"Free beer?!" I asked, clinging onto Nick. "Rok forgot to mention that! This is gonna be a kick ass party!" I laughed, pulling Nick inside.
Brian always throws kick ass parties!" Nick smiled, yelling over the music.
I took a deep breath and made my way through the massive group of unknown people gathering around the door. I had never seen so many people in an apartment before. Not to mention I only knew five of them.
"Yo!" Brian yelled, bounding towards the two of us.
"Hey man, what’s up?" Nick asked, grabbing a beer out of the fridge.
"Not much," he answered, poking me in the side. "Hey little bit!"
"Brian, I have told you a MILLION times! If you keep calling me ‘Little Bit’ I’m gonna call you ‘Needle Dick’!" I warned.
Nick laughed. "You’re so cute when you’re mad!"
"Keep drinkin’," I smirked, brushing off the compliment.
He grinned, and said, "Hey, save me a dance or two, aight? I have to go mingle or I’ll be labeled as an anti-social."
"Alrighty."
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I’ll be fine," I assured him. Beer in hand, he disappeared into the crowd. When I turned around Brian was gone. The crowd probably ate him, I figured. I looked around for a second, trying to find someone, ANYONE, I knew. No luck. Screw it, I thought to myself, grabbing a beer for myself and heading towards the turntables. I knew AJ was the DJ, so I talked to him for a while before he was drug away by some chick who looked all to familiar; Amanda. I should have known better, anyway than to go over there and expect AJ to stay put for more than fifteen minutes. He was the kind of guy who was always on the go, and always had to be doing something. Sometimes I wonder if her ever actually slept.
All the smoke started to get to me, since I, myself, wasn’t a smoker and I was in no way used to the smell that could make you so lightheaded. I made my way out of the apartment that now seemed so tiny, and went outside for a second to get some fresh air before I started to feel my head float off my shoulders. I was out there for about twenty minutes before Nick found me. He stood behind me for a while, but I didn’t notice until he grabbed me and pulled me back away from the rail. "Oh, hey," I smiled.
"Yo," he replied. "Sorry about leavin’ ya. I totally forgot that you don’t know ninety-five percent of all the people here. My bad."
"Don’t worry about it. Really, it’s okay," I shrugged.
"You alright?"
"Uh huh."
"You sure?"
"I’m fine."
"Alright," he smiled. "Do me a favor, will ya? Don’t lean on that rail, I don’t trust it, and I don’t want my baby girl fallin’ off!"
I laughed. "Yeah, that’s probably a good idea."
"I see you saved me a dance!"
"Yeah, no one was really beating down the door to dance with me."
"That’s because they all know you belong to me, and if they try something with you, I’ll kick their wild monkey ass!"
I laughed. "C’mon girl!" he said, wrapping his arms around his body and pulling me back inside.
"And this one, my people, is for my good buddy Nick!" AJ announced as Journey’s "Open Arms" started playing.
"May I have this dance?" he asked in his goofiest voice, taking my hand.
"Yes you may!" I laughed, jokingly rolling my eyes at him.
"Isn’t that the cutest thing you have EVER seen?" Brian shouted to no one in particular.
"I don’t know how many times Steph has asked you this, but do you wish to HAVE CHILDREN ONE DAY!?" Nick yelled back.
"Mah bad!" Brian said, almost in a giggle, and walked away.
The party didn’t officially end until 5:30 the next morning, so Brian, being the nice person that he was, let me and Nick stay over instead drive all the way back to Tampa (a 45 minute drive) half awake and partially drunk. Nick and I crashed on his couh after helping him and Kevin clean up.
"Hey now!" Kevin said, walking into the living room. "None of that!!"
"What the ….?" Nick asked, sitting up. "I’m holding her, not screwing her!"
I couldn’t help but to laugh.
"Sounds like she wouldn’t mind!" Brian joked, throwing the trash outside the door to remind himself to chunk it in the trash chute the nest afternoon.
"Brian’s never having children!" I announced, throwing the pillow over my head and using Nick as my extra pillow. I heard the guys joking for a few minutes after that before I got comfortable enough to fall asleep, and before they knew it, I was out.