"Hey duuuuuuuudes!" Joel once again insisted on making even the shortest of sentences long as hell.

"Hey Joel," Eddie and I sighed together.

It was Monday morning and we were completely unenthusiastic about everything. Dean's shitty mood continued all weekend and it was even worse when he was hungover. We still felt bad for him but we didn't want to unleash him on the outside world again, or more honestly, to be seen with him again. So we decided to stay in and try cheering him up with a weekend of guy time.

What could go wrong with video games and pizza?

For the most part it worked too. He only cried once. And by Sunday night he was actually making jokes again so that it was almost like old times. He was still going hours without talking though and locking himself in his room for long periods. You'd think that after Friday we'd be a little relieved about that, but sometimes silence can be very suspicious.

Although we were pleased to do our part in helping out a broken hearted friend, we were still bummed that our return to party scene had been delayed once again. There was literally nothing on earth that could make me feel any worse.

"You guys should've gone out with me on Friday," Joel told us. "I hooked up with a baaaabe!"

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. This could not be happening!

"Sure did! Me and my home-boys went out to a club in the city. We aaaaaall got laid."

Let me just take this moment to say that under no circumstances should a white man use the term home-boys. It's just plain wrong.

"Are you sure you're not making this up?" Eddie asked. It was a very valid question.

"No way! Look, I made a video and everything!" He argued, fishing in his pocket for what I hoped was his cell phone.

"That's quite alright!" I choked.

"Yeah we don't need to see that," Eddie spoke loudly enough so that everyone could hear.

We were now getting death stares from everyone else on our floor, which was apparently too much for Joel to take as he took this as his cue to leave us alone and get back to work.

"This is unacceptable!" I hissed once he was out of earshot. "How could Joel have an epic Friday night and we didn't? I've never felt so ashamed of myself!"

"That says a lot," Eddie nodded.

"We have to fix this. No matter what, Dean is coming out with us this week and he's not gonna bitch about it like last time. I'm losing my mind here."

"You and me both partner," My co-worker sighed.

We sounded like a couple of alcoholics, but believe it or not, that wasn't the case at all. You see alcoholics need to drink in order to have fun. We just wanted to. There's a difference. I mean, why do anything sober if you can do it drunk? It makes everything infinitely better.

If something's funny, alcohol makes it funnier. If something is scary, alcohol makes it scarier. If a chick is hot, alcohol makes her . . . well, you get my point.

The one good thing to come out of Joel's over-share was that we were now determined to get out of this funk, more than ever. However, pretty soon our problems paled in comparison to someone else's.

*

"Thank god you guys are back!" Dean cried in a panicky voice as soon as Eddie and I came through the door.

"Hi honey, we're home," Eddie said in a confused tone. It wasn't like Dean to care that we were home.

"What's going on?" I asked, undoing my tie and unbuttoning the top button of my shirt. My work clothes made me feel like a jackass.

"I just got a call from Angie!" He cried.

"Oh god. The Mayan calendar foretold us of this prophecy!" Eddie said dramatically.

Angie was basically Dean's agent at the publisher. It was her job to make sure he was staying on schedule with everything and it was her that organised things like interviews, book tours and any other form of advertising that you can think of.

"Seriously guys this is a huge problem!" Dean wailed, clearly not amused by our lack of interest.

"What did she say?" I asked, sprawling on the couch.

"Umm . . . basically that my deadline is coming up. For the second book."

"And? You knew that already right?" Eddie shrugged. Or at least I think he did. His entire upper body was inside the fridge, digging in for something to eat.

"Well I knew it was this year but I didn't realise how soon it actually was," Dean explained.

"Well how soon is it?" Eddie asked again, this time popping his head back out of the freezing confines it had been previously buried in. Somehow, there was actual tension in the air. Where you could literally hear a pin drop as we waited for Dean's response.

"Five months."

"Dude, that's ages!" Eddie laughed.

"Not when you don't have any characters, any plot or any idea what to even write about!" He argued back.

"I thought you already had all this down? What happened to that romance thing you were writing?" I asked, now sitting up from my slouched position. Dean simply grimaced.

Following the excitement of his first story's success, not to mention the impact it had on his love life, Dean had instantly been inspired to write his follow up straight away, and seeing as a semi autobiographical account of the highlight of his life was such a hit, he wanted to stick to the same formula. He decided to write a romance novel, based on his relationship with Christy. It wasn't quite a sequel but it may as well have been.

For a start he was locked in his room every day, kind of what he's like now but back then we knew that it was because that was where he did his best writing. He had always kept it a closely guarded secret from us but once he got his deal, he didn't have a problem talking to us about it.

"That sounds ok, right? Writing a romance novel?" He would ask us on hundreds of occasions.

"Sure!"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Eddie and I would agree.

"Ok, thanks guys!" Dean would beam before walking back to his writing cave.

Of course, he didn't know we were lying.

