Forked Roads Back

81 - ARCHIE

DESPITE THE WAY IT started, my birthday has been amazing.

Breakfast was delicious, which was followed by a trip to Yankee Stadium to watch some baseball. Following that, we chose to do a pub crawl... and that's what we've been doing all day.

We picked one of the Avenues, and the challenge was to drink one drink in each of the bars or pubs, no matter what the establishment was.

I lost count of the number of places we went into after the seventh pint. Most places were awesome, with a few proper pub-like establishments you would usually find on London streets, which was a great surprise. Some were a bit more dodgy, the types of bar when the eyes all slowly turn towards you, judging you for stepping foot inside the door, but we paid no heed... we just drank our pints and headed back out of the door.

Finally though, after what felt like forty pints, we only had one more stop left to make, and that was home.

Ollie, who had become legless over ten pubs ago, is now being fireman-lifted on my shoulders - just like the day I got to know him - with Mille being carried by Greg too, only that was due to laziness rather than intoxication. Aurora is following behind me, spotting Ollie, and it's very cute as I feel like she's just as tipsy. Despite the main aim of the night to get me drunk, I seem to be the most sober.

However that was only because I have had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach all day.

I don't know whether it's because of the nightmare, but I just didn't feel quite right. Something was off, and not just a little bit off, but off by a lot, and it seemed to have kept my head clear enough despite the immense amounts of alcohol seeping through my system. As we walked along, back to my apartment, everything was clear... except why I was feeling like this.

For once, I knew it couldn't be anything to do with Tessa which, to be honest, confused me even more. She had texted me this morning, so there can't have been anything wrong there, but I couldn't rule it out. Maybe it was just my mind running too fast because of the alcohol, my brain preparing myself for a crisis, whenever it arose.

"Pleeeeeeease can we order some food when we get in?" Millie begs as Greg puts her down. We have now reached my door, so I do the same to Ollie, who has amazingly managed to fall asleep on my shoulders.

Aurora giggles as she helps me peel him off, but as soon as Millie mentions the word pizza, he starts to wake up again.

"Pizza! We could go for the 82nd Street one?" He suggests, wiping his eyes. "Or if we wanted to do Chinese, we could do that one up there." He points back in the direction we came.

"Dude, 82nd Street is miles away!" Aurora groans.

"Delivery!" Ollie cheers back.

Millie gasps as well as Aurora. "Praise be to the Deliveroo gods!" You'd think she'd never heard of it before.

"Hey, I'm happy as long as I get chips," I laugh as my phone starts buzzing in my pocket.

It's Danny, and I know he wouldn't be calling this late unless there was a problem.

"You guys go up," I tell them. "I'll see you up there. Make sure Ollie gets me chips," I point to Greg, who seems to be the next best sober one after me.

He nods and smiles before heading inside.

I turn back to the street and sit on the step as I answer the phone.

"Hey Danny, what's up."

"Hey," he starts, and he sounds almost nervous, making me think that this may be the reason I've been on edge all day. "So we may have had a little incident..."