Last Seen In San Francisco (Tony Perry)

• I Could Offer You A Warm Embrace •

{ f o r t y s i x } 

"Lydia," I felt a hand gently prod at my shoulder. "Come on babe, get up." I squeezed my eyes before opening them, coming face to face with Tony. I looked around me, seeing my own bedroom, except I wasn't on the bed. 

"Why am I on the floor?" I asked Tony, my voice coming out strained to my own ears. 

"You said you didn't want to catch chlamydia by sleeping in your bed. I don't know why you thought the floor was the better option." He told me. I sat up with his help, looking at the shorts and tank top covering my body and feeling my eyebrows scrunch up. 

"...We didn't?" I gestured between him and my clothes.

"No, god no-" Excuse him? He must have clocked my expression. "-I just mean that I don't have sex with a girl who's drunk. I'm not- not like that." 

If I could pinpoint the exact moment I saw Tony Perry in the same light as I did all those years ago in that cabin, this would have been that moment. 

"What time is it?" I asked him, standing up and dragging myself over to my wardrobe to pick clothes out for the day. 

"It's just past nine," He told me. "I've just taken Madison to school and I've also paid the private tutor for a few months. We're late for work though."

I was practically blown away by him as he walked out of the room and began making coffee. I walked over to the bedroom door and pushed it so it was ajar and began getting changed as quickly as I could without feeling sick. Drinking on work days is the worst idea. I brushed through my hair and threw it up into a ponytail all the while thinking about what Tony had told me. 

He's doing something right if the feeling in my stomach is anything to go by; and by that I do not mean the hangover sickness. 

*

"Please tell me your hangover is just as bad as mine." Alexis groaned as I walked into the office. I held up the coffee Tony had made me and took a sip before handing it to her. "We good? I'm sorry." She said to me as I did and just like that we were friends again. 

"We're good." I told her with a smile. She handed me the coffee back and I continued to drink myself. "Today, we'll just...lets just all do lyrics together, yeah?" I asked the group, glancing to see that Becca had once again tagged along. "Do you not have anywhere better to be?" I asked her rhetorically, sipping on the coffee and walking over to my desk to lock my phone away and grab the lyrics sheets. 

"Lydia! My girl, my woman, the light of my life!" Jack exclaimed loudly, walking into the room with Alex in tow and bringing a tray of starbucks with him. 

"Shut up, you complete homewrecker." I told him, grabbing one of the cups of starbucks coffee he had bought and handing it to Alexis without a second glance. "Why are you in my office? We've spent enough time together lately, surely. Twitter actually thinks we have a thing."

"A thing?" Jack asked me as I handed Vic the lyric sheets. 

"Barastarr." I told him. Twitter had actually given Jack and I a ship name, as Tony had informed me in the car this morning. "There are edits of us kissing and everything. True works of art. That's a new topic anyway, why are you here?"

"Came to give you some apology coffee." I held up my own coffee with a smile. "We can see that we weren't needed. Fine, we'll get out of your hair because you've obviously forgiven us-" 

Tony's loud laugh cut him off. 

"Forgiven you? You should have heard her this morning when she saw the state of her apartment. Some girl is still passed out in her sink." Tony informed Jack.

"I thought you kicked her out?!" I turned to him with wide eyes. He specifically told me that he was getting everybody out of there when I was in the bathroom. Now he's telling me there's a girl in my sink. "We have a child that lives there!" 

"I told her to lock up after herself?" I glared at him before finally turning back to a smiling Jack, who handed me another one of the starbucks coffees. I grabbed it, taking a sip and then taking a sip of my other coffee. Two is definitely better than one. "You're both helping me clean up tonight." I told Alex and Jack, gesturing towards the door. "Now get out, I'm working." 

"Barastarr forever." Alex said to Jack as he turned around. Jack scoffed. 

"You destroy my Jalex heart." I told Alex, turning back to my desk and grabbing some pens. I heard the shuffling of feet come to a stop before they started up again. 

I turned to see Alex holding Jack's hand, lifting them into the air dramatically as he skipped to the door, dragging Jack behind him. "Jalex for the win." He sang and then the door was closing, I hd o coffees and lyrics to write. 

With half of the people in the room having terrible hangovers, we barely managed to get any work done and Mike was pretending to play drums in the practice room as he slept. I'll be honest, I was mad that I didn't think of that first.