Our apartment was filled with people, some I knew, many I didn't know. Even Ruby and her friends were there. This was all Tabs' and Noah's doing, and I had absolutely no help in doing any of it whatsoever. To be honest, even if they told me about it. The amount that I would've actually been allowed to help probably would've been very small. I know Tabs more than I know myself, and she thinks a job cannot be done well unless she does it herself, and Noah just hates people telling him he's wrong. They are both extremely stubborn people, but it is part of their charm, and their stubbornness has actually ended up in a lot of good things for all of us.

I put some toast in the toaster and pushed the button down, then grabbed the butter and jam from the fridge. I offered the couple of people around me some toast, who all said no. Jordan, however, said yes, so I made him a slice too. Was it weird that Jordan and I were hanging out so much together? I wasn't sure. I didn't really think so, but I knew that all of my friends would definitely think we were fucking if it continued this way.

Honestly, I don't even know if my vagina would work after so many years without sex. Yes, I hadn't had sex with anyone since Jordan. I had been on dates, all of which obviously failed, and the few crappy boyfriends that I had were for like a couple of weeks max, and we never actually got to that part. It didn't help with the fact that Jordan Shaw had unknowingly ruined sex for me, in the sense that it would never be as passionate or loving as it was with him. I didn't want to have sex with someone I didn't love, and I wasn't sure if my heart had the ability to love anyone else. I really needed to get over this damned boy.

Leaving Jordan back in the kitchen area, surrounded by some of Tabs' work friends who were all asking for pictures, because I guessed he was kind of famous, I went straight to the area with the dining table, and found the strongest liquor that was on the table. Whiskey. Ew. Oh well. I took a long swig, then another. God, it tasted vile. "Salt, tequila, lime?" Tabs asked, slipping her arms around my waist from behind me and resting her head on my shoulder.

"Fuck. Yes." I grabbed a lime from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table, and called over to Noah, who was near the kitchen, to bring me a knife. I slowly cut the lime wedges, accidentally slicing my finger in the process, but luckily I didn't bleed on the limes, so it wasn't completely unhygienic. Tabs poured two shots of tequila, and sprinkled a bit of salt on my hand, whilst I sprinkled a bit of salt on hers.

"Go!" she said. We each licked the salt off our own hands, downed the tequila shot, and bit into the lime. It completely erased the taste of the tequila, and I loved that.

I went again, and again, till I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Maybe you should slow down," spoke Jordan in a serious voice. Who was he to suddenly waltz into my life and tell me how much alcohol I should be consuming? "I can handle my alcohol, thank you Mr Grumpypants," I was well aware that I was slurring all of my words, but I didn't care, drunk people slur their words, so what if I was drunk? I wanted to be drunk.

I pulled away from him, and went over to the kitchen area, where I tried to wash the knife, and ended up cutting myself again. "Fuck," I sighed, dropping the knife in the sink, and turning the tap off.

"You okay?" asked a guy's voice.

"Can you just fuck off already I'm not drunk," I snapped.

The boy, who was not Jordan, raised his hands in defence, "whoa, I'm sorry, I just wanted to help."

"Shit. Sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"It's cool. Whoa, you're bleeding, let me help you. Have you got a first aid kit?"

"The cupboard to the right of the fridge," I answered. He quickly got the kit and opened it, using an alcohol swab to wipe the blood away, and then put a plaster on each of the cuts on my finger.

"Not good at using knives I see?" he joked, picking the knife up out of the sink, washing it himself, without cutting his finger in the process, dried it and stuck it back in the knife block.

"Usually I'm not that bad, I'm a little tipsy," I laughed, holding my index finger and thumb up, putting them really close together to show what I meant by a 'little'.

"Clearly," he chuckled. "I'm Finn by the way, we work together, Tabs invited me."

"Avery."

"I know," he smiled at me. This is awkward, because I don't have the faintest clue who he is.

"GUYS, WE'RE LEAVING!" shouted Tabs, turning down the music so everyone could hear her.

I waited till everyone had left with Noah and Tabs, and once everyone had gone, we locked the door and headed out to the club ourselves. Noah wanted to run to the front of the huge group of people that we were, but I couldn't run in heels, so of course, being the gentleman he is, he swooped me off my feet and carried me bridal-style until we reached the front, with Tabs running behind, as she could actually run in heels. I was snickering with laughter the entire way, and I probably sounded like I was a demented hyena or something, which probably isn't too far from the truth.

