I was out with friends, I figured what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her and besides I was eighteen now, legally an adult and I should be able to do whatever I wanted, but when I’d tried saying that to my parents they just said that while I lived in their house I would have to live by their rules, and as I couldn’t afford to leave home until I left school and got a job I didn’t have any choice but to do just that.

“I bet she doesn’t let you drink beer either does she?” said Steve.

“No, she’d freak if she could see me!” I replied before taking another swallow from my bottle of beer.

“Well drink up and I’ll get you another…while the cat’s away us mice can play, and we’ll live by my rules for the next week!”

He grinned and winked at me then left the room, I swallowed the remainder of my beer and put the bottle on the floor beside my feet before finishing my pizza, and then Steve returned and handed me another bottle.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile as I took the bottle from him. “You’re pretty cool you know…for an oldie!”

“Hey less of the fucking oldie you…you’re not too old to go over my knee!”

He laughed and I laughed with him. To be honest although he was thirty one, which seemed old to me, he certainly didn’t look his age and he was quite a good looking bloke, who could easily be taken for much younger, if I didn’t know I would have said he was no more than twenty five, so I could understand him not wanting to be called old. I watched him as he drank at least half of his beer in one swallow, then I did the same not wanting him to think I was too much of a kid to keep up with him.

“Have you ever tried whiskey?” he asked as I finished the beer a few moments later.

“No, I’ve only tried beer,” I replied.

“Well I think it’s about time you tried some of the serious stuff!” he said with a grin as he stood and left the room.

The beer was already starting to go to my head but I didn’t give a fuck, my parents were away and for the first time in my life I was being treated as an equal by an adult, so whatever he suggested I was willing to try.

“There you go,” he said as he returned to the room a few minutes later, and handed me a glass of pale brown coloured liquid. “Drink it up!”

I smelled the drink and I wasn’t too sure about it, but I tried it anyway, as Steve drank some from his glass. His glass wasn’t as full as mine, having only an inch or two of whiskey while mine was almost full, but when I questioned him about it he said that he’d drunk some of it while he was in the kitchen.

“What do you reckon…is it good?” he asked me.

Well I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle it, so I smiled and took another swallow before replying.

“Yeah, it’s good!” I said.

“Well drink up and I’ll get you another one…come on, down in one…or aren’t you tough enough?”

I’d always been one to rise to any challenge, and as I saw him grin I