“Do you think God will let us have sex with the hot angel chicks in heaven?”

Lance, my best friend, wearing his signature beanie cap and blue jacket, opened up our early morning conversation with that completely unintelligible comment. His chair was turned backwards to face my desk like it usually was during our World History class, and I was only half-listening to him as I tried to figure out how to work this paper.

“What?”

“Like, okay. Just think about it. Heaven is supposed to be paradise, right? Right. So what comes to your mind when you think of paradise? I’ll tell you what it is. A nice view of the ocean reflecting the bright sun on a sandy beach, a cold, smooth drink to cool you down from the summer warmth, and a smokin’ hot babe in each of your arms. But I dunno, doesn’t that kind of hedonism seem kind of like, at odds with what heaven is supposed to be?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Yeah! So like, I dunno man. Unless God lets us bang the hot angel chicks up there, I’m beginning to think that hell might be the spot. Devil babes sound hot too.”

Loathe as I was to admit it, it seemed like he had put some kind of thought into it.

“Isn’t hell supposed to be like torture, though? Like, you’re burning forever for your sins or something?” I asked.

“Really…? Ah shit, come to think of it you’re right. Okay, how about this: Earth is paradise. This is where you get to do all the fun stuff. Smoke, drink, fuck, whatever. Then you die, repent for all that sinning shit in purgatory, then boom. The pearly gates open for your newly-atoned soul. There, sounds good right? I think I solved the mysteries of life and death.”

“Well I think you’re just going to hell, man…”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

“About having sex with angels? Could you do me a favor and leave me out of your blasphemy?”

“What are you talking about? When was the last time you even went to church, man? Why does a fake Christian get to talk about blasphemy when I’m actively thinking about God’s love and the afterlife?”

“Whatever.”

I sighed. Lance was no stranger to mingling with a certain woman whose name might begin with an M and a J, so conversations like this weren’t exactly uncommon for us early in the morning. The other day, he went on a long spiel about how human faces are just fleshy sensory antennas and that it’s disgusting to find them attractive at all.

How he can get away with coming to school like this every morning is a mystery to me, but it was just something I had quickly gotten used to. But to be honest, these conversations are much preferable to talking about…

“By the way, Trist, my man. Mind explaining to me what that was all about last night?”

The second he asked the question, he leaned his upper body assertively over my desk. The two of us spent the better part of the night before playing Dota 2, an online video game that he had roped me into playing with him ever since we first met in 9th grade. He was most likely upset that we lost all of our matches yesterday.

Was it my fault? Probably, but in my defense, I wasn’t in the right head space to be playing video games, and yet he forced me to anyway. I do understand his frustration though. I ended up lowering his matchmaking rank down from 2500 to 2380, almost one whole ranked medal down from where we started.

“I said I didn’t feel like playing, okay?”

“What kind of excuse is that? You think Arteezy would play like shit in the finals then tell his fans he ‘didn’t feel like playing’?”

“What, am I a pro player now? That’s like his job, dude. I’m playing video games for fun over here. Or at least I should be, but here you are making it a 9 to 5. I literally said that I didn’t feel like playing, so you should’ve listened to me.”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Lance slinked back in his chair and let out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever, I’ll let it go for now. But since we’re on the topic, I may as well ask. What were you thinking about so deeply yesterday that made you feel comfortable losing me all of my games?”

“Hey look man, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

“You can make it up to me by telling me about it then.”

My eyes shifted around the classroom.

I didn’t mind telling him about my love troubles, but in a place like this…

“What? There’s barely anyone here, man. Plus they’re not listening to us. Just lay it on me.”

He was right. the classroom wasn’t exactly filled to the brim or anything. There were only about three other people in the class, plus we still had about half an hour ‘til it would even start.

“Fine.” I leaned in cautiously. “It’s uh, I was thinking about asking Zoey to the...”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Wait, you like Zoey Brahm?”

“Shhhh! Not so loud!” I looked around in a panic to make sure that no one heard him.

“Dude, don’t be like that. I’m pretty sure a good 90% of guys at this school like Zoey. I actually don’t really get what all of you guys see in her, but it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“You don’t see- man. You’re just dying to be different from everyone else, aren’t you?”

“What? She’s just not very interesting to me. She’s cute, sure. But I’ve never seen her do anything and thought ‘wow, I’m like, so in love with this girl now’. She just seems like a generic people pleaser to me.”

“Yeah, she needs to be able to help me carry you in Dota for you to consider wasting any time talking to her, right?”

“That would bump her up from a 6, yeah.”

“A 6? Seriously Lance? You’re lying through your teeth right now.”

“I’m lying? Really?”

“Yes. Us guys? We’re super simple. If a cute girl talks to us then we fall in love. That’s it. There’s no ‘oh, she has to have a nice personality’ bullshit. She just has to make you feel good with her smile, and it’s set in stone.”

“That only happens if you have no experience with women.”

“Yeah? And what’s your experience with women, Lance? Because from where I’m standing, you’re a just another virgin like me.”

“Nope.”

“Nope? What do you mean nope?”

