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Story Notes:
Eagle-eye readers will deduce this is in the same general-ish universe as my series We Are the Story.
“Well, congratulations, guys.” Kevin ripped another sheet of paper out of his notebook, balled it up and threw it at the ceiling fan. “We have now completed hour six of no good ideas.”

A.J. glared at him. “Sorry, broseph. I must be getting hard of hearing. But I could have sworn I didn’t hear you come up with one single solitary good idea.”

“I did have good ideas,” Kevin retorted, flopping back against the leather couch. “Everything I said was great for a Christmas video. You bastards shot them all down.”

“Because they’ve all been done.” Now Howie jumped in, rolling his eyes, uncapping his bottle of water as he shifted on the floor. “Nobody wants to watch another Christmas video with us all sitting around the fire, or throwing snowballs at each other, or riding on the back of Santa’s sleigh.”

Nick scratched his stomach. “Not to mention, all of those are totally gay. I don’t want to sit around the fire with you jackasses.”

It was hour seven in the well-appointed man-cave of A.J.’s Beverly Hills home, well into an unsuccessful night of brainstorming for the “It’s Christmas Time Again” video. Some genius had had the idea to leave all of the creative direction up to the guys. Genius. Except production was supposed to start in two weeks and they were completely out of ideas.

“What about doing something like It’s a Wonderful Life?” A.J. was twirling a pen absently between his fingers, feet propped up on the heavy oak coffee table where his energy drinks usually sat during an Xbox marathon.

“Oh, cripes, could there be a bigger downer of a movie?” Brian interjected from his spot at the other end of the couch, picking at the fleece blanket that covered the back of the couch. “That’s just what we need, Nick leaning over a bridge while we sing this upbeat pop song about Santa’s sleigh.”

“Hey, why’s it gotta be me leaning over the damn bridge?” Nick protested.

“You’re the hot one.” A shitty grin split A.J.’s face, and he kept talking as Nick nearly tipped over the gamer chair he was sitting in to shove A.J. out of his. “The fans’ll feel sorry for you, and the video’ll go viral, all because the hot one is feeling sorry for himself…”

“Maybe we could all be leaning over the bridge,” Howie said brightly. Everyone turned to stare at him, and he dropped his gaze to his phone, chastised.

Kevin rubbed his forehead, mussing his thick eyebrows. “It wouldn’t be so bad not to have a video.”

“Hey, Ro, you got any ideas?” Nick called as he attempted to elbow-drop A.J.

Everyone glanced up to see a massive, round belly precede a bathrobed Rochelle into the doorway. She ran a hand through her black hair and shook her head. “You guys don’t want my ideas. They all involve pickles and swollen feet.”

“Hey, that’s an idea,” Howie said as Rochelle shuffled away. He grinned, each word a smarmy caress. “We could have our llllladies in the video.”

“Where the hell does that leave me?” Nick protested, sufficiently distracted for A.J. to hop up and follow Rochelle.

Brian turned toward him, eyes quizzical. “I dunno. Aren’t you hangin’ out with someone? That friend of Rochelle’s?”

Howie chortled. “Hangin’ out with his wang out, more like.”

Nick pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbing through the contents as if nothing could be more interesting. “I wouldn’t exactly call her my lady,” he muttered.

“Well, whatever.” Howie waved a dismissive hand, clearly on a roll. “We can have the three wives, Brian’s girlfriend…and Nick’s steady fuck!” He ducked the mostly empty Monster can Nick flung at him.

Brian smirked. “You can have the three wives and Nick’s…whatever. Meg wants no part of any video ever.”

“How do you know?” Howie said, brushing droplets of Monster from his shoulder.

“I brought it up once as a joke.” Brian was back to picking at the fleece throw, but he was grinning. “She said somethin’ about carving out her ovaries with a butter knife before being in a music video and using the same one to remove my balls if I ever found a way to sneak her into one.”

Kevin snorted with laughter. “Quite a way with words, that one has.”

“Whatever, Yoda. Wait, you still have your balls?” Nick chortled. “’Cause we’re all pretty sure you surrendered them to her willingly.”

Brian narrowed his eyes. “I have nothing to throw at you, but fuck off anyway.”

“D, I think you’re also forgetting that neither Ro nor your own wife will have given birth by the time the cameras start rolling,” Kevin said dryly, elbows on his knees.

Howie studied his phone again. “Minor point,” he mumbled.

“Hey, J, whatcha got there?” Nick piped up.

