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“Hey, it’s morning. You okay in there?”

“Oi, it’s nine am. We have to get up. I think Kennedy wants us out?”

“Bey, you awake? I know you can hear me, I’m not as stupid as you like to make out.”

Garrett was starting to whine now and as irritating as that was; it did not make me want to leave the cocoon I’d created for myself on the couch. The blanket was tugged right up over my head, filtering the bright sunlight streaming in through the French windows before I squeezed my eyes shut tight again. I didn’t care what time it was, I was warm and tired and-

Something sharp jabbed at my head through the blanket – or at least attempted to. Instead it poked my eye and I bolted upright, throwing the blanket off, groaning and clapping a hand to my face.

“Garrett, you idiot!” I moaned, “You missed, you asshole.”

“Shit, sorry, I just wanted you to show signs of life, you know…”

He continued speaking or apologizing or whatever, but I rolled away from him, pressing my face back into the couch cushion. The way I’d suddenly sat up was causing my vision to roll, and my stomach to churn just a little.

“I hate you.” I mumbled into the pillow and I heard Garrett laugh, the sound of a sleeping bag being kicked off. Garrett had slept on the floor after in an apparent fit of chivalry; he’d offered me the couch. I’d taken it gladly.

“Still drunk or already hung-over?”

I rolled (very carefully) back over to find him smirking at me. It always angered me how well Garrett could handle his alcohol, with the tiniest of hang overs the next day, unless he’d gone all out. And when he did, he milked it for all it was worth, claiming sick days and requesting chicken soup whilst camped out in his bedroom. Usually I was the one making it, too. Then again, Garrett had been drinking since he was sixteen, whereas I, newly legal, had only been at it a couple of years. Over protective parents, lack of teenage social life, blah blah blah. It didn’t help I was five foot three and skinny as a stick. Tipsy on two beers, Garrett would just ruffle my hair and call me a lightweight, and he was totally right.

I closed my eyes and pretended to think. “Hmm, I don’t know. I haven’t tried to stand up yet.”

Garrett chuckled. “In your own time.”

I heard the click as Garrett unlocked his phone and I opened an eye to squint at the screen over his shoulder.

“Message from anyone?”

“Yeah, yeah, there’s a couple, hang on.” He scrolled down a couple of emails and instagram notifications to his texts and read them out.

“’Got home okay, putting John to bed now. He drooled on me in the taxi home, not cute. Han x’” He read out, grimacing at the last sentence, whereas I just giggled. “There’s another one from Pat. Uhh…” He scanned over the message quickly. “Shit, he’s already at the studio. That boy is so eager.”

“Well at least Hannah got John home okay. He was pretty out of it last night, from what I remember – kept trying to sing Tom Petty solos?”

Garrett nodded, grinning, and waved his phone a little. “I may or may have not got video evidence. Not some of O’Callaghan’s finest vocals, I’m afraid.”

I gasped; highly amused that Garrett had managed to catch John’s little performance. “You have to show me them later!”

“Yeah, will do. Anyway speak for yourself! You seemed up for a little karaoke yourself last night. That was a fucking excellent Shania Twain rendition, Brands.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. “Please tell me I didn’t.” My memory of last night was definitely a little foggy is some places, but now that Garrett mentioned it, memories of me forcing everyone to turn on the karaoke machine Kennedy kept in the corner started to float back, and then I distinctly remembered gripping the tacky plastic microphone and beginning to sing. Warble, more like.

“I would love to – but you totally did. And I also have footage to prove it,” he said, raising a goading eyebrow in my direction. I gasped again, this time in betrayal, and made a swipe for his phone, but Garrett simply held it out of my reach and laughed. He was in fits of giggles as I continued to scrabble in mid-air for his phone, but he always kept it always just centimetres away.

“Garrett, delete those files!”

“No,” he choked through his laughter. “I want to watch them again later. Besides everyone was there, they already heard you sing.”

