My phone made a chirping noise as a text came in. I adjusted the gold hoop earrings I'd just finishing putting on and picked up my phone. Meg's name sat at the top of my inbox.

Sam, we'll be at The Office on Fifth. See you there! Meg x

I smiled at the aptly named bar. How far away was Fifth street? What time was I supposed to go? It must be a straight after work thing. I wondered if people went home to change first, like I'd done, or whether they just wore their office attire? Shit, maybe I'd be too dressed up..

I looked at myself in the mirror and checked out my slim-cut black jeans and forest green, spaghetti strap silk top. It's the city, after all, I'm sure it would be fine. I ran my fingers through my honey hair, the light waves cascaded down around my shoulders. I threw on a black denim jacket to match, just in cause it might decide to rain it be a bit cooler, and locked up as I left. I was a little bit excited, let's be honest.

There were taxis at the curb outside - yahoo! I flagged one down and jumped in the back. Quite soon we were pulling up to a nondescript brick building that looked kind of like an old 1800's built pub. Fifth Street, it turns out, wasn't too far away from both my apartment and Monday Magazine. I could hear jukebox-style music pounding from inside.

I paid the cab fare and thanked the driver as I got out. There was an open glass door set into the brick facade in which golden light spilled out and a blue neon sign overheard read The Office. I stepped through the door and into the hazy room, passing a bunch of people exiting the establishment, already visibly sloshed. I smiled at them and hugged the wall as they stumbled past in a loud cacophony of laughter.

Inside the building the place was massive. The room was an open plan, old pub-style decor with one side opening onto a fairy-lit beer garden. The ground was astroturfed and wooden tables sat filled with people who had clearly lingered past happy hour. I scanned the crowded buzzing room and saw amongst a large group of people, a mop of ginger hair standing next to a dark brown curly head. I made my way over and as Meg turned around and caught my eye she gave a squeal.

"Look who made it!"

Louisa turned to see who Meg was talking to. They had both changed after work and wore casual clothing. Meg wore a knee length pink satin slip dress covered by a denim jacket and heavy black boots and Louisa had on a canary yellow blouse and light denim jeans. She looked absolutely gorgeous with her firey hair to match and I could easily see a few members of the male persuasion eyeing her off.

"Of course I came! How could I miss this? My first Friday night office drinks."

"Exactly! You only work all week with all these losers, why not hang out with them as soon as your weekend starts?" Meg said boisterously, her eyes were bright and carefree. She lifted a schooner of what looked and smelled like pale ale and gave my drinkless hand a pretend cheers.

I laughed and looked around. "How long have you guys been here?" There was a mixture of people dressed either still in their now slightly wrinkled office garb, or fresh brightly coloured clothing.

Louisa shrugged. "Not long. Sometimes we come straight from work. Hey! Andy! Give me some of your pitcher."

She stepped away through the crowd and was lost for a moment before appearing once again beside Meg, her glass freshly filled with a slightly frothy beer.

"I'm going to go get a drink," I told them. They nodded and Meg gave me a thumbs up behind the loud music, turned and started talking to the person beside her.

I stepped towards the bar and joined the line. The music blared around me as drunk patrons stumbled by and I realised I knew the song.

I don't care if Monday's blue. Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too. Thursday I don't care about you cause Friday I'm in love.

I swayed a little and hummed along until it was my turn to order. The bartender looked at me with flat eyes and nodded without a word when I said espresso martini. I tingled a little with excitement. The pub back in Robertson didn't really do cocktails.

"Hey," a guy next to me at the bar turned to face me. "I haven't seen you around here before."

The drunk guy smiled at me with hazy eyes. His blonde hair fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He leaned casually against the bar, having turned away from his friends to face me.

"Does that line ever really work?" I gave him a sideways glance as my espresso martini arrived and I took it for a sip. The alcoholic twang was strong and the coffee a bitter wake-up on my tongue.

He laughed loudly. "No I'm serious! I've never seen you here before. I would totally remember. Are you with that group over there? The Magazine people?"

"Yeah, I work with them," I smiled and picked up my drink and made a move to go.

"Wait, I didn't get your name?" He put his hand out on my elbow to try to stop me.

"It's Samantha," I said.

"Well can I buy you a drink Samantha?"

I continued walking away and felt his hand slip off my elbow as the crowd started to swallow me up. "I've already got one! But thanks!"

"Wait! Don't you want to know my name?" He called through the crowd. I heard his mates laughing and jeering at him.