"I thought we were going to Mystique, then the Diamond Orchid?" I asked Noah, as we were let in by the bouncers into the latter of the two clubs.

"Mystique is the cool cocktail bar, we would've had our pres there, but we had the mini-party instead. We'll go there another night," Noah suggested. I nodded my head. We were soon unable to talk to eachother well, because as we stepped foot inside the club, the blaring music was all that filled our ears. There were multiple floors to the club, and multiple rooms with different genres of music, each filled with people, all bouncing and dancing to the beat of the music.

We made our way to where the booth was, and the drinks started flowing. Not everyone could fit around the booth, so that was left for just the important people. I poured myself a couple more shots, and downed them all, with disapproving looks from Jordan, who was sat on the other side of the booth. Fuck him. He has no say in how much I drink. I was an adult, I could drink whatever I wanted, and I certainly did not need my ex-boyfriend to be my drinking chaperone.

"Let's dance," Grace gabbed my arm and dragged me onto the dance floor. I barely danced, I kind of just stumbled around and waved my arms a bit; I was really drunk by now. On the dance floor, some guy came behind me and grabbed my hips, grinding his junk against my butt, and I tried to hit him away, but he wouldn't move. Grace tried to hit him too, but he was very persistent. Just as quickly as he was there, he was gone, yanked away, by none other than Jordan Shaw himself. "Thank you," I smiled at him, and in my drunken state, I wrapped my arms around him, giving him a huge hug. If I was sober, I definitely wouldn't have hugged him, but I was hugging him now. He rested his hands on my back, and I felt his chin resting on the top of my head. Yes, I'll admit, there was a lot of fluttering in my stomach, like I had accidentally downed a shot of butterflies instead of vodka, but I didn't want to be feeling this way, so I let go, and so did he, and I went back to the booth. I tried to ignore all of the looks that Jordan was getting, from girls that probably wanted to fuck him, and guys who wanted pictures with him. Pretty soon he was swarmed by the crowd.

Tabs and Noah dragged me again to the dance floor, and we danced, or tried to. We were probably the drunkest three people in the room, apart from those that were absolutely wasted and passed out somewhere. The three of us always had this little unspoken pact that if we were clearly not interested in a guy that was trying to get with us, we would pull eachother away, and swap places. If that didn't work, Noah became our pretend boyfriend. One time, a guy was so set on trying to get with either Tabs or me, we actually had to say that we were in a polyamorous relationship with Noah.

There was a girl that Tabs was clearly interested in, and was interested in her, because suddenly they were a mass of hands in hair and kisses. "I guess she wasn't that interested in Cooper," I joked, shouting in Noah's ear.

"It wasn't meant to be," he laughed. "Dance with me baby." He grabbed my hands, putting them on his shoulders, and he put his hands on my hips, and we swayed to the music.

It was 4am when the club started to shut, and I was exhausted, sat on one of the sofas in the booth, trying hard to keep my eyes open. Tabs and that girl were cuddling next to eachother, and I assumed she was going to be coming home with us tonight. The guy from earlier who helped me clean up my hand, I forgot his name, came and sat next to me. "You're the first aid kit guy," I slurred, knocking my head back to rest it on the back of the sofa.

"That I am. Hey, do you need me to take you home?" he asked, "you look like you won't make it three steps."

"I got it," I heard another masculine voice say. I opened one of my eyes to look at who it was.

"Mr Grumpypants!" I exclaimed, holding out my arms to indicate I wanted him to pick me up. I felt someone picking me up, but my eyes were closed. Whoever it was, I was being carried in the way so that my arms were round his neck, my legs round his waist, and my head was resting on his shoulder. "You smell nice," I mumbled, and the man carrying me laughed. I swear that was Jordan's laugh. I pulled my head back and looked at him. Our faces were extremely close together. "Jordan?"

"Just sleep Avery, we're all going home now," he put a hand on my head and pushed it back onto his shoulder. It was a comfy shoulder, so I fell asleep on it, probably drooling on it too, but that's not my problem.

***

1852 words

04/01/2021