“But they don’t need to continue hearing me sing!” I protested. I made another grab for the phone, although my head was already pounding at this amount of activeness so early. I over-balanced and went sliding off the sofa, crashing into Garrett’s lap, blanket twisted around my ankles. My knee connected with his groin accidentally, and the phone slipped from his hand as he groaned. It wasn’t an intentional takedown, but I used things to my advantage and pounced on it while Garrett writhed in pain beneath me.

He managed to shove me off just as the video began to play. I was quite clearly drunk, red around the cheeks, which is always a dead give-away with me. Also the fact that I’m clutching the microphone and wailing into it, looking pretty pleased with myself is another hint that I’m completely off my face. There’s some laughter in the background. I hear Kennedy talk off camera ‘Should we stop her?’ (Wow thanks Ken) and then Eric laughs and says ‘No way man, this is gold’ and start singing along with me (Cheers Halvo.)

I get to the bridge and the camera starts to shake as Garrett laughs. By the time I’ve got to the chorus Garrett is catcalling behind the camera. I look up and send him a (rather flirtatious) wink before launching into ‘That don’t impress me much!’ and Garrett explodes behind the camera and yells my name.

This seems to encourage me or something, because I yank out the microphone cord to make it longer and start to walk towards the boys at the back - namely Garrett as I’m looking directly into the lens. I strut down the middle of the living room, eyebrows raised in Garrett’s direction.

‘So you got the brain, but do you got the touch?’ At the last bit I swing my hips and sweep my arm up around my head and through my long brown hair, in a move I definitely intended as sexy. At least I know my own lame attempts at seduction.

But Garrett? I was aiming them at Garrett? Oh no, I didn’t. I did not do that. Garrett and I were friends. Best friends. Like -I’ll push you around the retirement home in your wheelchair, but I will not help you when your false teeth fall out, I’ll just laugh- type of friends. Why was I doing this? This is not how we operated.

‘Don’t get me wrong yeah I think you’re all right, but that won’t keep me warm in the middle of the night.’ By this point I’ve reached Garrett and I watch myself stick out my hand (presumably to slide it though his hair?) and I drop low into the camera line and smile right him, dipping to kiss the corner of his mouth (again presumably) before swinging round and returning to the front of the room. In the background there’s a lot of whistling and laughing, and requests for their own lap-dance (eww.) Behind the frame, Garrett has stopped laughing and the video shuts off a couple of seconds later.

I turned to face present day Garrett next to me, my mouth dropped slightly open. If I were a little less shocked, maybe I would have blushed. He was looking at me cautiously, biting his lip and I stared at him.

“I wasn’t actually ever going to show anyone,” he says lamely.

“Were you gonna show me?”

“I was just gonna make you watch me delete it, I promise.”

I wince. “So you weren’t gonna tell me about the complete embarrassment I made of myself last night?”

Garrett’s eyes flick away. “You didn’t embarrass yourself, Brandy. You know you have a good voice.”

“I’m not talking about that and you know it!” I snap. Garrett sighs and gestures for his phone back. I shove it back to him roughly. “Well?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. You were drunk, I don’t care.”

I had to stop myself from flinching, though I really don’t know why. He didn’t care? Well obviously drunk-me’s attempts at flirtation were seriously misplaced.

“Right. So we’ll just forget about it?” I said slowly, my eyes narrowed.

Garrett seemed to jump on that, smiling widely at me. “Sure! Just forget about it, no biggie.”

No biggie? Wow, it was nice to know my advances were so easily brushed off. Way to make a girl feel good about themselves. For some reason, I was outrageously offended.

He poked at his phone a little and then looked up and smiled. “There, I deleted it.” He slipped his phone back into the pocket of the jeans that he evidently slept in. “I think we should both make a move. Ken and Jess are upstairs still, they haven’t come down but they’ll be awake soon. We should probably clear out.”

I snapped back to focus and nodded. “Right, yeah. I know they didn’t expect us to stay.”

