We began our night at a small, quiet bar so that we could have a couple of beers in peace before we let ourselves get too crazy. We'll call it the warm up.

After that we moved to one of our favourite spots downtown. It was a decent sized bar with loads of people which, added to the buzz from the alcohol, got you right in the mood to party.

We stood at the centre of the bar and while Dean and Eddie were discussing the latest nonsensical story in the news, I scanned the bar for any potential partners for the evening.

I hadn't been laid since New Years Eve and it was starting to bug me. I was determined that tonight was the night. We were all going to get some action and then all our problems would magically disappear. Not too much to ask right?

The room was dimly lit, like all good bars seem to be. There were plenty of windows but you wouldn't be able to tell with how dark it was outside already. The walls weren't in the best shape but the huge spattering of red wallpaper hid it well enough so that no one noticed when they were sober. By the time they were drunk, no one would care.

"Anyone in mind?" Eddie asked me, snapping me out of my trance. I told him that I hadn't spotted anyone yet, which was true. It was far too early to put all my efforts into anyone yet.

"I thought you guys were good at this?" Dean sighed, still annoyed that he was socialising. "I thought you'd both be balls deep by now."

"It's a marathon, not a sprint," Eddie pointed out with authority.

"And remember, we're not just here to get laid. We actually want to have fun too," I reminded him. "This is where your story starts."

"Alright, so what do we do?" Dean asked. Eddie almost spat his beer out, laughing.

"Nothing," I replied. "We relax, drink and talk to people. Have you ever had a day of fun in your whole life?"

"Once. Back in Two-Thousand-and Nine," He joked.

After about an hour and a half he finally started to get the hang of doing nothing, but that was probably just because we were now on our fifth beer. A couple of people we recognised from college walked by and spoke to us for a while which seemed to loosen him up too. I briefly wondered if it was just hanging with us that made him so uptight.

After finishing our round of drinks, I ordered the guys to get us some more while I went to the bathroom. Forget the raging hangovers, constantly needing to pee in the biggest drawback with alcohol. I emptied my bladder as quickly as I could, a task made much easier by the background noise of someone snorting cocaine in one of the stalls behind me. Thankfully that's not my type of party scene.

Leaving the bathroom, I noticed that my friends were still in the same place, laughing and joking. Forgetting the book for a minute, I was relieved just to see Dean smiling again.

I arrived back and asked what was so funny. Eddie just looked away but Dean almost fell in a heap. This only intrigued me more.

"Guys, what's going on?" I asked.

"This chick walked past and Eddie asked if she wanted a drink. She literally just slapped him straight away and then left!" Dean chuckled.

"It wasn't that funny," Eddie mumbled, unable to be heard due to my joining in the laughter.

"Honestly, I think I just got the opening to my story!" Dean cried.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "See! I told you this would work! With people like us around, you'll get this thing done in no time!"

"We need to get out of here. Everyone is staring," Eddie gulped. I looked around to see that he was right, only making things funnier.

"Hey guys, check this out," Dean called us over to look at his phone.

We huddled in together to look at what had gotten him so excited. I smiled on both the inside and out when I saw that he was on Fetch.

"This girl I was talking to says she's out with her friends. They're going to Saffron and she's asking if we want to join them. She's pretty cute, right?"

The fact that he'd even asked this meant that we were making progress with him. We both agreed that she was in fact cute and that meeting them was a great idea. Saffron was the newest club in the Belltown area of the city and although I wasn't really a big fan of the place, I could be easily persuaded.

"Are you kidding? Cute chick getting drunk with friends. I am so there!" Eddie said excitedly. It maybe doesn't sound like the greatest reasoning for going to a club, but I was right there with him.

*

"You didn't tell us that all her friends were dudes," I scolded Dean.

"I swear, I didn't know. How could I?" He asked.

"She works on construction sites. That's a pretty big clue," Eddie argued. "I swear one of those dudes is checking me out," This was the first time I could ever recall him being totally uncomfortable.

"I don't see why you're complaining so much. What happened to that girl, Jenny?" Dean asked.

Eddie had already told me the latest update on her in private so I kind of zoned out as he explained that if she wasn't willing to come out and meet him then as far as he was concerned, she wasn't all that interested in taking anything further. Guys can't make all the effort, right?

As punishment for leading us to this miserable party, Eddie made Dean buy us all a few rounds of shots which made our mild drunkenness morph into full blown intoxication. At least for those two anyway. I declined and handed mine over for Eddie to drink. I didn't want to be so drunk that I wasn't able to seal the deal with any girls that I might meet. At least not yet, anyway.

