A series of events

“Right, guys, it’s four in the morning. The bar should really be closed by now. I don’t want to kick you out, but you really should be thinking about leaving. I need to clean the place up. Where are you staying, ‘cause all of you have had too much to drink.”

“We are supposed to be staying at Chris’s. I don’t know if he’s gonna be able to take us there though.” Frantz replied. “I don’t even know the way there”.
“Well, I know where it is. But looking the state he is in, I don’t think he will be able to remember. I have never seen him this wasted!”
“He always used to be this way…”
“Really!?. Shit. Right. Um, can you make sure they don’t cause too much damage while I clean up here? Then I’ll walk with you all to Chris’s apartment.”
“Yup. No probs.”
“Great. Right, I need to put some music on to motivate me to clean this crap up” I said to no one in particular.

I decided to put The Deathstars on, to get my mind of the fact that Chris was in a really bad state. I’d seen him drunk and happy and fun before, but tonight he just seemed to want to be an asshole. He could see that I was trying to make the place tidy, so he went out of his way to make more mess. At least I understood why I hadn’t heard from him if he had been this wasted all this week. I really didn’t like him like this. At this precise moment I got a text from James: “Hey, are you still at the bar? Or are you at home? X

I replied: “Still at work. It’s a disaster zone at the moment... X”
“I’m on my way, be round in a bit X”

James arrived and helped me to clean up, while Frantz occupied the others. Bam, Novak and Chris were really drunk, they couldn’t hear how loud they were talking and I didn’t like what I was hearing. They were all talking about chicks like they were objects, calling them broads etc., not something a girl like me likes hearing really.

An hour later and the place was sort of clean. I decided to call it a day, and walk the journey to Chris’s with the others. James was up front with Chris, Frantz was with Novak, and for some reason I had to support Bam. He stunk of alcohol and had missed his mouth on several occasions as his clothes stunk of it too. Although he hadn’t given me the best of first impressions I had to admit that he was sort of good looking, not the sort of guy that I normally found good looking though. And his eyes, although red now, were beautiful. Too bad he seems like a douche-bag. While lost in my thoughts (as per usual), he decided to fall, I managed to catch him, and as I caught him I saw him looking deep into my eyes, perhaps trying to recognize the stranger helping him stand. Nothing eventful happened the rest of the trip. And he didn’t really seem in a talkative mood, which was fine with me. Once at Chris’s place, we put Chris in his room and Novak and Bam in the spare room.

“I am glad I took the day off tomorrow. I didn’t plan on walking three drunks home” I laughed.
“I’m glad I’m self-employed” James replied.
“So this is Chris’s place” Frantz said, looking around at the old photos on the wall. Now that he was here, I recognized his face in the photos he was looking at. He hadn’t changed much. “Wow, I thought he might have forgotten us. But he hadn’t... Well I say, since the children are in bed, we have a few drinks.”
“We deserve them!”

A few beers later, the three of us were sitting in the lounge, talking like old friends. I realized that Frantz was ok, even though he liked winding people up. What I didn’t understand is how he could put up with his friends being drunk all the time, because judging from his comments during the evening, things like this weren’t unusual to him. I decided not to ask the question as I barely knew him and I didn’t want to offend him, I was starting to like him (as a friend).

I got up to go and check on the others, to see if they needed anything. I knocked on Chris’s door, and heard a grunt, so I went in. It was the first time I had been in his room, and it looked just like I thought it would, it showed his personality, his craziness. He was lying in his bed fully dressed, he hadn’t even taken off his shoes.

“Chris, do you want anything?”
“A kiss” he said cheekily.
“Eww dude, no.” Knowing fully well that he was playing with me, even if he was a mess. “ You have spent the evening with skanky girls, I don’t know where your mouth has been, plus your breath stinks of alcohol. I’ll go and get you some water. I’m just gonna go check on the others.”
I knocked on the door of the spare room. Bam grunted, I assumed again that this meant I could enter. Novak was snoring on one end of the bed.

“I just came to see if you wanted anything.” I said.
“Have you got a lighter?”
“No, but there is one on the floor here”
“Oh thanks.” He said groggily picking up the lighter he had probably lost on the floor a little earlier. He held up his packet of cigarettes. “Do you want one?”
“Umm, yeah please. Once in a while won’t do me any harm.”
As we sat there smoking on the floor, I stared at his many tattoos. His arms were covered, most of them were beautiful. Some of them were strange.
“It’s rude to stare.”
“I’m not staring, I’m admiring” I replied.
“Do you have any?”
“Yeah, but I’m not showing you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are drunk, I don’t really know you and I don’t want to get undressed.”
“Oh” he said, raising his eyebrows.