"There's an emergency at home, I have to go!" Kacey calls over her shoulder.
A few people glance at her before returning to their conversations. I watch Kacey's retreating figure before glancing around for her friend. Lacie is not next to her, my head turns to the other end of the bar and focus on the drunk woman sitting there. I raise my brows, surprised.
I wonder what happened to make Kacey leave her behind?
Lacie blearily looks over at the group of people I'm standing with and swirls around her empty glass in her hand. She raises it to her lips and makes a motion to drink. I hold back a laugh as I see her blink and frown down at the empty cup.
She's cute.
The way her cheeks are flushed, and her moist lips pouted against the glass... I gulp.
I haven't had any drinks because I'll be leaving soon, but my sober brain seems to be affected by the drunken chatter of my friends. I'm thinking things I'd normally never think. Why would I be suddenly attracted to a drunk girl?
I turn my back to her, I need to stop looking at her because my mind keeps on straying to places it should not be. I tune back into the conversation that the guys are having and quietly listen to Jonathan talking about the girl he's currently dating.
"She's different," he says seriously, "I really think she might be the one."
My curiosity piques. Has Jonathan finally found a girlfriend he'll commit to? His parents will be glad to hear it, I hope his relationship goes well.
My mind wanders back to Lacie sitting behind us, will she eventually meet someone who is "the one" for her?
My body turns around of its own accord and I look at her. She's holding an entire bottle of vodka, I turned around just in time to see her take a swig and spit it out, tears forming in her eyes from the sting.
Kacey...what were you thinking leaving her alone here?
I break off from my group ignoring Dylan's questioning look and head over to Lacie's side of the bar.
Standing in front of her, I look down into her bleary eyes. She's clutching onto the bottle with lose fingers and its slowly slipping down. Her drunken grip is not going to be able to support that bottle for much longer. I grab the top of the bottle and try to tug it out of her hand, she doesn't let go. I don't want to forcefully take it from her and I carefully unwrap her fingers from around it and place it back on the counter.
I try to think of something to say to her.
"Did Kacey leave you behind?" I blurt out.
I cringe at my question, it's so lame. Of course Kacey left her behind, why else would she be sitting here by herself?
Lacie slowly blinks at me and I realize just how drunk she is. I don't think she had much to drink today, but then again, I haven't been watching her the entire time so who knows how much she's actually had.
Looking at her state, I wonder how shes going to get back. Kacey was her ride home but now thats gone out of the window.
"Do you need a ride home?"
"Yes!"
Okay, I'll call a taxi for her. "Where do you live?"
She doesn't respond. I wonder if she doesn't want to share her address with a stranger she's just met today, but looking at her dazed eyes I realize that she either doens't understand what I'm asking, or doesn't remember what her address is. Or, maybe she thinks that you can communicate purely through body language.
Either way, I know I won't be getting any sort of useful information from her anytime soon. I consider calling Kacey but remember that she's dealing with an emergency, its better not to bother her right now.
Lacie's focus shifts away from my face and her gaze trails towards the counter. I follow her movements and my eyes land on the bottle that I just took away from her. Nope, she's not going to be drinking any more under my watch. She clearly doesn't know her own limits.
Her eyes stay trained on the bottle and I consider moving it further away, but something tells me that won't work. Looking at her wide eyes, I get an idea. Will it actually work? Shifting my body over to block the bottle from her sight, I see her attention snap back to me.
Hah, she's already forgotten that the bottle is there. Just like how she's forgotten where she lives.
I sigh and turn around to shout something at the noisy group. Someone shouts back at me, listing off a campus and the name of a dorm and I nod, I recognize that address, it's on my way home. Perfect.
I check the time, its past midnight, I want to get going so I ask Lacie if she wants to go home, she happily nods and I involuntarily smile at how eager she looks.
I beckon at her to come with me and she obediently slides off her stool looking up at me with eyes full of trust. As I'm about to walk out, a woman's voice reaches my ears.