"D-J-'you know what we need?" Eddie slurred at us, only being propped up by the bar and nothing else.

"What's that?" I asked curiously.

"We need an inside woman!"

"No . . . . We need to be inside women," I corrected, grinning when I saw that Dean found this hilarious and was adding another note to his collection on his phone.

"No you don't understand!" Eddie said, not getting the joke. "Like a secret agent chick. Somebody who can introduce us to their friends. They could set us up so we didn't need to do thisss work all the time!" His slurring was incredible and I couldn't wait to see how he felt in the morning. Of course, in theory his idea wasn't too bad but we all knew there was no chance in hell that that was ever going to happen.

"I'd introduce you to my friends."

For a brief second I thought I'd imagined it, but when I saw that my friends had both shot up like meerkats, I knew that someone had really spoken to us. We scanned the nearby area, thinking that whoever it was had to be close enough to us considering the loud music that we were being subjected to.

"Over here!" The voice came again, giving us the vaguest piece of information imaginable. Finally though, our attention fell upon a woman who was probably around the same age as us, sitting alone at the bar. It was hard to tell as she was sitting down, but she looked pretty tall, with shoulder length black hair and a mischievous look on her face. Her bright eyes were almost glowering at us which looked weird accompanied by a smile.

"Did'chuu say what I think you said?" Eddie asked. I think.

"Sure. It'd be pretty funny to see you guys failing miserably. Losers."

"Who are you, exactly?" I asked. I hadn't seen her with the girl and guys that we'd met up with before. Then again, we had been standing at the bar avoiding them all for hours now.

"I'm Shelley," She answered, standing up (she was definitely tall) and walking towards us.

"It's nice to meet you Shell-" I started with my hand outstretched but she just brushed past me and left us without saying another word.

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked. I shrugged, which was really the best that I could do.

"That girl is the most perfect specimen to ever walk the earth. I am going to try and have sex with her," Eddie stated matter-of-factly. Without warning, he sprung off the bar and started to follow Shelley. I tried dragging him back but as drunk as he was, he was still able to shrug me off and continue on his path.

"Why are you trying to stop him?" Dean asked.

"Well mainly because after just insulting us, I don't think she'll really be that interested. But also, you've always got to be wary about a girl sitting alone at the bar in a club" I explained.

"Why?"

"Well," I shrugged. "If she's hot, not being hit on by anyone and sitting by herself . . . she's most likely a prostitute."

"A hooker!?"

"Yep."

"Uuuuuuuggghhhhh" He groaned. "I'll go and get him,"

I laughed to myself as Dean stormed off to try and save Eddie from the rejection before it was too late. I turned back to face the bar and ordered another Jack Daniels and began scanning the rest of the room.

If by some miracle Dean did manage to rescue Eddie, it was more than likely that he'd just want to take him home. He wasn't really in a fit state to do anything so if I was going to pick up a girl; this was my last chance to do so unless I wanted to stay out by myself. Although that seemed to work for me on New Year's Eve, I didn't really want to do it again. Besides, if a girl on her own looks like a hooker, what does a guy on his own look like?

 Exactly!

I continued to look around the club and was quickly reminded why I hated this place. Everyone here was dressed up far too fancy. Of course I was dressed nice too, but these people were way overboard. They were all pretenders; as fake as they come. The kind of people who'll talk down to you if you don't make as much money as they do, or if you even own a pair of sweats. I got mad just thinking about it, so I decided to go after the guys before I blew a gasket and killed the unsuspecting barman.

Just as I was about to walk away, my attention was brought to the other end of the bar. A group of girls were all ordering drinks and doing shots. There was then a lot of cheering and a "Happy birthday!" cheer as they then made their way to the dance floor. I followed them with my eyes, checking out everything. The blondes, the brunettes and the one redhead. All wearing dresses at varying lengths and colours. It was hard to see them all individually from where I was standing, what with it being a dark club and all, but they were all definitely hot. That much was obvious. I suddenly regretted getting Eddie so drunk now as he was really my only wingman. Dean would do ok but he'd probably get me friend-zoned faster than a lightning strike, and I definitely wasn't going to go approach them all on my own. I'm confident and brave but I'm not suicidal.

Just as the herd thinned, I saw something else that piqued my interest even more. What could be more interesting than a bunch of hot, drunk girls?

Just one.

She was sitting on a bar stool where the other girls had just left, one returning to ask her if she was ok by herself and it looked like she was assured that she was fine.

