Ignition

When did I get a bottle of Jack in my hand? And why was I still on the table? What the hell was Patrick doing next to me with limes?

I looked around, and some of the guys were dancing on the deck to my playlist still. I laughed and thought to myself, “holy shit! I think they actually like this music! Maybe I can hang with them!”

“Yo Lexington? What was that mix you did with Peach Vodka?” Brian yelled from inside. He was holding a bottle of Vodka and a bottle of diet coke while leaning against the door frame.

“Diet Coke, get rid of one fourth of it then fill it to the top with Vodka!” All Night Longer came on and we all took a shot. My East Coast style surprised a lot of the guys, but they learned quick and followed suit. “Tell that bartender make that mother fucker strongerrrr!” I went back to dancing like a fool on the table as the guys danced below me. It reminded me of partying back at my old school, and how I missed some of my girlfriends there. I would have to FaceTime them soon, I just missed them so much!

And that's the last thing that I remember about Friday night.

~
Click! “Oh this is good stuff.”

I slowly opened my eyes, and thought that I burnt my eyes. I gently shook my pounding head, and opened my eyes again. I saw my legs laid across, who, was that Jonathan? Oh god. I rolled my head to the left and saw Patrick. “What the?”

“Woah, how did this happen?” Patrick sat up a little bit from his sitting position against the wooden railing on his deck.

“Dude, we all crashed inside. You three were talking about how cool it would be to hang upside down on the pull up bar and do shots. You two went nuts last night,” the other Patrick pointed at Patrick and I and laughed.

Jon gently moved my legs to the side and slowly got up using the railing to hoist himself up. “Dude, if you don't have bottled water, I'm going to kill you.”

I looked up at Patrick, and he just shook his head. “Jonny boy can get grumpy when he gets hungover, it's even better on a plane.”

“Fuck off Pat,” Jon said back to Patrick as he stumbled inside the apartment.

“Patrick, please don't move, my head might explode if you do,” my head might have been in his lap, and I might have liked it, but that did not matter.

“You got it babe-oh sorry, I think I might have called you that last night. You said something about Greg? Or AJ? I don't really remember, just something about them calling you babe and using you,” Patrick ran his hands through his hair and sighed.

“Oh god, I'm so sorry. I never meant to bring that upon you guys. My old school kind of sucked, and the guys were even worse. Wait. Who took a picture of this?” I slowly sat up on my own and looked at the three guys in the doorway. Brent, Brian, and Patrick were all standing there with smirks on their face.

“Oh but you three were so cute,” said Brian, who held his phone up and gave it a little shake so we knew that he had it.

“And who wouldn't want to document it?” Patrick replied with a huge smile on his face, and his phone clearly in his hands.

“I know some other players would love to see it,” Brent choked out in between his bursts of laughing, also with his phone in his hand.

“And your captain will be taking the picture, thank you,” Jon took all three of their phones by surprise and put them in his pocket. From this, he walked back into the apartment ignoring them as he did so.

They all began whining and I stood up with Patrick. If I looked half as trashed as Patrick did, I knew it was going to be a long day.

“I think I may still be drunk,” he said to me quietly, as he held his hands out to stretch-or maybe it was to steady himself.

“I think you may be right Patrick, I feel like shit, but fuzzy still. What did we drink last night?” I smoothed out my shirt that was rumpled during my “nap”.

“I'm not sure, but I can see that my liqueur cabinet is empty from in here, and it was pretty full when I moved back this summer. And we worked on a bottle of Jack for a while before Corey took it.”

I chuckled and writhed in the pain from my head. “I don't know about you, but I am ready for a long hot shower. I'll see you around, okay?”

Patrick gave me a half hug and said, “Sounds good Lexington. See ya.” We both stumbled at our combined weight, only making it more evident that we may have gone a little overboard last night.

I walked through Patricks apartment that wasn't as dirty as I thought that it would have been. I looked over and saw Jonathan being wrestled onto the couch by Brian, Brent, and the other Patrick in pursuit of their cell phones.

As I shuffled down the hallway, I was dreaming of what the jacuzzi jets were going to feel like on my sore muscles from sleeping on the wood all night long. I couldn't even believe that I crashed the way that I did. I would have to dig out one of my lavender balls to put in the water as well.

My head was pounding with every step I took, the first thing that I had to do when I got back was to drink a glass of water, and take some Advil. I knew that I was dehydrated, and needed to get hydrated quickly or I could be in some trouble.

The more that I thought about the fun that I had last night, the happier I was about my decision to move to Chicago. I didn't know anyone, and no one knew me so I was able to be myself, and recreate my image if I wanted. The only thing that could mess me up is if my old school moved here, but there was no way in hell that that was ever going to happen. Most of them didn't even know that I had moved to Chicago.

Maybe this would be what I needed to forget about what happened my first year at college, and move on to bigger and better things.