"Knock knock knock" Mal called out loudly when he got to Alain's door. He often did that: he often called out the knock rather than actually knocking, and when people asked him why he did it he said that knocking on doors hurt his knuckles, but in truth that was just an excuse and he didn't know why he did it; he just always had.

He was thinking of maybe actually knocking when he heard footsteps coming down the hall behind the door. Alain opened it.

"What time's this party start?" Alain asked when they were sitting down inside.

"About now, I guess" Mal replied.

"So you wanna be there - what, in about an hour?"

"Guess so."

"Cool." Alain noticed the six-pack of beer Mal had brought around. "Taking that with you?"

"No man, that's for us!" Mal grinned. "For now!"

"Sweet." Alain reached across and wrestled a bottle out of the plastic wrapping. "Anything been happening?" he asked Mal.

"Nah" Mal replied. "Just practicing. The usual." He was disappointed by his own answer: suddenly his life sounded empty, even though it'd never felt that way before. What had he been up to? He was sure he'd been up to something, but he couldn't think of anything new. "You?" he asked Alain. "Got that job?"

"Which one, man?" Alain asked dismissively.

"Whichever one you were looking for, I guess."

"Had one for a while" Alain said. He took a sip of his beer. "Lost it. Had another one. There're jobs out there, I guess. I'm all right for now."

"Cool" Mal said, though more to fill in the silence than as a comment on what Alain had said.

"You gonna have one of those beers, dude?" Alain said. He was half-way through his first one already.

"Oh yeah, sure." Mal opened one of the bottles. "Man, I'm thirsty too" he said.