Garrett and I had car-pooled to Ken’s gathering, which in hindsight was a dumb thing to do, because we were both adamant not to be the designated driver, and both ended up way over the limit. We could have called a taxi I suppose but it would have been an expensive effort going to two houses, and Kennedy offered one of us the couch before he and Jess sloped off upstairs. Garrett could have got a lift home with Hannah and John seeing as they lived close to each other, but I guess he backed out of interrupting their couple time, and sort of offered to stay here with me instead, grabbing one of Ken’s sleeping bags and a rug out of the downstairs cupboard. I remember throwing him some pillows and practically passing out, still fully clothed.

I ripped the blanket away from my legs, revealing sure enough, the same denim shorts I was wearing the night before. I got to my feet gingerly and ended up staggering a little. Garrett steadied my elbow.

“Whoa there. Want me to drive?”

“I feel like one of those carton characters with the stars around my head,” I mumbled.

“No shit. You’re still drunk.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” he shot back. “Do you remember where you put the car keys?”

“Probably down the side of the couch.”

“Awesome.” I saw him roll his eyes. “Can you write Ken a note saying thanks and that I’ve driven us home?”

“Sure,” I nodded, before stumbling into the kitchen. I ripped the magnetic pen and paper from the fridge door and scrawled down what Garrett told me, adding a couple of smiley faces just to be polite. I tacked it back up and was about to go before I hesitated and decided to flip the fridge door open. I scanned the contents quickly and grabbed a near empty carton of orange juice, shaking it just to make sure. My mouth currently felt like something had curled up on my tongue and died there so I knocked back a few swigs and took the rest with me.

Garrett was waiting by the front door, spinning the car keys around his finger. He found them, then. Wonder what else he found down the back of the couch? I giggled to myself. When he saw me he stopped and frowned.

“Helped yourself?”

I shot him a look. “They have another one, it’s fine.”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything, just cracked the front door open. We both winced when it creaked, but we slipped out anyway, gently pulling it to behind us. It was actually my car, not Garrett’s truck we drove in, but I crossed to the passenger seat and climbed in, still clutching the OJ. Garrett slid in next to me and flipped the engine on.

“Hey, you can put your head between your knees if you want, I’ve heard it helps,” he quipped, smirking.

“Shut up,” I mumbled, but to be honest I was dreading the drive home. I was never any good with travel sickness anyway, much less travelling whilst hung-over. I shoved the juice carton towards him and he took a couple of gulps, murmured thanks, and then started up the car and pulled out of the driveway.

I was not going to be sick. I was not. Not in front of Garrett, in my own car.

I stared out the passenger window, focussing on the road and I felt Garrett shift beside me.

“Maybe you really should put your head between your knees, Bey? It actually might help?” His voice was softer, and I knew he was genuinely trying to be nice now, not just arsing around, but I shook my head.

“I’m fine.”

Garrett flicked his eyes off the road to look at me, but didn’t press it.

The fifteen-minute journey home was completed in mostly silence. I pretended it was the hangover and mostly it was, but I also really didn’t know what to say to him. I was embarrassed but I was also kind of angry, but I didn’t feel like I had a right to be. For all he knew I was just drunk as hell last night and doing stupid things because of it. To him it was meaningless.

But I was starting to admit to myself that maybe last night was just a wider symptom of an underlying problem. A problem I really, really didn’t want to get into again, not after last time.

I had my eyes closed most of the way home, but I could feel when Garrett swung into my driveway. Just as he did so, the message alert on his phone sounded, lighting up with a message. My attention was drawn to it, sitting on the console between us, and I could read it from my seat beside him.

Rhiannon <3: Hey G. You didn’t come home last night? Did Brandy bail on you again? Come out for breakfast with me. Miss you xoxo

I closed my eyes again and pretended I was fighting in the urge not to be sick, which was only partially untrue.

I’d tried to come on to Garrett, my best friend, last night and I’d made him uncomfortable and I’d embarrassed myself, because Garrett had a girlfriend.

Who he lived with. A long-term girlfriend.

And I just did not factor in on Garrett Nickelsen’s love life. Why should drunken flirtations make a difference to that?