In retrospect, after midnight on a Friday evening in college is not the best time to make a deep, mind-shattering discovery about your best friend.

“Are you serious?” I howled across the table at Barry, pelting him with Hershey Kisses. “You don’t like chocolate? Man, what’s wrong with you!”

Barry did his best to block the shower of small projectiles, but he didn’t want to let go of his beer bottle, so several of the little foil-wrapped chocolates pinked off the glass container. “Nothing’s wrong!” he insisted. “I just don’t like the stuff, okay?”

“Nuh uh, not okay,” I said, shaking my head vehemently back and forth. With all the booze sitting in my stomach and pestering my liver, the head-shaking gesture made the room spin unsteadily, but I clamped both of my hands over my ears until the wooziness passed. “Who doesn’t like chocolate?”

“It’s really nothing,” Barry protested.

I looked around at the girls in the room with us. We’d found these two in the little corner store when we stumbled in, searching for munchies. The blonde one smiled at me with that sexy smirk that promises so much to a drunken college kid, I spotted the family size bag of chocolates, and very smoothly invited them back to our apartment to “hang” and help us eat through the bag. The blonde now leaned against my arm in a very soft and inviting way, and her brunette friend was curled up against Barry. Total win for the night.

At least, up until Barry decided to make his stance against chocolate.

“What do you think, Ellie?” I asked the blonde leaning against me, letting my hand boldly drop another couple inches down her back towards that pert little ass of hers.

She just grinned as my hand curled around her. Goddamn, yoga pants are awesome. “I think it’s weird,” she agreed. “Tell us why not!”

“Yeah, tell us!” piped up Ellie’s brunette friend. I still hadn’t caught her friend’s name, but she was short and had a very generous amount of bouncy cleavage on display, which totally made her Barry’s type. “Tell us and I’ll flash you!”

“Can’t resist that,” I pointed out, as Ellie’s warmth pressed against me, counterpoint to the warm fuzziness in my head.

Barry rolled his eyes. “Oh, fine. Look, it’s a stupid kid thing. Dylan, you know how my parents are divorced, right?”

I nodded. I’d met both of them, of course, during our years of living together. Nice folks, but I’d learned not to let both of them into the same room together. Acid and water – a violent explosion.

“Well, the final straw for their marriage was at Disneyland,” Barry continued. “See, we were staying at this all-inclusive hotel, and I guess they just couldn’t take each other any longer. They started screaming after dinner, throwing things across the room, and I went running away.”

I frowned. “And this has to do with chocolate?”

“Yeah, it does. See, I went running away, but I couldn’t leave the hotel, because I was only about six years old. So I ended up down in the cafeteria area, but since it was after dinner, they’d packed away everything except the dessert table.”

Barry sighed. “And there, in the middle of the table, the only thing still running, was a massive fountain of chocolate, for fondue.”

“I like fondue – it’s a funny word,” giggled big-boobs brunette, who didn’t appear to be listening to the story too much.

I flapped a hand at her. “So what, you ate a bunch of the fondue?”

“Not a bunch,” Barry corrected me. “Seriously, most of it. I stuck a glass into there and just started drinking. By the time that my mom came down and found me, the fountain was making grinding noises because there wasn’t enough liquid in it any longer. Probably at least two or three pounds’ worth.”

I winced at the thought. “That probably didn’t settle well.”

“Nope. Up all night, brown – and I’m not talking just about chocolate – streaming out both ends of me.” Barry grimaced. “Plus, you know, learning that my parents were getting divorced.”

I looked down at the Hershey Kisses in my hand. “Okay. It kind of makes sense, now.”

“Yeah.”

“Too bad, since it tastes so good,” Ellie piped up, popping one of the Kisses into her mouth. The chocolate still melting on her tongue, she leaned in and kissed my arm, leaving a brown smudge behind – and then slowly, sensually licked it off of my arm with her tongue. I didn’t have to work hard to get her message.

“Hey, wait!” I protested. “Barry told the story, so now – er, your friend – has to flash us!”

Ellie stood up. “Tell you what. You can either sit here and let her flash you, or you can take me to your room, and see what I’ll do to you.” She winked at me, waggled her ass in my face, and then headed off towards the apartment’s bedrooms.

The choice was a no-brainer. “See you tomorrow, Barry,” I said, hopping up and charging after that sexy blonde. “Sorry about the chocolate thing!”

“Yeah, no worries,” he called after me. The brunette on the couch next to him started squirming around, and even I had to pause for a moment at the sight of her movements. God, I loved college.

Just as I headed around the corner to find Ellie and see what sort of fun activities she had in mind, however, I heard the brunette speak up. “So, you wanna lick chocolate off of me?”

Hah. Let Barry deal with that one. My stomach filled with sweetness and my head slightly woozy with alcohol, I put thoughts of my best friend out of my head.