The dinner was delicious, the wine was delightful, and everyone was quite drunk. I was watching myself, though, because I did not want to spend tonight throwing up. I planned on having a great time.

Alice, however, did not seem to care about being careful with how much she was drinking. I was pretty sure she was about six or seven glasses in, and she was a lightweight. On another table, I could see Catherine glancing at her from time to time with a worried expression. Alice was talking and laughing a bit too loudly, and it was quite obvious she was drunk.

Once dinner was cleared away, a few speeches were made, and then Jennifer and Michael were the first on the dancefloor. The live band was incredible and soon lots of people were dancing.

"Let's get shots!" Sam suddenly said, standing up. "Open bar, baby." He grabbed Ellie's hand and she followed him laughingly to the bar.

"Yes, shots!" Alice said loudly and went after them before anyone could stop her.

I exchanged a glance with Joseph before saying, "I'll go stop her."

But too late – they had all already done tequila shots.

"Ana! Here," Sam said, handing a shot to me. When he saw my doubtful expression, he held it right up to my nose. "Oh, come on. You're not going to throw up again. Probably. If you're not wanting to do a shot of tequila, then you're not drunk enough yet."

I smiled. "Well, how can I turn down that logic?" I downed the shot, wincing at the taste. "That's disgusting. I hate tequila."

"And if you hate tequila, you are most definitely not drunk enough yet," Sam said.

I laughed. It was true. But behind Sam, I saw Alice doing another shot. "Oh god, Alice is going to be hammered."

Sam waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about her. She'll be fine."

I sighed but accepted the next shot Sam passed to me. "You're a bad influence on me."

"That's what I'm here for, baby." He clinked our shot glasses together and we chucked them back. My throat burned.

All feeling a bit more drunk as the tequila began to kick in, we went and danced together, Ryan joining us. We were giggling and having so much fun, and I was reminded again of how much I loved my friends. When we all went to sit down for a rest, I suddenly realised that Alice had vanished.

"Oh no," I said loudly. "We've lost a member of the crew."

"Oh no," Ellie repeated. "What ever are we going to do?" We giggled together. Sam shook his head at us while Ryan looked confused.

"Mum and dad had to take Alice back to her room," Joseph said, suddenly appearing and sitting next to me. "She was throwing up."

"Oh no," I said again, in a groan. "I knew it. That girl. Honestly."

"She okay, though?" Ryan asked quickly.

"Yeah, she's fine."

"Can't believe we didn't even notice," Ellie said, a guilty look on her face. "I feel bad."

"Don't feel bad. And I'm allowed to say that, because I'm her brother," Joseph said. "She'll be fine."

"Don't need to tell me twice," Ellie said, pouring herself some more wine and knocking it back. "Let's go dance. Joseph, you're coming too."

"I'm not–"

"She's right," I sang, taking his hand. "You don't have a choice." We all went back onto the dancefloor, Connor and Zoe joining us, dancing and singing together. I practically had to force Joseph to dance, keeping his hand in mine, and I saw Zoe glance down at our joined hands. She smiled, an expression of realisation on her face. Soon a couple of people we didn't know came and partied with us, and Zoe immediately attached herself to one of the boys, who looked more than happy to be dancing with her. Connor disappeared off to the bar with a girl, and slowly the group began to disperse as people went off to do their own things for a while.

Joseph and I ended up sitting down together, close to each other, talking about... normal things. If me drunkenly asking the date of his birthday was normal.

"Honestly, Lily, I'm a little offended that you don't know this," Joseph said, crossing his arms.

"What?" I protested. "I bet you don't know mine."

"February 1st," he said confidently.

I stared. "What – how did you know that?"

"You actually told me when you were drunk," he stated with a sly smile. "And demanded that I got you a very expensive present."

I put my hand on my forehead in embarrassment. "I can't believe you never told me this. You said you told me all the embarrassing things I did."

"And that's not even the worst part," Joseph said, mischief in his eyes.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What's the worst part?"

