“This is the test,” Likwit said from the passenger seat, tapping the dashboard to the beat of “Only When I’m Drunk.” “If you can’t party to this, you got no pulse.”

They were parked outside a liquor store that never carded, waiting on Rico to emerge with a paper bag full of Olde English 800s and loose cigarettes. The album— 21 & Over —was still new, still smelling of the shrink wrap they’d torn off in the parking lot of the Wherehouse Music.

Decades later, Tash would clean out a closet and find the original cassette. The label was gone, the tape itself wrinkled in one spot where the deck had tried to eat “Turn Tha Party Out.” He didn’t have anything to play it on anymore. But he held it to his chest for a second, and the bassline still kicked somewhere in his ribs.

Tash twisted the volume knob until the subwoofer rattled the license plate. The cassette deck chewed up the first second of “Make Room” before spitting it out again. J-Ro passed a forty back over the seat without looking.

“Still counts,” Tash said, and pressed play again.

“Both.”

Rico slid back in, the door groaning. “They were out of the tall boys. Had to get the quarts.”

Twenty-one and over. Some things never expired.