Hello there, this is the follow up to Chalk and Cheese. Again, I'm not sure where we're going with it as yet but I hope you join me for the ride. I don't think you will have had to read Chalk and Cheese to read this, but it may help.
Thanks for taking the time to read it, and please vote, send comments as it's great to hear what you think.
Thanks
Elle x
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Chapter 1
Being designated driver sucked. Alanna watched jealously as her friends counted down and threw back another tequila slammer, each wincing with the pain as the liquid fire slid down their throats. She watched Bells in particular who seemed to be struggling, and wondered just how long it would take before Bells either threw up or was strutting her stuff on the dance floor and denigrating anyone who got in her way.
Alanna sat back in her seat and sighed. Delighted though she was to see everyone, how typical that on this night, which was shaping up to be a really great night, she couldn't drink and therefore had to drive? The girls hadn't had a night of this magnitude in quite a while, but given Isabella's promotion, Helena's divorce and the birth of Tamara's baby and therefore her first night out in six months, this night had been billed as a night to remember, but given Alanna's bout of tonsilitis and necessity for antibiotics four times a day, it turned out that this was going to be a night for her to remember and remind the girls about as she would be experiencing the debauchery bright eyed and bushy tailed and they would be unlikely to remember - lucky bitches!
She took a sip of her Diet Coke, bloody Diet Coke, and cast her eyes around the bar seeking another potential designated driver that she could drown her non alcoholic sorrows with. Nope, everyone looked as drunk as her friends, wonderful. She really had to get a grip, not only was she sober, she was now beginning to bore herself. It was the screeching in her ears that brought her back to her friends, well one friend in particular who was pointing and screeching.
Alanna raised her hand to Tamara who was closest to her and the culprit of all the screeching,
"Tam, what are you doing? Stop pointing - who are you pointing at anyway?"
Tamara jigged up and down in her seat in excitement slurring her words and trying to convey a story.
Alanna took a deep breath to encourage her patience to remain and asked again. This time she was greeted with a semi coherent answer,
"My bosh, remember, Greg - Greg's lovely. Well remember, I told you about Greg meeting this lovely girl - Toni, Tilly - something like that, and they all found out that her ex had been sleeping with her sister? Remember? Well that's the sister's husband over there."
The four women looked over at the handsome man nursing his drinks and being eyed up by every group of women in the room. Alanna could have sworn she heard Helena sigh - she was a sucker for a story. Tamara beckoned them in closer,
"He's lovely, but apparently not handling it very well. From what I can gather from Greg - which isn't much - the wife has left him with the kids, and is now living with her sister's ex, Luke I think his name is. They're petitioning for custody or something after Mike, that's the guy over there, went for Luke with a baseball bat and she had him arrested. So poor thing, he's all by himself, with the kids and doing his job at the firm. Honestly, he's such a saint."
As all her friends sighed in love over the poor single father who had been left by his wife, Alanna looked back over at said subject. He didn't look too poor, he was on Scotch number five, chatting happily to the blonde who was pulling on his earlobe, and signalling to the waiter for another one. Alanna looked back at her friends who had, as all drunken people do, forgotten poor single dad and were now back onto the subject of Helena's divorce, her fucker of a husband and how she could never imagine even kissing anyone again.
Two hours later, Helena was in a corner slapping the face of the man she had been kissing for the past hour whose mother had just arrived to get him back home as he had A levels the next day, Tamara was mortified at having it pointed out to her that she had two massive milk spots on her white dress, signalling it was time for her to go and see her baby and Isabella had fallen off the table, twisting her ankle and was now hobbling back to where Alanna was waiting for them patiently. Yep, a night of great debauchery indeed. The walking wounded all made their way back to the table where Alanna was sitting and each "lady" dropped herself on to the booth.
"Have we had enough girls?"
The morose three nodded their heads while Alanna chuckled to herself,
"Right, you go to the cloakroom, I'll just head off to the loos and meet you in the foyer."
The girls nodded again and the team split.
On her way to the toilet, Alanna cast a glance at Poor Single Dad who was now by himself staring at the row of glasses on his table, we were now at seven. His arms were rested on the table, and his chin rested on his arms and it seemed as though he were divining the secrets of the world from said glasses. Alanna shook her head at him. If things were that bad, he should just go home shouldn't he?
Upon her return, she cast a glance at him again to see that while he was still in the same position, his eyes were now closed. What an idiot. She made her way back to the girls to tell them, only to have Tamara exclaim,
"Well we can't leave him here, poor thing, how's he going to get home?"
Alanna raised her eyebrows at her friend,
"What?"
"Well it's true. How's he going to get home?"
"By cab, like every other drunk grown man. What's wrong with you?"
"I just think he's been through a lot, and if it was Brad, I would want someone to help him."
"Not if you were sleeping with your sister's ex, then you wouldn't give a monkeys!"
