#grumpsquad

Suzy looked him up and down one more time.  “Okay, hon,” she said.  Dan let out a pitiful whine, almost stomping his feet in frustration.  “Come inside, we’re going to start bobbing for apples soon.”

“You always know what kind of costume to wear,” he complained fondly, and did what she requested.  Suzy was an amazingly, perfectly made up Sally from The Nightmare before Christmas, complete with careful stitching right by her mouth in black mascara; her wig was expensive, and bright, light orange.  He had no idea how she managed to do it every single time, but she managed to do it every single time.  

Dan sighed and mingled with the rest of their party guests – all people who worked at the music store where they shared shifts.  Vernon came as a disco dancer, Brian was a very upmarket Ray Stanz, complete with expensive model Proton Pack.   He recognized Barry by his nervous walk, even under all of that gray-green Frankenstein makeup he was somehow entirely himself.  Holly was a witch, and her cackle was incredible.  Ross was wearing a dog’s ears and tail – he was Holly’s familiar, he explained.

There was one guy there, however, whom Dan had never met before that night.   Brown-haired with a blond streak layered in, stocky, maybe even a little bit rat-faced (an observation Dan would never share with the dude), He was wearing a wizard’s robe, his colors marking him out as a Hufflepuff, and he was struggling to carry a wand and a plastic plate filled with sandwiches and chips.

“Hey, man, do you need some help?”  Dan’s voice was calm and even, and he reached out a friendly hand to the dude.

“Oh, thanks man!” the guy grinned.  “Cool costume!  Jamiroquai fucking rocks!”

“They do fucking rock!” Dan said.  “No one else recognized where I was going!”

“That’s because people suck,” Arin said cheerfully, without even meaning it.  

Dan carefully took the wand in his hand as the man sat down on the couch.  He awkwardly held it as he took a couple of bites.  “Uh, I don’t think I introduced myself.  I’m Dan, I work the Tuesday shift with Suzy.”

“Oh!  You’re Dan!” he said brightly.  “Ross told me all about you.”

“Hah haha,” Dan laughed nervously.  “What did he tell you?”  For as fond as Dan was of Ross, he also knew that the guy had a tendency to be bald-faced honest about Dan’s shortcomings.

“That you were in a pretty good band, you never take the ones out of the til before you go off-shift, and you have weird hair.  It’s totally not weird, though, he was wrong as hell about that.”

“Thank you,” Dan blurted.  “You’re…”

The guy had taken a huge bite of his sandwich, so the words came out muffled.  “Ahrth HAmphg!” he said, and then swallowed.  “Sorry about that.”  He burped loudly.  “Arin Hanson.”

“Oh! “ Dan said.  “You’re the guy who drew a dick on that poster of Gene Simmons!”

“Yep, that’s me.   I mostly work the night shift ‘cause I work days at Disney most of the time.  I’m trying to break in through the back door, y’know – I really wanna be an animator.”  He blinked.  “And normally I suck at talking to people at parties.  Like, I run out of things to say right away and freeze up.  But not with you.”

“Huh.”  Dan had noticed the comfortable vibe between the two of them himself, though he hadn’t thought to comment upon it yet.  “I guess I just have that kind of face.”

“What, a cute one?”  Arin turned bright red.  “And sorry again.  Suzy said you had a girlfriend, right?”

“Emphasis on the word ‘had’,” Dan said.  “We’ve been broken up for a couple of months now.”

“Oh,” Arin said to Dan’s forehead.  Embarrassment slid between them like a wall of ice, but Dan wasn’t about to let it win out.  

“So why did you get into animating?”  Arin ended up telling him about how he’d always wanted to at least try it.  His roots were in comedy; he wanted to grow up to be.  

Then Arin asked, “How did you get into music?”  Dan was almost overwhelmed by the passion in his mind; he spoke eloquently of his dreams and of his childhood fantasies of being famous.  

“That sounds fucking rad,” Arin said.  “You need to show me some of your demons sometime.”

“Gladly.  Will you show me your shorts?”

“Either set, any time.”  Dan let out a loud, honking laugh.  Oh, he liked this dude.

“Everybody!  Everyone!  It’s time for the apple bobbing contest!” Suzy said, clapping to get their attention.  She directed them all toward a big bucket painted to look like a barrel filled with water and apples.  “Dan and Arin totally need to go first,” she said, with the decisiveness of a princess ruling over her kingdom.

“Well,” Arin said, squaring up to the barrel, “whoever comes up first, wins.”

“YEP!”

“A kiss!”

“Wait a minute!”  But he’d tucked his hands behind his back, and Suzy was counting down.  When she hit 10, Dan plunged his head into the bucket, flailing his head about until his teeth bumped into something soft and fleshy.  

He sunk his teeth in and jerked his body back from the barrel.

And at the other end of the thick, sweet apple he was biting was Arin’s mouth.

“Kiss, kiss!” demanded Ross sarcastically.

Arin took a huge bite out of his side of the apple, making Dan laugh so hard he nearly choked.  “So, which one of us won, Suz?” he asked, putting the apple down.  

“Hmm, I think you both did,” she said.  “And your prize is two tickets to the next  Deadpool movie, on me.”

“I love Deadpool!” the guys chorused,  as the rest of the room broke out in laughter.

“So uh…maybe I’ll put in for the morning shift and show you what I’ve been working on.”

“That’d be fucking great.  Maybe I’ll put in for the night shift and play you my demos,” Dan said.  

His eyes were bright, his heart was fluttering.  This was the beginning of something important, something that could change his whole life.