Knights of the Weirdly Shaped Table

We sat in Malones, a classy Irish bar, each of us holding a bottle of ale and staring at the TVs surrounding us with the replay of  a Rugby World Cup match from the previous day.

"I still don't understand rugby," I admitted sheepishly. Sharv grinned at me, saluting me his bottle. Jag made a face, indicating agreement with me. "Sharv, deyh, you gotta teach me how to play rugby," he pleaded, slurping down his ale.

Sharv gestured with a characteristic shrug that it wasn't up to him. "When you wanna play laa?" He was referring to our A Levels exams.

"Where are my chicken wings?" Chris whined. Perpetually hungry, we had to keep him fed on low-sugar meals or he'd go on an extreme sugar high, crawling around the place and screaming nonsense. Not that whatever he said when he was perfectly sober made any sense.

"I'm waiting for my burger too," Aaron reminded him glumly. It'd been an hour since the waiter had taken our orders and those of us who hadn't placed orders for food were starting to regret it.

Clunk. The waiter gently set a plate of roasted peanuts down for us. We avoided looking into each other's eyes but waited till we were sure noone in the bar was looking. Immediately, all of us scrabbled for some sustenance.

Sharv snorted. "Animals," he managed to gasp out between mouthfuls of peanuts. I nodded agreeably, munching along. I'd never been hungrier.

Surrounded with friends I could trust and feeling at peace with them, I'd never felt happier either.