The girl I was looking at was a lot paler than the girls I was usually attracted to. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled up into a bun, with just a few loose hairs hanging down by her make-up covered eyes. Unlike the girls she was with, she wasn't wearing a dress; instead opting for jeans, a dark top and a white jacket. It didn't exactly scream nightclub but somehow that brought me too her even more. I looked towards her hands and saw that, like her friends, she'd finished all of her drink. Why wasn't she dancing?

I figured that there was only one way to find out, so after one last look to see if my own friends were coming back, I made my way over to her.

"You look like you could use a drink," I told her with my best, cheeky smile.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" She asked with an unreadable expression.

"Well it depends," I shrugged. "Is this seat taken?"

She waved me down and so I ordered yet another Jack Daniels and asked for another of whatever the girl was drinking.

"Can I get a glass of water with that too?" She asked the bartender, who happily obliged.

"That's awfully . . . sensible . . . of you," I commented, furrowing my thick eyebrows. "Scared of the hangover?"

"Something like that," She shrugged, sipping her straw from the alcoholic drink before switching to her water and taking a big gulp of that too. I thought it was weird but I persevered anyway. I was here right? And besides, how weird would it have been if I just left then.

"I'm David," I said, offering her my hand.

"Melissa," She smiled, shaking it softly. Her hands were warm, but not like too warm like they were hot and stuffy like you tend to get in clubs. I hoped mine weren't like that. Why was I thinking about hands right now?

"Are those your friends?" I asked, finally letting go of her.

"Yeah my friends and my sister. It's Ellie, the redheads, birthday so she wanted to come here and see what all the fuss is about."

"And what's the verdict?" I asked curiously. She stuttered and mumbled for a few moments so I answered for her. "Yeah, it's a shithole."

She laughed then and it was unlike anything I'd heard before. It was almost like a short squeal. "Why are you here then?" She asked between giggles.

"Uh . . . my friends wanted to come," I didn't lie. "Wherever they go, I follow," I did lie.

"Where are they now?" She asked, looking around like I'd done earlier.

"They headed off to the dance floor and I haven't seen them since."

"So dancing isn't your thing either then?" She asked, taking another alcoholic drink. As she drank, her eyes seemed to widen, as if she was urging me to answer.

"I actually don't mind dancing," I admitted. "But not here. I'd much rather sit at the bar and drink tap water," I joked and she laughed again.

"Hey, this is some good stuff!" She pointed.

"Oh really? Maybe I'll ask them to bottle some for me and I can have it for my hangover tomorrow!" I joked, making her laugh once more. This was going so well!

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Before I could even look to see who was asking, I felt a hand on my chest, shoving me away. Thankfully I adjusted quickly enough so that I could stand up before I toppled over along with my chair.

"Jesus Christ!" I cried as I steadied myself and looked into the raging eyes of one of the girls who'd been with Melissa before.

"Are you ok?" Melissa was asked.

"Jesus Kim! I'm fine!" She answered.

"Did you put anything in her drink?" Kim now asked me.

"What? Fuck no!" I yelled, throwing my hands in the air.

"Do you have any drugs on you?" Was this chick a cop?

"No! I'm not a junkie or  a drug dealer!" I've been accused of many terrible things. Most of which are true. But this was too much.

"Kim! Relax!" Melissa grabbed the girl's shoulders and spun her round so the two were now staring intently at each other. "We're just talking and having one drink! I swear," As the words digested in Kim's head, she seemed to chill out.

I could only see the back of her obviously, but her shoulders that had been rapidly moving up and down were now slowing to a regular pace. After a few more encouraging words from Melissa, Kim finally spoke again.

"Ok fine. But only if you're sure! If you need anything, just let me know straight away ok!"

"Yes! Now go dance some more!" Melissa practically pushed her away. After sending one more untrusting glance my way, Kim left again and I slowly retook my seat.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked, still looking over my shoulder.

"It's just my sister," She revealed, swatting her hand as if my fear was a fly. "She's super overprotective. I'm so sorry. You have no idea how embarrassed I am."

"You have no idea how scared I am!" I added.

"Honestly, just because she's a couple of years older, she thinks she knows better. Let's just forget about her. So what do you do for work, David?"

I was still terrified for my life. But something about Mellissa's voice was soothing, even if it didn't sound exactly like a songbird. As I watched her lean towards me with clear interest, I couldn't resist doing as she said and forgetting all about her freaky ass sister.