“Nope.”

“No, don’t just say nope. What does nope mean? You can’t just say nope and expect to win the argument.”

“Nope.”

“Lance…”

“Okay, fine. I didn’t want to tell you this, but since we’re putting all of our cards on the table…” He paused with some deliberation. “Remember when Naomi and I kept leaving you alone during lunch periods in 10th grade?”

“You’re joking…” I once again looked around to make sure no one was listening to our conversation. Sure enough, I guess going relatively unnoticed for all these years shoved enough attention off of us to the point where we could talk about stuff like that out in the open. “Are you serious? You guys were…”

“Did you seriously not know that?”

“No, I mean. You guys were always flirting and stuff, but I thought she was just teasing you... What?” I stopped myself.

“Well, yeah. We were dating, and we did it a lot back then. I’ll be honest, she was really kinky. Like, really kinky. I didn’t mention it to you because I didn’t want to be the annoying friend that brags about his sex life.” He yawned.

“But here’s the kicker, Trist. She was kind of a bitch, right? So I got tired of putting up with her just for sex. The moral of the story is, someone being hot isn’t worth their bullshit personality.”

“Oh Lance, that’s not how I remember it happening.”

Out of nowhere, as if she’d heard her name, Naomi Fraise walked over and plopped herself down on top of my desk with a grin stretched across her face.

“Why are you here? No one was talking to you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been bragging to our friend so much about a maiden’s sex life then.”

“What? Maiden? I don’t see one anywhere. Do you, Trist? All I see is a rehabilitated sex-addict. How many months clean are you again?”

“Hey, Tristan,” Naomi said, ignoring Lance’s comment. “Do you wanna know what kind of kinky things this guy is into?”

“Wait, shut up idiot.”

“What? You can paint me as a pervert, but I can’t return the favor? That doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

“Trust me, I haven’t even BEGUN to talk about how much of a pervert you are.”

“Yeah? Okay, let’s do it then. I’ll start. Hey Tristan, this guy likes-”

He reached over and covered her mouth as if his life depended on it. Honestly, as much as they were having fun, the overt sexuality of their conversation made me want to gag. I should’ve known that they had already dated, though. They always do this flirty garbage. Perhaps I just wanted to believe that Lance was just like me all this time as far as his luck with women went.

“Okay, listen. Can we just go back to talking about Zoey? I am seriously not in the mood to hear about this.”

Naomi removed the hand from her mouth. “Wait, you’re gonna ask Zoey to the dance? Boring.”

“See? Even Naomi gets it, and she’s as smart as a brick. Zoey is a glass of warm milk.”

“Tristan, can you tell your friend that he’s the dumb one here? All he does is get high and play his little video games all day. It’s a wonder that he has any brain cells left at all.”

“God, can you guys stop talking? Zoey is great, you’re both just being petty because she’s really cool.”

“Okay I’ll bite,” Lance said with a sigh. “What do you like about her?”

“Uh, I mean, she’s smart for one thing. She’s cute, she’s charismatic. She says hello to me every morning.”

“So you fell in love with her because she says hello to you in the morning? Trist, come on. You’re better than this.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, you know...” Naomi leaned over with a smug look on her face. “She’s in this class, right? So why don’t you ask her to the dance as soon as she comes in?”

“Why don’t I… you know why. She’s just gonna say no.”

“Yeah, that’s the worst thing that can happen. And the best thing is that you two start going out.”

“Yeah, but… Nah, forget it. I’m not gonna bother.”

“No chance of that happening, Naomi. This guy always takes the easy way out of things.”

“Shut up, man. Besides, knowing my luck, she’s probably going to the dance with Benjamin Otto or something.”

“Benny Ben? No way.” Naomi shrugged. “A lot of the girls have been dodging him like the plague.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well, this is something that only the cheerleaders and their friends really know, but when he was dating Gwen, he was apparently really abusive.”

“Abusive? Abusive how?”

“Really abusive. Like, he ended up hitting her, abusive.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, so all the girls have been steering clear of that guy. He’s been single for a while now for a reason, you know.”

“Oh wow.“

“Well it’s like, I’m not a cheerleader, and I’m only kinda close with Gwen so I have no idea if it’s true or not. But rumors kind of exist for a reason, right? Benny Ben’s always been nice to me, but even I’ve avoided getting close to him recently because of it.”

It was a surprising revelation. Somehow, I wanted to take back the sympathy I felt for him in my dream. I couldn’t really imagine someone who raises their hand on their partner being a good person.

“Sounds like you don’t really know your Zoey after all, huh? You even got her taste in guys wrong.”

“Lance, if you keep talking like that, your MMR is going to sink way below 2300.”

“Stop griefing my games, man.”

“Oh, yeah. Trist here was just telling us that he thinks the two of them are dating, but Naomi shut him down on that. It’s not happening.”

“Wait, really?” The new student looked back down at his phone. “Someone just texted me saying that the two of them are dating now.”

The news that this student had suddenly dropped was so shocking that I couldn’t contain my surprise.

“Huh?”