"Well," he started, lightly running a finger over the back of my hand. "When I asked you what expensive present you'd get for my birthday, you said that you didn't need to get me anything, and that I could unwrap you instead."

My mouth literally dropped open. "No. No way. You're making that up."

Joseph laughed loudly. "I'm not, I promise."

"I would remember something like that!" I insisted, feeling my cheeks heat. "I don't even have the flirting skills to say something like that." I hit him lightly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you'd suffered enough embarrassment that night." Joseph was still grinning. "Plus, I knew it would make you go all red like you are now."

I held a hand to my face. "I am not red."

"You are."

I groaned. "God. I really do love to humiliate myself." When I looked over at Joseph, a smirk was on his face. "Oh, stop looking at me like that."

He chuckled. "October ninth, by the way. That's my birthday."

"Oh." What could I get Joseph? "Yeah, that really doesn't ring any bells. You definitely have never told me before."

The music changed to a slow song, and couples went to dance together. I watched them, feeling my heart pang slightly.

"Lily?" I turned to see Joseph watching me.

"Mm?"

He stood up and held his hand out. "Come on. Dance with me."

I smiled and took his hand as he led me onto the dancefloor.

He pulled me into his arms. Wherever Joseph touched me as we danced, heat followed. It was like I was a thousand times more sensitive to any contact with him. At first, we stayed a respectable distance apart, one of his hands loosely on my waist, the other hand holding mine. But as we danced, not taking our eyes off each other, the space between us vanished. I leaned into him, my cheek resting on his shoulder, his hand moving to the small of my back, holding me close to him, as we moved slowly to the music. There were other people dancing, but they may as well have not been here. I was only thinking about Joseph, how his body felt against mine, the scent of his cologne, the beating of his heart under his shirt. My own heart was going into overdrive right now, and I was sure it was beating loud enough for Joseph to hear.

I felt his nose and then lips skim the top of my head, and I slowly lifted my head up from his chest, looking up at him to see him looking right back. At this point, I could barely even hear the music. I forgot that people – my friends – were here and could see us. Joseph dropped his head down slightly, his forehead resting against mine. I gradually moved my hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck, my fingers lightly weaving themselves in his soft hair. Our lips were so close. I wanted to kiss him. At that point, I didn't care that my friends would see. I didn't care about anyone else. I didn't care that Joseph was completely off-limits to me. I was so in love with him, and he didn't even know.

As the end of the song neared, we were interrupted. Ellie, Sam and Ryan had come bounding over, Ellie saying loudly, "Oi, you two. Stop dancing and come and do shots."

Joseph and I both lifted our heads to look at my friends, but our hands stayed on each other. Ellie's expression was knowing, Sam's suggestive and Ryan's surprised.

"Oh come on." Ellie grabbed my arm and dragged me away from Joseph. "We need to take advantage of the open bar while we can. My new stepdad – ugh – has paid for all of it so we have no choice but to get really, really drunk."

I gave her a half smile, subtly looking over my shoulder to see Sam and Ryan walking with Joseph. They were laughing together. Just looking at Joseph made me want to be back in his arms.

We reached the bar and Ellie glanced around us rapidly before saying urgently, "What was that, Ana?"

I looked at her in surprise. "What?"

"The dancing? With Joseph? You guys looked like a full-on couple."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, Ellie, we've talked about this. I told you nothing is going on between me and Joseph. Besides, you're the one who keeps putting us together."

"Yeah, I know. But Ana," she gestured back to the dance floor, "that was not nothing. Anybody could see it. Hell, a blind person could see it. You're just lucky Alice and her parents had to leave. What would they have said if they saw that?"

"Ellie," I said in slight annoyance. "Nothing has ever happened between Joseph and me. I promise."

She narrowed her eyes. "Okay, but that's different to nothing going on. Is there something there?"