All four heads swiveled toward the doorway as A.J. walked back in, carrying a stack of red Solo cups and a glass bottle of something acidic-green in color. He grinned and held the bottle aloft.

“This, my friends, is a wedding present that is going to get drunk tonight,” he announced.

Kevin looked back and forth between A.J. and Nick. He rubbed his forehead again. “I’m not gonna be the one talking to TMZ when this goes where I think it’s going to go,” he muttered.

“Damn skippy you’re not.” Brian pointed around the room. “Nobody here’s talkin’ to TMZ!”

“Oh, take the tampons out of your asses,” A.J. retorted. “It’s the only alcohol in the entire house, and there’s only enough here for everyone to have one shot’s worth.”

“So what the hell is it?” Nick squinted up at the bottle.

A.J. grinned again. “Recall, gentlemen, that the theme of my wedding was Moulin Rouge.”

Two beats. Then Howie fell over laughing. “Holy shit, you got a bottle of absinthe for your wedding? Did they not know you at all?”

“Friend of Rochelle’s from high school who lives in France now.” A.J. shrugged. “What were we gonna do, send back a bottle of $150 French absinthe with a note saying, ‘Sorry, we’re never gonna drink this’?”

Nick was still squinting at the bottle. “Huh. I thought they called it the Green Fairy because that’s what you see when you drink it. I didn’t think it was ‘cause it looks like stomach acid.”

“Waiwaiwaiwaiwait.” Kevin looked up. “So you want us to drink absinthe and then come up with a video idea? We’re not Pink Floyd.”

A.J. hummed a few words of “Comfortably Numb,” then stopped. “I hear it’s not that bad, you guys. But it might help.”

He set the bottle and cups down on the table, uncapped the bottle, sloshed a little into each cup and passed them to the guys, who came to the table slowly. They each held their cup aloft.

“To the creative juices,” Howie said with a grin.

Brian peered at the contents of his cup. “Creative juice, maybe.”

The quintet belted back their cups. Instantly, all five of them winced.

“Jesus!” Kevin gasped. “It tastes like burnt licorice!”

A.J. jerked his neck in disgust. “It tastes like despair!”

“It tastes like burnt Indian food wrapped in a diaper!” Nick exclaimed.

“A.J., I’m not gonna lie, that smells like pure gasoline.” Brian was laughing.

“They say 60 percent of the time, it works all the time,” Howie chimed in, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Scotchy scotchy scotchy.” Nick was doubled over by this point.

Kevin looked at A.J. “So did you have a plan besides getting everyone to do Anchorman quotes? Because I’m pretty sure Anchorman not only wouldn’t have anything to do with Christmas, it also might get us sued.”

A.J. rolled his eyes. “Always on task, haintcha?” He picked up the remote and switched on M2. “Now we watch late-night music videos to get us thinking.”

Twenty minutes later, halfway through a Daughtry video, Howie held up his hand. “Huh.”

“What’s that?” Nick was slouched in a gamer chair, staring up at the wide, flat screen, so high-definition that Chris Daughtry’s nose hairs were almost visible in close-ups.

Howie studied his hand. “My hand looks…weird.”

Now everyone was looking at him. He continued to stare at his hand, turning it this way and that. “Kinda like a cartoon.”

Brian, who was now on the floor between the two gamer chairs, looked over his shoulder at Howie and sputtered with laughter. “Someone’s a little hiiiiiiiiiigh.”

“Jesus, you oughta talk, Frick.” Nick was laughing hysterically now, staring at Brian. “Your eyes are hella dilated, dude.”

A.J. squinted at Brian, then chortled. “Yeah, bro, you look like a goddamn anime character.” He struck a pose like a running man without standing up. “Go, Speed Racer, gooooooo!”

“Well, how you feelin’, Kev?” Howie craned his neck at Kevin, whose eyes were drooping.

“Fuckin’ tired.” Kevin stood up, threw the notebook on the floor and stretched. “I’m officially too old for this shit. And we’re getting nowhere. I’m gonna go pass out on the couch.”

“Is that what I have to look forward to when I turn 40?” Howie grumbled as Kevin walked out.

“That’s not the pressing question right now.” Brian blinked hard, trying to squelch a smile. “The question is…do I really look like a cartoon character?”

“Lemme see.” Now Howie squinted at Brian. “Jesus! You look like you just smoked a whole hot mess of weed.”

Brian giggled. “Well, that’d be a first.”

Nick leaned over to retrieve Kevin’s discarded notebook. He flipped to a new page and started writing.

