With football chat over, the table settled into murmurs of laughter and arguments about the scandal of a current reality TV show. Forks squeaked on our IKEA plates, mopped empty with garlic-and-rosemary bread. More wine was opened. Joanie and Sophia realized they’d grown up in the same area and we were all united in the coincidence of this. By the time conversation got around to my and Jessica’s teen years, we were all righteously drunk, and Jessica was center stage, red-faced, and being her most charming self, with me basking in her glow as if it was a brilliant contagion.

“OK, so we used to go to these dreadful gigs,” she told the table, brandishing an almost empty glass.

“Literally the worst gigs ever,” I added.

“But the boys made us believe they were the next Metallica or something.”

“Metallica?” Frederick asked, looking at the two of us dubiously. Me in my black halter dress, Jessica in her fashionable jumpsuit. No piercings or tattoos between us.

“Look, I’m going to break something to you,” Jessica said, “but, sometimes, just sometimes, girls lie about liking music so boys will fancy them.”

Ben let out a burst of laughter. “Oh God, really? You do realize that a teenage boy does not need any encouragement in fancying someone? Agree to sleep with him and he won’t even care if you’re an ABBA fan.”

Everyone started laughing.

“ANYWAY,” Jessica said, bringing us back to her story again, “they played metal.”

“Misogynistic thrash metal,” I added.

“Hell yes. Their single was called ‘Bleed Her Out.’”

The table gasped so hard that the candle flames flickered. “Oh, two thousand and three, how I don’t miss you,” Heather said, finishing her glass of wine.

I put my hand on her hand. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t understand how clever this song actually was. You see, initially you think the guy in the song is slitting his wrists in response to a breakup and is ‘bleeding her out’ as he dies.”

“But the twist was,” Jessica chipped in, “that actually he was getting the knife ready to kill HER, not himself. He then stabs her and watches her bleed out in her childhood bedroom, but it’s OK because she did cheat on him.”

The whole table rocked with shocked laughter again.

“I mean, you couldn’t make the lyrics out,” I added. “What with all the guttural scream-singing. I only realized that was what the song was about when I bought a copy of their LP and read the accompanying lyric sheet written in Comic Sans.”

“Nothing says ‘damn the man’ like Comic Sans,” Ben said. He leaned over and squeezed my hand, eyes red, telling me he loved me, enjoying me performing like this. He’d never seen me glow in the Jessica glow. This was his first experience of the magic of the two of us.

Douglas clapped his hands. “Oh God! I remember local bands and their LPs. They got an erection whenever they said those two initials.”