11::2222

There is no way I could pick one song out of all of my favorites, so I will just post the one I am currently listening to while writing this story. It doesn't have much to do with music, but I wanted to write it, so there.

Around the World: Daft Punk

11::2222.

That’s not a time, I thought to myself. Closing one eye I squinted across the room, attempting to draw the green digital letters on the microwave into focus through the fog of a few beers. 11:22. That’s more like it.

I leaned heavily into the wall, left knee locked straight, right bent casually, my foot sideways on the creaky wood floor. Beer number 7, a Newcastle Brown Ale, rested on top of the fridge to my left, its condensation creating a white ring in the otherwise dust caked surface. It was still half full, but I wasn’t concerned with that right now.

Lights flicked on in the bathroom down the hall. Someone in a blue cocktail dress stumbled through the doorway, tripping over the raised threshold. It was Christie. The door slammed behind her, bouncing back open. . Mark rolled his eyes and followed her into the tiny room. She dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, bending out of view. Retching and splashing echoed down the hallway, barely audible over the Beirut game in front of me.

She’d already been three sheets to the wind when I arrived at 9. I called because I didn’t know exactly where the house was.

“I’ll meeeet you outside!” She screamed/slurred into the phone over some crappy hip-hop.”

Minutes later she was falling down her porch steps.

“I’m soooo glad you came!” She gargled from the dew soaked grass next to the sidewalk. “You’re gonna have to sleep on the floor though, lotta people here.”

I grabbed her hand, attempting to help her up, but her 3 inch heels weren’t making it easy.

“Just fucking take them off.” She pointed both index fingers at her feet. “Aren’t they cute? Ten bucks at Macy’s!”

I fiddled with their tiny buckles and eventually got them off. I pulled up and draped her left arm over my shoulder. She somehow grabbed my ass with her right hand.

“Looks like I have some catching up to do,” I Laughed, helping her back up the steps.

A wall of damp, sweaty air hit me like a wall. It was at least 20 degrees hotter inside. Everyone was crowded around a beer-pong table in the cramped kitchen. A small boom-box blasted that week’s top 100 from the corner. Christie gave me a clammy hug, her bare arms sticking around my neck, and stumbled away towards her bedroom. I tossed her heels under the coffee table and dropped onto a futon from Ikea. I pulled bottles of Gordan’s gin and Simply Orange orange juice from my bag and splashed them into someone’s empty Solo cup. A freshly packed bowl sat on the glass coffee table in front of me, scraps of weed scattered around it and a Bic placed conveniently beside to it. Don’t mind if I do, I thought to myself, grabbing the piece and snatching up the lighter. I looked around for the bowls owner. Nobody looked back. It was mine now.

A few bowls, a few beers, and a few hours later I was leaning against my new favorite patch of drywall next to the fridge. Talking was pointless with the boom-box only a few feet away. I could see Christie’s tan legs kneeling before the toilet down the hall. A week ago they were wrapped around mine, both of us stone sober and half naked in her bed. I was rubbing the small of her back, tracing the dimples just above her butt. Spent six hours laying there, feeling her soft, warm body next to mine, just talking. Eventually I was having a conversation with the back of her sleeping head so I quietly slid from beneath the covers and drove home.

Matt shut the bathroom door. I passed out on the Ikea.