"Come on, Mia. Bottom's up!" Ben shouted gleefully before gulping another shot of vodka.
I just shook my head lightly at him. "You might wanna go easy there, cowboy. How many shots have you had? Six?"
"Dunno, and I certainly don't give a fuck." He slurred. "Tonight I wanna get drunk!" He then beckoned to the bartender to give him another shot.
Rolling my eyes, I said a short 'don't' to the bartender and he nodded understandingly (much to Ben's disappointment) as he was, in fact, already hammered. "You're gonna regret this in the morning, you know that, right?" I scolded even though I wasn't even sure if he was listening. He was too far off of his head for all I know.
When Ben got off the stool and walked away, sulking, I let him be because I knew he wasn't going to do anything stupid despite how drunk he was. As stupid as he was for drinking a little too much, he knew how to take care of himself. He always had been the kind of lad who had his behaviour in check even when he was under heavy influence of alcohol. Worst case scenario was he'd go flirt with some random girls in the club. But in case if he accidentally flirted with someone's girlfriend while the angry boyfriend was planning ways to murder him, I kept an eye on him from afar.
I never really enjoyed going to a club but Ben talked me into it since he wanted to forget about his professor's comment on the latest assignment he turned in which, in the professor's words, 'looked like it was written by a 5 year old.' Ben, of course, took it to the heart because he actually worked hard on it. Maybe even way too hard. So his solutions? To get drunk off his arse so he could forget about it. Let's be real for a moment though. When was the last time he wrote his assignment completely sober? There was always a bottle of beer in his hand. How this person had not died of alcohol poisoning actually baffled me.
I sat myself on the stool where Ben was and looked at the time on my phone. It was 10 minutes pass 3 in the morning and I then realized how tired I actually was. We'd been here for hours. I guess watching someone else get drunk really was a good way to pass some time.
I looked around and noticed how the crowd had thinned out but the people who still stuck around were either too drunk to drive home or really didn't have the desire to go home. Some of the faces were foreign to me but most of them went to the same college as Ben and I. They were dancing and talking, trying to forget about the time. The music was not too loud, thank God, since it would be a crime to disturb people's beauty sleep.
"Do you want anything to drink?" The bartender asked and I asked for some water. "Not much of a drinker?"
"No, I still love my liver." I said and he chuckled lightly.
I was drinking from my glass when I got a text from Evan. What is he doing up this late?, I thought.
'I'm outside the club you're at. Can you come out and see me?', the text read.
It automatically raised a red flag in my head as I sensed that something was wrong. Evan was supposed to be at his girlfriend's place tonight. He told me that he wanted to surprise her for her birthday after his night shift at the McDonald's where he worked for a part-time job. Now that he was here, I figured it didn't go as planned.
I checked up on Ben and told him that Evan was here and I might leave with him so I couldn't be his chauffer as I promised to. He said that his friend, Dylan could drive him back to his place later on so I thanked him and said good night to them both.
When I went out, I saw Evan leant against his car with his head down. The outside of the club was pretty dimmed-lit, making it harder to look at his face. I walked closer to him and I could hear him sniffling.