"There you are!" Louisa said when I got back over to them. Her voice was thick with alcohol and accent as she stood next to a tall dark-haired guy with glasses and a beard. "Settle this debate for us! Seb says that when..." her voice was drowned out as the slim energetic form of Meg busted into my side. A little of my drink went spilling over the edges onto the floor. I squealed at her and laughed.

Three espresso martini's later and I was deep in discussion with some of the people from marketing that Meg and Louisa had introduced me to. A small figure slid onto the free stool opposite me. Judy Chin took a sip from the straw of a tall mojito that she placed on the table before her.

"Okay, I want one of those next," I said to her, nodding towards her drink.

She laughed and her serious eyes softened. "Samantha, right?" she said politely. It was just a formality, really, we both knew she knew my name. Especially after me highjacking her computer system and boss's schedule.

"Yeah, Judy, right?"

She nodded at me. "You're not really what I was expecting," she said casually.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you're not really anything like Alison Rivers," she glanced across my face and at my hair and waved a hand. "I mean, aside from the obvious similarities in appearance of course."

"Well, thank you, I suppose. I'll take that as a compliment. That woman is... mean."

"More like a total bitch," she laughed a dainty high pitched laugh. "Yeah, she's one of a kind alright. I've worked opposite her for the last two years and I was worried you'd just be her new mini-me. You don't seem anything like her though, thank god." She took a sip of her drink.

"Yeah, what's with that anyway?" I gave a hiccup. "Meg and Louisa told me about her and about Charlie, Tyronne's secretary before her."

Judy smiled, showing perfectly straight white teeth. "If you ask me, Tyronne just seems to have a thing for pretty blondes," she shrugged. "It seems to be all he ever hires. Not that that's discriminatory or anything, right?"

"Be careful with him," she added, eyeing me carefully, knowingly, without saying anything further. Before I could ask her anything more, we were interrupted by Meg and Louisa joining the table and the discussion turned over quickly to another subject.

I was two mojitos deep by the time we joined in on the dance floor. Louisa moved lithely and fluidly to the music while Meg had a more unconventional style of movement. It hurt my stomach so much from laughing just watching her. I felt a pair of hands wrap around my stomach and I turned to see the drunk blonde guy from earlier at the bar behind me. His eyes were swirling even more now than earlier and although the warmth of his touch was kind of nice, I took a step back, still laughing at Meg.

"Don't you wanna dance, sweetheart?"

I shook my head as Meg's hand took mine up and pulled me in closer to her and Louisa.

"No thank you!" I called over the music. "Sorry, it's girls night!"

The drunk blonde guy slowly melted away back into the crowd with a defeated look on his face as we continued to dance. I was sweaty and hot and happy as I left the dance floor sometime later to get a drink of water from the bar.

Meg and Louisa stayed on the dance floor as I sought the icey water. A commotion at the front door made me turn. A fight had broken out just beyond the glass door to the front of the building and instinctively I took a few steps closer to see what was happening.

A small crowd had gathered at the doors and I pushed through to see a man lying on the ground on the cement pavers out the front. His mouth was bleeding and his eye was swelling up from where he'd been hit. He looked up and I realised it was the nameless drunk blonde guy. He groaned and looked up and swore.

"Get the hell away from me!" He drawled to the gathering little crowd. "You especially," he waved a hand towards me. "Could've just fucking told me you had a boyfriend!" He wiped at the blood across his jaw.

"What?" I glanced around me. Surely he wasn't talking to me?

He put a hand up towards me. "Just stay away from me. Your boyfriend's nuts!"

I looked around in confusion. What the hell was he talking about? Surely he was mistaking me for somebody else. He had to be. I gave him a weird look and backed away to go back inside. He was clearly too drunk to even realise who I was. Maybe he thought I was another girl he'd cracked onto.

Louisa and Meg were still where I'd left them on the dance floor. Louisa had her arms draped around a tall dark haired guy I'd never seen before. Meg had her arms splayed out in front of her with her head hanging down, looking like she was playing the piano. I smiled in laughter and retreated. The bleeding drunk guy on the ground had sobered me up a touch. I decided to skip out without saying goodbye to my friends. Louisa's tongue was now in tall-dark-haired-guy's mouth so I definitely wasn't going to interrupt that process.

I stepped outside into the cool night air and hailed a cab. The ground was now empty of bleeding drunk blonde guys and the crowd had scattered. I had a quick look behind me as a strange feeling came over me. A feeling like I was being watched or something... there was no one around save for a few drunk people stumbling around. I closed the cab door and gave the driver my destination, leaned back against the squeaky vinyl seat, and shrugged it off. It was probably nothing.