting between them and had each other to talk to, but she sat there twiddling away on her phone with a bored expression, occasionally lifting her gin and tonic to her lips to take a sip, eyes entirely fixed on her phone.
She wasn't a bad looking girl, one strip of her hair straightened in the front on her fringe and perfectly maintained eyebrows but her teeth were a little large -- nobody's perfect though. She'd framed her mouth nicely with a delicately sparkling lip gloss. After staring vacantly for a moment, Dan decided to go up and get more drinks since there wasn't anything else going on.
"Another one?" He asked the group, but Evan's wife was deeply focused on her phone and Evan was deeply focused on Noel. Without a response, he stood himself up quietly and shuffled off between the tables and around the dance floor over to the bar area. Unlike the clubs from his misspent youth, there wasn't a sea of people to fight through to attract the attentions of the barkeep. A woman with a buzzcut and tattoos riding beneath her rolled up black shirt approached with a slight nod rather than words, ready for his order.
"Uh, I'll do..." he looked over to his table. There were just the four of them sitting there way in the back, away from the school's higher-ups in case of any drunken shenanigans or overheard shit-talking. Sure enough Evan was still chatting to Noel, laughing with hands flying around expressively. As he looked, she even gave him the subtle post-laugh shoulder touch. They were getting friendly. A sour feeling churned his stomach. Still, Christmas was about two things for an adult; getting together with friends and family, and getting blasted. Dan had very little of the former, and with the one person here for him currently otherwise occupied, he decided to focus on the latter.
He made up his mind. "Double gin and tonic with no ice, one pint of Stella, one large pinot, and a pint of Heineken." She got to making the order, plopping a tray down on the side of the bar ready for the drinks. He looked back over again while she filled the glasses. They were still getting a little too friendly. When the barkeep arrived back, Dan decided to add a little more fun to the order.
"Best do four shots of..." He eyed the back row of glimmering bottles of all shapes and colours, wondering what the best option might be. "Uh... fireball?"
The bar woman nodded in response and went off to get the shots. Glancing over once more, he could see his wife getting dangerously close to Evan, talking closely into his ear to avoid shouting over the mumbling crowds. He wanted the barkeep to hurry up so he could keep an eye on them, since Evan's wife clearly wasn't. He quickly paid in cash and scooped up the tray, leaving behind the change as a tip. On his way back winding around the round tables and bobbing in and out of passers by he locked eyes on them to see what they were getting up to, and what he was missing out on.
"Here we go." Dan said to the group, sliding between Evan and his wife to put down the drinks.
"Ah -- shots? Aren't we too old for this?" Evan piped up.
"You're only as old as you feel!" Noel added with a smile. It was enough to get Evan's wife to look away from her phone for just a moment, placing it down on the table to take her shot glass face up so she could still see her notifications.
"I'm going to feel a hundred in the morning after all this..." Evan complained weakly, but he was already daintily lifting the tiny glass between his thick fingers. Dan had never noticed just how tall he was before. Not freakishly so, but enough to be attractive to the girls. Dan compared his size to that of his wife, only 5'3.