“What’re you doin’ there, Frack?” Brian said.

“Car…toon…char…ac…ters,” Nick read aloud as he wrote.

The foursome snickered. “That sounds perfectly fuckin’ awful,” A.J. said.

“But it’s a start!” Nick held up the notebook triumphantly.

By now, the next video had begun – Gwen Stefani’s “Rich Girl.”

“Now that’s old-school,” Howie remarked.

A.J. grinned. “Yeah, but Gwen Stefani never gets any less smokin’ hot.”

Nick studied the screen. “The fuck is a harajuku girl, anyway?”

“I think it’s a little creepy anime girl,” A.J. reflected. “Kinda like the Japanese chicks in the ‘Bigger’ clip, except, y’know, not real.”

“Maybe we could put some a’ them in our video,” Howie said. “The fans’ll remember.” He giggled. “They remember evvvvvvverything.”

“Yeah, then we might as well make it in space like the damn ‘Larger Than Life’ clip.” Nick rolled his eyes.

“Dude, I do not wanna be a harajuku space girl,” Brian grumbled.

“Well, what do you wanna be?” A.J. shot back.

“Not doin’ shit for this video.” Brian flopped onto the floor on his back.


“That’s why we’re gonna be cartoon characters,” Nick said patiently. “But do you wanna be a stupid cartoon character or a cool one?”

Howie was back to staring at his hand. “I have a G.I. Joe hand.”

“D, we didn’t drink that much absinthe,” A.J. said.

Nick was writing in the notebook again. “Hara…juku…girls…G…I…Joe…”

“G.I. Joooooe!” Brian sang. He giggled. “We should forget about the damn music videos and watch some G.I. Joe on YouTube.”

Nick looked up, his eyes lighting up. “Dude! Or those fake G.I. Joe PSAs! Those are the shit!”

Now Howie was staring at the TV. The music video was over. A World Wildlife Federation PSA was showing.

“You know, guys, I was just thinking,” he said softly. Everyone stopped talking and turned to him. “Pandas are black and white.”

“Yes. Good. You can see,” A.J. said sarcastically.

“And skunks are black and white,” Howie continued.

“Yeeeees?” Nick prompted.

Howie grinned. “Did you ever think pandas and skunks were related?” He started giggling. “Like if they ever got it on, they’d make like a big smelly skunk with a bear head?”

Brian was giggling now, too. “Dude. I’m pretty sure a skunk is the size of a panda bear’s dick.”

A.J. looked at Nick. “You know, Nick, I was just thinking.”

“What, dude?” Nick was sketching a panda in the book. Howie and Brian were still chortling about panda genitalia.

“Back in the day, when we were into all the bad shit?”

A beat. Nick was focused on the drawing, shading in panda spots here and there. He paused, then started drawing a rocketship next to the panda. “Yeah?” he finally said.

A.J. jerked a thumb at their bandmates. “Maybe we should’ve gotten them to try some, too.”

Hours later, the guys were sprawled across the floor, sleeping in their clothes and shoes, contorted in miserably uncomfortable positions. The TV was off, and early-morning light slanted into the room.

The edge of a round belly appeared in the doorway, followed by Rochelle, still bathrobed and en route to the bathroom. Her eyes swept over the guys, and she shook her head. Then it landed on the empty absinthe bottle.

“Oh, Christ,” she muttered. Then she suddenly recalled the taste of absinthe and stumbled backward, a hand clapped over her mouth as she shuffled to the bathroom with greater purpose.

Silence. Then a low hum and a tinkling of piano keys.

Brian rolled over, groping for his phone. His eyes still shut against the light and the pounding in his head, he answered the phone. “H’lo?” he mumbled.

“Brian!” came a chirp from the other end of the phone.

“Jenn. Oh, uh…” Brian cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“How’d the brainstorming session go?” the guys’ manager chirped, oblivious to the misery in Brian’s slurred syllables.

“It, uh, went.” Brian cast his eyes around the room for the notebook, saw it sitting in a gamer chair and army-crawled toward it. Every movement made his head throb. He was never going to hear the end of this.

“What’d you come up with?”

He flipped to the first page with writing on it. “We have, uh, cartoon characters…G.I. Joes…harajuku girls…a drawing of a panda with a skunk tail…and a rocketship.”

Jenn fell silent for a moment. Brian could picture her on the other end, pale brows furrowed in irritation, tapping a toe as she gathered her thoughts for a long-suffering remark about herding cats.

Instead, she finally said, “Actually, I think we can work with that.”