A man writing romance? Who would read that?

"I'm sure it's not that bad!" Eddie told him confidently.

"I am so fucked!" Dean obviously didn't buy a word of it.

"You are not fucked," I said, rolling my eyes at his dramatics. "We can make this happen. How much have you written so far? In total?"

"One chapter."

"You are so fucked," I gasped.

"God, what have I been doing this whole time?" He screeched. No one answered because frankly we didn't have a clue.

"Why don't you just write whatever is in your head? I mean, sure you have to hand in a book. It doesn't say anywhere that it has to actually be good right?" Eddie suggested.

Yes, he's an idiot.

"That would be a pretty good point if it wasn't my whole fucking career on the line! Not homework!" Dean yelled.

Anger was a stage of the grieving process right? Maybe this was healthy? Maybe Eddie was actually a secret genius? Rather than say any of that out loud and risk a tongue lashing of my own, I opted for a different approach.

"Well come on, how hard can writing a book really be?"

Yes, I am also an idiot.

"Are you serious? This is what I get for asking the advice of two cavemen!" Dean decided my comments were worthy of a scolding too.

"You wrote the last one in like three days! Why can't you just do that again?" I argued.

"Because I had the greatest story of all time to back me up! If I just use the same formula for this then it'll suck. How can you write a romance novel when she just randomly breaks his heart after two years? It would suck! And besides, I clearly don't know anything about love anyway."

I told you that Dean was an avid writer. I didn't ever tell you that he was actually any good at it.

Realising that Dean was about to fall back into his depressive shell again, I decided to take this bull by the horns.

"Alright here's what we're going to do. You're going to go into your room with no phones, no iPods, no TV, no nothing. You're gonna start writing whatever the first thing that comes into your head is. I'm going to make some coffee to help fire up the senses and Eddie is going to go order some pizza! How does that sound?"

"I'm down!" Eddie cried. "You're gonna pay for it though, right?"

It wasn't clear from his expression whether Dean was on board with our plan, but really he didn't have a choice. We went down with the plan and hoped it would inspire Dean to find his true calling. I knew for a fact that sometimes, pressure simply made people stronger. I hoped that this was the case here.

We left him to it for the next few days, only checking in every so often so that he wouldn't get annoyed at us or feel pressured any more than he already did.

When he finally burst out of his room and jumped in front of the TV that Eddie and I were trying to watch, I thought he'd finally gotten his head straight. Especially when he cried, "Guys! I know what I'm going to do!"

"That's awesome!" I smiled.

"Don't keep us in suspense! Lay it on us!" Eddie begged.

We waited on the edge of our seats to hear about the novel that was going to propel Dean into the stratosphere of famous authors.

"I'm going to ask Christy if she wants to give it another shot!" He told us excitedly.

I literally felt the oxygen evacuate the room.

"What do you think?" He asked after the long pause without receiving any answers from us.

"I think . . . that's the worst title ever?" Eddie offered, knowing that that wasn't what Dean was talking about.

"You're supposed to be writing!" I reminded him. As far as procrastination went, this was a new low.

"I'm sorry guys! I just can't think! I'm too distracted, there's too much going on right now," He groaned.

"How much have you written since we cut you off from the world?" Eddie prosecuted.

"You don't wanna know," Dean whispered, but I heard every word loud and clear.

"What the hell have you been doing?" I gasped.

"Give me your phone," Eddie demanded of our friend.

"Why?" Dean asked, moving to protect his cell phone that was sitting on the kitchen counter. Eddie chased him while I cut him off at the other side, ensuring I'd reach it first. I chucked it over to Eddie, avoiding Dean's waiting arms.

Grown men playing piggy in the middle.

"Because you need to get your shit together!" I scolded him while Eddie typed away on the keyboard.

"And how does stealing my phone help that? You're just stressing me out even more! Give it back!" Dean begged.

"Would you relax? I'm not texting your mom," Eddie snorted.

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm downloading Fetch and making you an account," He replied, not once looking away from the device.

"What the hell is Fetch?" Dean asked.

"Only the greatest app of all time," I answered. When I'd liberated the phone, I hadn't known exactly what Eddie had in mind, but I trusted his judgment on this.

"What does it do?"

"Literally the same as every dating app ever. Lets you hook up with tonnes of chicks. Me and David use it all the time. It's ideal for a night out and is exactly what you need to get over Christy," Explained Eddie.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's like Tinder before it sold out and went legit."

"I don't even know what you two are talking about," Dean sighed.

"Just trust us, ok? When have we ever let you down?" I grinned, hoping he wouldn't actually answer.

I know what you're thinking, and you're right. As far as writing his novel went, this really wasn't going to get him anywhere. But we wanted to tackle one problem at a time, and stage one was to get Christy as far away from his thoughts as possible. And if that meant hooking up with an attractive single girl for one night then so be it. I'm sure Shakespeare was doing it all the time!