JC woke up and rolled onto his back. As his left shoulder hit the matress he winced in pain.

"What the hell?"

His hand felt a bandage on his shoulder.

Where did this come from? And why do I have such a bad headache?

JC stood up slowly and made his way to the mirror. He turned around and recognized the type of bandage. He remembered where he saw it before and shuddered. JC loosened the tape around the bandage and took it off. His eyes got wide and his mind raged.

How did this happen? What happened last night? I'm going to kill those guys.

JC walked over to the phone and dialed a familiar number.

** RING ** ** RING**

"Hello?"

"Can you tell me why I have a tattoo on my shoulder and how it got there," JC demanded.

"JC, calm down. It's just a-"

"Just a tatoo? Rick, it's a tattoo. I would never consiously and voluntarily get one. I hate needles."

"After you finished drinking you said you wanted to get a tattoo so we took you to get one."

JC was getting madder as the conversation continued and as his friend kept lying. "Umm, Rick, there is one flaw in your story."

"And what's that?"

"I wasn't drinking alcohol last night."

"You weren't?" JC heard the fear in Rich's voice.

"No, I wasn't. Now either someone slipped me something or--" JC paused for a second. The silence on the other line enraged him. "Someone slipped me something. Didn't they?"

"Why would someone slip you something?"

JC was pacing around his bedroom. "I don't know. Why don't you tell me."

"Well, Jay thought he had put it in a woman's drink."

"So Jay was trying to drug a woman?" JC was amazed at what he was learning about his 'friends.'

"Not exactly. He was..."

"He was what? Are you going to finish that sentence? Can you even finish it?"

Rick sighed. "No I can't."

"Alright. I'll call Jay later and speak to him, but the question I want answered is why did you let me get a tattoo if you knew I was not in my right mind state. You are supposed to stop me before I do anything stupid like this."

"Getting a tattoo is stupid?"

"For me it is. Maybe not for anyone else, but for me. Yes."

"JC, I'm sorry. You're right. I should have stopped you. I should have-"

"You should have stopped Jay before he even thought of poisoning someone's drink. Wait a second. My drink wasn't near anyone's." JC resisted the urge to yell. "Rick, I'll ask you one last time. Why did you drug me?"

"You want the truth?"

"That might be good."

"The truth is you are so caught up in keeping a clean reputation you stopped doing a lot of things and I thought you'd loosen up a little."

JC refrained from grabbing his keys and doing something that would really mar his reputation.

"Rick, if you were my friend you would understand my position. Furthermore drugging somebody is illegal. Being who I am I could make your life hell. But I won't. Want to know why?"

"Why?"

JC smiled. "Because you're going to do it for me."

"Huh?"

"I'm not going to say anything. I'll say I was out with friends and someone slipped me something. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not going to mention any names."

Rick knew there was a catch somewhere, but could not find one. "And I'm going to be punishing myself how?"

"You'll hold on to the knowledge that you ruined something about me. You'll also know you broke many girls' hearts and they will never forgive you. You'll have the knowledge that if someone finds out you did this they will automatically dislike you. You will..."

"Alright I got it. I'll be giving myself a big guilt trip. I guess it could be worse."

"You guess?!? It could be much worse. I could get lawyers and have you prosecuted pronto. Since it's very public that I hate needles you can't say I wanted one and decided then was the time to get one."

Reality dawned over Rick. "So if you go public I'm ruined."

"I knew you had brains in there somewhere. Even if you weren't using them last night. And now it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life that I have a tattoo and your life could have been over if I said anything. You'll also wonder when I might call in a favor and use this as reason enough for you to do it."

"What kind of favors?"

"I don't know. We'll have to see when the time comes." JC paused and Rick's heart beat quickened. "You want to know one good thing about this tattoo?"

"What?"

"It could have been something really morbid like skeletons or something like that."

"Yup. I would have stopped you from getting something you would've regretted."

"Rick, you would have stopped to late. Right now I'm regretting even trusting you. I don't think I'll ever be able to trust you again."

There was silence on the phone.

"So where does this leave us?"

"Us? I don't think there's anything between us anymore. Once as you lose my trust you lose me. Straight out." JC paused. "Our friendship is over."

"Over? There's no way around that? Come on, JC, we've been friends for a long time."

"Yeah, we have and that's a shame. You should have been more careful of how you treat your old friends. Your carelessness just made you lose one. I don't think there's anything else that can be said. Bye, Rick."

Rick sighed. "Alright. You're right. Bye, JC."

JC hung up the phone and sighed. He walked to the mirror and looked at his shoulder again. I wonder what the guys are going to think about this. There was a knock at the front door. I guess I'll find out.

The door opened and Justin, Joey, Lance and Chris came racing in. They looked up to see the pained look on their friend's face.

"JC, what's wrong man?"

"Yeah, rough night?" Justin wiggled his eyebrows.

"Nothing. I have a headache and my shoulder hurts."

Lance looked worriedly at JC. "What did you do to your shoulder?"

"Actually, I didn't to anything." He turned around and showed the four other guys his shoulder. "The tattoo artist did."

Silence filled the room. The four who did not live there could not speak out of shock and the one who did waited for reactions.

Joey was the first one to find his voice. "Um...JC, you have a tattoo."

"I know."

"How did it get there?"

"Funny story that starts with me going out with friends and that ends with me waking up with a headache and a tattoo."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Sure." JC explained everything to them and Chris examined the tattoo.

"You're lucky it's not anything really bad, that's it's only your astrological sign, the lion."

Here are the results of the quizlett. Gina gave me the winning answer. She knows what her reward is.