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Behind Ellie, out of earshot, Joseph was getting drinks with Ryan and Sam. I watched Joseph for a couple of seconds before dragging my gaze back to Ellie. Her expression was meaningful, eyebrows raised. "I don't know."

Ellie threw her hands up. "You don't know? Ana, you like him!"

"Can you please be quieter?" I said with gritted teeth.

"So you do! And Ana, come on. He obviously likes you too." She looked at me expectantly.

I sighed and said quietly, "You can't tell Alice."

"Of course I'm not going to tell Alice." Ellie blew out a breath. "God, I know I've joked about it, but...I had no idea."

I frowned at her. "No idea about what?"

"Well, no idea about just how much you two liked each other." Two shots appeared in front of us. "All this time living together, and nothing has ever happened between you?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. And nothing can happen, not really."

"Well, why not?" She pushed the shot towards me.

I downed it, wincing. "Because he's Alice's brother."

"She might not even mind. And you don't have to tell her, at least not at first," Ellie pointed out as she knocked back her own shot. "Next excuse."

"We live together," I hedged.

"So? If anything, that just makes it easier." She passed me another shot. "Next."

"He's going travelling soon. For six months."

"You don't have to worry about that yet. He's still here for the moment. Next."

"He might not even like me," I said, but it was a weak excuse. I knew that Joseph liked me. I just didn't know why he hadn't done anything about it yet.

Ellie rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. "That, Ana, is one of the most stupid things you have ever said. I have seen the way he looks at you. I've seen you two together. He knows you, Ana."

He did. And I knew him. I threw back the shot. "I'm gonna mess things up."

"Don't worry about that now. If you thought like that with everything, then you would never do anything."

That was true. And I was out of excuses. "Ugh. Let's just go dance."

So we did. My drunkenness meant that I could barely feel the pain in my feet from my heels, which was great except I knew that my feet would probably be numb tomorrow. We were all a little unbalanced as we danced, almost falling over, laughing. I clutched onto Joseph as I lost my balance slightly, and he put an arm around my waist for support and kept it there. The night vanished away from us as we all sang along too loudly to the songs. It got late, and eventually everyone gathered outside to wave off Jennifer and Michael as they left. Ellie gave both her mum and Michael a big hug, Michael looking slightly surprised but happy.

The party slowly began to dissolve, people breaking off to go back to their rooms. It was late – we'd all been partying for about five hours since dinner, but the time had flown by. Ryan left with his parents, giving us all hugs goodbye. Ellie and Sam disappeared off together, hand in hand. Eventually it was just Joseph and I, and we slowly made our way back to our rooms, laughing and stumbling every so often.

"What floor are we? I have completely forgotten," I said as we got in the lift, punching multiple buttons.

"Lily," Joseph groaned. "You've pressed too many buttons."

"Oops." I grinned sheepishly and leaned against the wall of the lift. "What a night. You had a good time, right Joseph?"

"I really did."

I poked his chest. "I knew you could have fun. Are you drunk? I can't really tell."

Joseph squinted slightly. "Maybe a little."

"Good. Although I still can't tell what kind of drunk you are." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you a happy drunk? You seem happy."

He smiled. "I am happy."

"Well, good." We finally reached our floor after stopping off at various other levels along the way. We slowly walked down the corridor to our rooms, stopping at mine first. I opened the door with the key – which I miraculously had not lost during the night – and I hovered in the doorway, turning to face Joseph. His expression was unreadable.

"So," Joseph said, rubbing the back of his neck. "That was fun."

"Mm." My gaze searched his. I suddenly felt more sober, more aware of everything going on. "It was."

He didn't say anything for a moment. "Okay. Well." Another pause. "Goodnight."

I nodded slightly. "Goodnight, Joseph."

Joseph stayed standing there for a second before gradually backing away and walking to his room. I watched him go, and when he didn't turn around, I shut my door. Alice wasn't in our room – she must have stayed in her parents'. I was alone, with nothing but my overwhelming sense of disappointment to keep me company.

had far too much fun writing this chapter xx