I turn around and find myself face to face with Sophia. I stare at her trying to understand what she said, but I wasn't paying enough attention to hear all of it. I'm about to ask her to repeat herself but Lacie chimes up from behind me.
"Red lady, don't you live here?"
Red Lady? I look at Sophia in her red dress. Oh. Red Lady. I can't hold back the laugh and I see Sophia's expression distort for a second before returning to its usual elegance.
It looks like Sophia was offering to take Kacey back. I frown at Sophia, Lacie's right, she lives here, why would she go out of the way to send a drunk stranger home?
In my heart I know that its wrong to suspect someone I've known my entire life over an act of kindness they're offering to a stranger. But Sophia going out of her way to be kind is something that'll happen when pigs fly.
Rejecting her offer, I coax Lacie out of the building and into my car. She wiggles around in her seat and seems to be enjoying the ride.
I smile. I notice her peeking at me but continue focusing my eyes ahead of me. She gives up on peeking and just begins to stare at me.
I straighten my back at the feeling of having someone watch me and purse my lips. What's she thinking? Does she like what she sees? Why am i suddenly so nervous?
Her eyes are boring holes into my skull and my hands tighten around the steering wheel. She finally looks away and I relax, looking over at her she smiles a silly smile to herself amd pats her red cheeks. I focus back on driving.
After a while I feel some movement besides me, I look over and am surprised to see Lacie looking down and fidgeting uncomfortably. I open my mouth to ask if shes okay, but she suddenly turns around and looks straight at me.
Out from her beautiful pink lips come two unfathomable words, "Marry Me!"
I brake hard at the red light and look over at her stunned. What the fuck is she talking about??
__
I sit in my car and heave out a sigh, resting my face on the cold steering wheel as I recall the disaster that is drunk Lacie.
After finally appeasing her marriage talk by pushing it back to when shes more sober, I asked for her contact information. I wasn't joking about talking to her later, but her ineberated self couldn't give her number, or take mine. I thought about leaving it in her phone, but I didn't want to go through it while she was drunk. Handing her a card with my number also seems like a one way ticket to her losing it so I resolved to just find her social media through Kacey's profile and message her some time soon.
Thinking back on everything that I've done throughout the nice, I suddenly realize how foolishly I'm acting. All this consideration over someone I've just met today, someone who hasn't even had a fully sober conversation with me yet.
But that doesn't matter because I'll ask her out on a date if she still feels the same about me as she did tonight. I highly doubt it, but my mind is screaming at me to take this chance and see where it goes.
Getting Lacie home was not an issue. But once she was there, I remember her sprawled out on the soft carpet and refusing to move an inch no matter how many different was I tried to ask her. How can someone be so stubborn?
In the end I pulled a blanket and pillow from the couch and put them over her. I also took her shoes off. I considered picking her up and carrying her to her bedroom, but she looked quite happy with the carpet and I didn't want to go into her room without permission. Her clothes, which had rubbed all over every single inch of the carpet by now were also too dirty to be on the bee, and she was in no state to get chnaged by herself.
After Lacie had settled down on her makeshift bed, I'd taken one last look around herdorm before leaving the place. Her dorm had three rooms, one was a kitchen/living room arrangement and the other two were bedrooms. I could tell which one was Lacie's becaues Kacey had adorned her own door with a an unending amount of polariods of her and Reese.
I didn't look in either of the bedrooms, but from the looks of it, the living room was very well organized, which was unsurprising. Despite her chaotic personality, Kacie liked to stay neat and tidy.
The only anomoly in the apartment was the amount of plushies strewn throughout the place. From the floor to the funiture, every surface had some form of a stuffed animal lying on it.
I didn't recall Kacey ever showing any inclination in hoarding so many stuffed toys at a time, so I assume that they were all Lacie's. I smile to myself, its a cute hobby.
I'll have to keep it in mind.