The thick wrist placed the
beer
back on the coffee table and then the wideset torso that it was attached to leaned back. On top of was a big blockhead with that bright white smile. Usually such white smiles were exclusive to straight
teeth
, belonging to those coming from families who could afford braces for their children. You couldn't say that this smile was a perfect smile in the toothpaste commercial sense, but it was a good smile in the sense that seeing its radiance made you happy, Andrew Cook thought as he reached for his beer. It was already empty. Before he could get up to grab another, his friend noticed and got up.
"Nothing else. That's it," Cook said. His friend came back, throwing him another
Busch Light
.
"Well I didn't mean to say that it was nothing. It's definitely something."
Cook's thin fingers snapped open the seal of the aluminum can. Then he took a swig of the slightly cold beer. His closest friend had invited Andrew over as soon as he had texted him the short message. "Won a hackathon". The friend hadn't even known that Andrew was participating in a hackathon, but he called him right back and invited him over to his house. The celebration was so out of the blue that the beer wasn't cold.
Joey Carmack was always drinking beer. And yet he never had any on reserve. He was spending much of his time getting more. This was one of the downsides of being under the
drinking age
and also being a generous host who didn't care if you drank eight of his beers in one sitting. He'd look you in the eye with that smile and askk you, "Let me get you another one."
They were three beers in by this point. It was still early in the evening as the celebration had not been planned. Purely impromptu driven by the engine that was Carmack's love for life. And drinking. With Joey, you couldn't separate the two. At least Andrew Cook couldn't. Three drinks in. That was the point of the night where anything still could happen. Everything still felt fresh, the buzz was kicking in full swing, and the night felt like a buffet of possibilities.
"Let's go out tonight, mother fucker," Carmack said with that radian, bucktooth smile.