My Imaginary Friend | l.t au

13:Blaze

After what seemed like wandering around campus aimlessly for almost an hour and not finding much to do on campus, Louis and I ended up deciding to take his car and find somewhere off-campus to go to. Soon, we found ourselves at some sort of bar not too far from the university called Blaze that had a live band playing. It was pretty crowded, with people all over the place, dancing to the music, eating, getting drunk, making out, and even saw a few couples headed over to the bathrooms to do God knows what. I guess it made sense that there were tons of people, it being a Saturday night and all...

I felt claustrophobic in here with all these people. It was too loud for my liking, too.  It reminded me of Jamie when she listens to her music. Plus I was feeling underdressed, with every other girl there wearing dresses - most of them showing a significant amount of cleavage - while I was wearing an oversized sweater and sweatpants. My eyes wandered around, and I fiddled with my fingers as a sign of my skittishness as I follow Louis.

"Um, Louis?"  I asked as he found us seats along the bar. "What is this place? I've never been here before.'

"You've never been here before?"  He looked at me as if searching for a sign that would say I was joking. "You're kidding, right?"

I shook my head. I've been going here for three years and  I had never even heard about this place - Blaze, I recalled the sign out front saying was the name -, let alone been to it. "Nope."

He raises an eyebrow. "Everyone I've met here so far has been here, or at least heard of it. Why haven't you?"

Before I could answer him, the bartender, whose hair was in a pixie cut and was black with hot pink tips, came over to us and asked what we wanted in a nasally voice. "I'll have your finest scotch and the lady'll have..." He turned to me. I wasn't a big fan of alcohol, so I answered with, "Water's fine, thank you." She nodded and walked away to get our drinks.

He scrunched his nose and looked at me like I was crazy. "You come to a bar and order water?" He tsked, "No. You know what? Miss?" He called to the bartender. She rolled her too-much-eye-liner brown eyes. "She'll actually have the same as me."

"Whatever." She walked away again, taking the money that Louis set down.

I turned to him, crossing my arms. "Louis! What the hell?" 

He shrugged. "Water's boring for a place like this." He gestured at our surroundings. "This isn't a boring place, so we can't have boring drinks, now, can we?"

"You don't make sense."

"What's wrong with that?"

I didn't know how to answer that, so I didn't.

A few minutes later our drinks came. He downed his in just a few big gulps, while I didn't give mine a second glance.

"Drink it, you'll like it," He demanded.

I shook my head,sliding my glass towards him. "You could have mine if you like it so much."

"I insist," he pushed it back to me.

"You're the one who bought it," I reasoned, "It's only fair that you drink it since it was your money." I slid it back to him.

"Ah, ah, ah, no way, Noble." He gave it back to me. "You have to drink it. I bought it for you."

"Yeah, without my consent." I rose an eyebrow.

"Fne, but you're missing out." He gulped it down in one drink. "You should learn to live a little." An idea seemed to form in his head, and before I knew it, he was dragging me onto the dance floor. The band was doing a cover of some song I didn't know the name of, but it was catchy and I liked it. People all around me were dancing, moving to the beat and letting the music take over. I just stood there awkwardly, having no idea how I should be moving my body. I was hopeless when it came to dancing.