Drinks 'n Dares

Flirting With Calamity

Chapter Five - Flirting With Calamity

Claire's POV

Considering everything that happened that day I decided to forgot my usual Wednesday netball practice, and asked Kira to tell the coach I was sick. Carla, who didn't believe in exercise that made you sweat (she only did things like yoga, tai chi and stretches), had grinned at me like she was slowly winning me over to the dark side with her anti-exercise ways. Instead of practice I went home to my flat and crawled into bed.

The next day wasn't much better. I was still exhausted, but at least I didn't have a hangover. Taking special care I made sure my hair looked lovely and my makeup as good as it could get without the help of a makeup crew. Then I went to work and tried to get some work done, while constantly ignoring the missed calls and the text message on my phone. Carla had already apologized for letting my phone number slip to Jon the previous day when he was on his way out. Jon, being the sneaky devil he was had tricked her into thinking that I'd already given it to him, but that he'd lost it. Consequently the 'caller unknown' really wasn't so much unknown as unwanted...

No matter. I managed to get a basic error and typo check to an article done, and start annotating the parts I thought could use some changes. Other than that, I lived in a state of distraction for the entire day, fuddling around a little until it was time to head home. Normally I wasn't this bad an employee. I had never been one for dramatics, then again, under the circumstances I thought I was completely justified. But after ignoring two more 'caller unkown's I decided it was time for lunch. My break ended in a few minutes anyway.

So I saved the piece I was working on, logged off my computer and headed downstairs to the Photography and Design Department. Down in the area where Kira worked was where we met to have lunch every day, after grabbing sandwiches from the shop across the street. Yesterday I hadn't been able to make it because of various incidents and so today I was expecting nothing short of the Spanish Inquisition from Kira and Carla about what happened.

As usual most of the people here were out and about snapping pictures of whatever was supposed to end up in press. There were a few around though and skirts tables of people brainstorming layouts and uploading pictures as I made my way over to Kira's station. She and Carla were already there munching down on BLTs from across the street. Without a word Kira handed me a BLT and nodded towards a chair she'd pulled over from someone else's work area. I slumped into it gratefully but as soon as I did Carla leaned forward.

Let the inquisition begin...

"So what exactly happened the other night?" Carla demanded. "Once second Kira and I were next to you, then we got separated by the crowd and when we looked you were gone! We couldn't find you anywhere and believe me we spent half the night looking!"

"You had us scared out of our wits." Kira added solemnly.

I blew out the breath I'd been holding and tried to think of how to describe what had happened. But Carla was obviously too impatient with my slow reply because she frowned and flicked me on the arm.

"Come on!" she said impatiently. Completely ignoring my 'ow!' of course. "Out with it."

"Well...from what I remember Jon, you remember him right? Well we basically downed champagne while I tried to figure how to get out of the mess. But then I ended up quite drunk and since we couldn't see you and I didn't want Jon to know where I live, Jon took me back to his place. It seemed the natural solution at the time." I shrugged.

Kira placed a gentle hand on my arm, "He didn't...take advantage of you did he?"

"Oh no. Definitely no." I shook my head vehemently.