its a game we’ll play biannually

“No! I saw it move!” Jay kept his eyes on the unmoving speck.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“Get it!”

“How? You’re literally in the way right now.”

“I don’t know, get a… a broom, or something! I’m not touching the floor!”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Matt intoned, heading for the kitchen. “You’re sacrificing me to the spider. You’ll have me walk over there, maybe it crawls up on me and bites me, while you watch from your little perch.” He grabbed the broom and pointed it at the speck, which suddenly scurried away from him, causing him to drop the broom and squeak.

“I told you!” Jay’s voice was unusually high. “Get it out of here, Matt!”

“Okay, okay!” Matt scrambled to pick up the broom, moving slowly to not startle the spider. “You think it can actually bite you? It’s tiny, it probably couldn’t kill a fly.”

“You don’t know that,” whined Jay. “It could be a- I don’t know, poisonous? Oh god!” The spider was crawling past the broom towards where Matt was standing.

An impulse took hold of Matt. He laughed. “Calm down, Bird. Look.” He knelt down and scooped up the spider, being careful not to squish it or break its legs. Jay yelped and grabbed his shoulder, but Matt was immovable.

“It’s fine, look!” The spider crawled in a spiral around his wrist and between his fingers. He held his hand up to Jay’s face. “It’s my new-“

Matt’s teasing was cut off by Jay grabbing his wrist and using his other hand to smack his palm in a bizarre simulacrum of a low five. A smear of bug guts was left behind on Matt’s palm.

Jay examined it closely, still gripping Matt’s wrist. “Did you get bit? I didn’t feel anything but maybe we should wash our hands, or something?”

Matt took a second to respond. He was expecting Jay to flinch away and fall off the piano bench, giving him great joke material for the rest of the day. His hand tingled, but probably not because of a spider bite. “I’m good,” he said, finally. “You know some people eat bugs? I wonder if this one’s-“