The couple made their way to the kitchen where they got out numerous types of ice cream and even more types of alcohol.

“Ok, so how do we do this?” Mitchell asked, spoon in hand, looking at the ice cream on the counter.

“Like this,” replied Joan, taking a swig straight from the bottle of rum. She then handed it to Mitchell, and he took a swig too.

“We didn’t have any ice cream,” he remarked.

“Technicality.”

“Ooh, big words for something who just fell off a table ten minutes ago.”

Joan playfully pushed Mitchell’s shoulder. He chuckled, taking another drink.

“Ok! Ice cream. Gotta have ice cream because Mitch says we gotta have ice cream.”

Joan picked up a spoon and tried to get a scoop of ice cream but instead wound up bending the utensil which had both of them snickering.

When she finally composed herself again, she bent the spoon back into shape to try again. “This is awfully frozen for ice cream that’s been sitting in a powerless freezer for hours.”

Mitchell was concentrating too hard on keeping composure to respond.

Joan tried again to get a scoop of ice cream, this time accidentally flinging a hunk of ice cream across the room. Unable to hold it in anymore, they threw their heads back in laughter until they couldn’t breathe.

When they could finally stand up straight again, the ice cream had softened more, and Joan was able to get some into a bowl. Mitchell poured on some mix of liquours he didn’t bother reading the names of and joined in with a spoon.

“This isn’t working,” said Joan around a mouthful of ice cream.

“Yeah, they’re not blending together right,” replied Mitchell with a frown.

“Oh! Blending! We could put it in the blender and make alcoholic milkshakes,” Joan suggested, and Mitchell’s face lit up at the thought.

They immediately grabbed the blender from above the fridge, plugged it in, and started scooping and pouring ingredients into it. It was ice cream and alcohol, how could they really go wrong?

They blended their concoction and poured it into glasses before leaning back against the counter and enjoying.

Mitchell moaned in ecstasy. “This is the single greatest idea you have ever had.”

“I agree. I’m a genius.” Joan finished gulping down her milkshake and suggested they make another.

So they did.

They continued making milkshakes in between fits of giggles until they no longer knew what time it was. Hell, until they didn’t even know time existed. Mitchell couldn’t care less that the kitchen was a sticky mess and that sometimes more ice cream ended up on the counter than in the glass when they poured it out of the blender. He couldn’t care less that he still had Kahlua all over his chest, despite Joan’s valiant efforts to lick it off, from when he’d said his milkshake wasn’t strong enough and she’d attempted to pour the Kahlua directly into his mouth. He couldn’t even care less that his stomach was about to burst and that everything in the fridge was going to go to waste because he definitely didn’t have enough room left in him for any more food. He was too drunk on alcohol, laughter, and the way that one piece of wavy hair kept falling into Joan’s face.

He was glad the power went out. If it hadn’t, he and Joan wouldn’t have gone out to dance the night away and then come back home to eat ice cream and laugh in each others’ arms until morning.

His thoughts were interrupted when the blender crashed down next to him on the floor and splattered more ice cream all over his pants.

“Oops, sorry!” came Joan’s voice.

Mitchell responded by wrapping his arms around her knees so that they buckled and she fell onto his lap. If he was going to be covered in ice cream, he wasn’t going to be the only one. Joan squealed as she fell but didn’t try to get away. Instead she gave him a naughty look.

Just as Mitchell was expecting to get a kiss, Joan dipped her hand into the ice cream puddle on the floor and smeared it across Mitchell’s face.

“Oh you did not just do that.” Mitchell grabbed her tighter so she couldn’t break free and did the same to her as she screamed and squirmed and tried to hide her face.

Joan wiped the melted ice cream with her hand and looked at Mitchell hesitantly.

“Truce?” she asked.

“Never,” he replied, immediately flipping her body over so that she was on the floor underneath him. His knees were around her hips, his hands holding onto her wrists. She was pinned down, completely at his mercy. Now he just had to decide whether to cover her in more ice cream or eat it all off.

Joan’s playful protests silenced when Mitchell leaned down and pushed his mouth against hers. It was the stickiest, messiest kiss he’d ever had, but he could hardly care when she was soft and delicious and hot and cold all at the same time. He shifted his body so that Joan could wrap her legs around him while he licked the remnants of cherry ice cream and Amaretto off of her neck.

Joan pressed her hips into Mitchell and pulled his face back up to hers. Her eyes sparkled, even with nothing but the moonlight to illuminate them.

“The kitchen is a mess,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

“So is my dress.”

“I know.”

“So are your pants.”

“I know.”

“So are we.”

“I know.”

“I like it that way.”

“I know.”

Joan pushed his head to the side playfully at that last response and smiled.

“I like it whatever way means I get to have you,” Mitchell amended.

Then he added, “I love you.”

“I know,” she replied, her grin widening.

Mitchell leaned back down to kiss her again, and he intended to keep kissing her forever.

Suddenly bright lights flooded the room, searing the backs of Mitchell’s eyes as he squeezed them shut.

“What the fuck is going on?” came a new voice Mitchell couldn’t quite place due to the thudding in his head and the haze of his thoughts.

He finally managed to crack his eyes open and tilt his head up to look at the intruder.

“Sarah?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been calling you assholes all night, but it’s been going straight to voicemail. I was worried something happened. You two never go off the grid. Apparently you were just too busy… getting it on in a puddle of ice cream to answer your phones. Just for the record, I really don’t think you guys are doing that right.”

Mitchell climbed off of Joan, and the two of them sat up, half-heartedly surveying the mess around them, running their fingers through their tangled hair, and adjusting their disheveled clothes. It was no use though with all the sticky and half dried ice cream all over them.

“We weren’t getting it on in a puddle of ice cream—ok, we kind of were just now, but that wasn’t the original plan,” Joan explained.

“The power went out. We were just trying to eat all the ice cream before it went bad,” said Mitchell.

“Ummm…” Sarah said, looking around the room, “what are you talking about? Have you not noticed the light I just turned on? The power didn’t go out. At least not in my house, and we’re on the same power grid.”

“Why did you tell me the power went out?” Joan said groggily to Mitchell, slapping him lightly on the shoulder.

“I was in my office using the computer when it went out…” he trailed off, trying to remember exactly what happened, and pressed his hand against the pulsing that was starting in his head. This was too difficult to figure out after drinking so much.

Mitchell closed his eyes and listened as Sarah’s clacking footsteps faded out towards his office then came back into hearing range.

“Something shorted in your office, moron, not the whole house,” Sarah shouted as she walked back over to them.

“But I thought—” Mitchell struggled to make sense of it in his mind. “Everything went black, and I was all stressed out, and then—I don’t know. I guess I didn’t have any other lights on in the house? I thought I checked…”

He trailed off again, completely lost in confusion with this abrupt turn of events.

Joan gently grabbed his chin and turned his face to hers. Her eyes were rimmed with red, no doubt the same as his, from all the drinking and exhaustion, but she had a smile on her face.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, one side of her mouth tilting upward more than the other.

And with those three words, he suddenly couldn’t care less that he had been too stupid to check the rest of the house when it happened and too drunk to notice when they got home. In fact, maybe he ought to “have the power go out” more often from now on.

Mitchell smiled back at Joan, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I know.”