John and Nick return, sitting on either side of the booth.

“What’s the occasion?” Nick asks regarding the toast.

“Ian finally had sex!” Travis offers.

Nick guffaws.

“That was pointless,” John huffs.

“Trounce you?” Ian asks.

“Beat the crap out of me. I only marked out two before he was done.”

Nick just sits, smiling smugly.

“He’s good,” Travis agrees.

“I’ve had practice,” Nick says, being modest.

“Your bosses?” Travis asks.

Nick nods. “Greg is fucking unbelievable.”

“That figures. It’s not like they have anything better to do at that gallery.”

Laughing knowingly, Nick agrees.

“Did you not have to go in today?” Travis asks.

“No. The gallery had to cut back on hours. I only have to go in a few days a week.”

“What, every other day or somethin’?”

“Whenever I feel like it really,” Nick offers, chuckling.

Everyone at the table scoffs.

“They’re gonna’ let me do a mural on one of the workshop walls.”

“Badass,” chirps Ian.

“I did a couple of sketches. It’s gonna’ be ‘Prometheus Stealing Time and Tools, Being Pursued by Three Lazy Muses Who Fear Employment’.”

“That sounds good,” Travis remarks.

“That’s funny man,” agrees John.

“I’m actually gonna’ do it around the clock on the wall, so Prometheus will have the wall clock up under his arm.”

“Cool,” says John.

“It’s gonna’ take me a month.”

“How’s that other painting of yours coming along?” asks Ian.

“Which one?”

“Uh… the black and white one… Jacob…”

“‘Jacob Wrestling the Angel’?”

Snapping his fingers, Ian says, “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Nick makes a face though. “I don’t know about that one.”

“Dude, I totally loved what you had going on with that the last time I saw it.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what the hell to do with the background though.”

“Time to battle the muses,” Travis says, nodding to John.

“We haven’t done that in a while,” Nick replies.

“That shit’s crazy,” Ian says, “the war paint and everything. I should photograph you guys doin’ that some time.”

Drawing out his words to sound like a stoned hippie, Travis says, “Add to the viiiiibe, maaannn.”

“It’s usually pretty spur of the moment, though,” Nick says.

“Yeah. We should all get a place together next year,” Ian agrees.

“That’d be cool.”

“Hey guys,” Travis jumps in, acting overly excited, “If we owned our own bar, we could, like, hang out and drink together forever!”

Nick raises his hands over his head and yells drunkenly, “We’re goin’ to Florida!”

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