The call came at 3 in the morning. I ignored it the first time. Then my phone rang again. I groaned and picked it up. " 'Lo?" I groaned into the phone, rolling onto my back and staring at the ceiling.
"House?" I heard someone giggle. There was too much noise on the other end for me to be able to hear who it was.
"Hello?" I said even more frustrated than I was to begin with.
"House? It's me." Cameron. "Its Cameron." I knew it before she said it. The background sounded like a bar or a party. Somewhere loud.
"What do you want, Cameron?" I said as I ran my hand over my face. I had honestly just really fallen asleep and was not happy about being bothered.
"Can you pick me up?" She asked, obviously cupping her hand over the phone and yelling. It worked, she got the message through.
"Sorry the chauffeur service is closed for the day, please call back during normal business hours." I said and had every intention of hanging up and going back to bed. She could call Chase, I'm sure he would waste no time running to her side...being her knight in shining armor.
"House, please." She said and it was the vulnerability mixed with a slur of alcohol that finally tipped me over the edge.
"Where are you?" I asked as I sat up and got out of bed to search for a pair of trackies to put on over my pajama pants.
"I'm at Dubois on third." She answered.
"I'll be there in ten." I said then hung up.
I pull up to the bar eleven minutes later and don't see her outside. Groaning that I would have to now park and go and find her, I slam the car into park and turn on the hazards and get out to go and search for her. Its not hard to find her because she is the only one left in the bar aside from the bar tender with whom she is currently engaged in deep conversation with. He, on the other hand looks uninterested. "Alright, lets go little lady its past your curfew." I say as I poke her in the back with my cane.
"House!" She squeals as she turns around and smiles at me.
"You here for her?" The bartender asks still uninterested in the whole situation.
"It would appear so." I answer.
"These are hers." He says as he tosses me her keys. "Took them from her about an hour ago. She's definitely not going to be this happy in the morning."
"Thanks." I mutter to him. "You, lets go." I say to Cameron as I make a sweeping motion with my hand. I just want to get out of this bar so that I can drop her off and go back to bed.
"I'm coming. I'm coming." She slurs as she picks up her purse and tries to walk towards me.
She stumbles into my side as we try to walk and I wrap my arm around her waste to steady her. "Next time cut it down to two white wine spritzers instead of three."
"Right! Girl jokes, always funny." She hiccups as she places her hands on the front of the car to steady herself for the walk around to the passenger side.
"Well you just make them so easy." I say dryly as I get back into the car and shut off the flashers.
Her place is about a fifteen minute drive from the bar and we are only two minutes into the drive and she has already discarded every cd that I own and is now searching through my iPod to find something suitable. "Do you have any music in this car that doesn't suck?" She asks as she flips through the iPod plugged into my stereo.
"Sorry I don't have any N*sync or anything. I'm not as hip as Wilson."
"This...this is a good song." She says and sits back with a satisfied look on her face. Just then 'I believe in a thing called love' by the Darkness started playing over the radio. She turned the stereo up as loud as she could and started to slowly dance in the front seat.
I reach to turn the music down. "I'm old. You're going to kill what is left of my hearing. Really I just don't want to deal with the loud music.
She stops my hand midway and stares at me. "Touch this again and you will lose a limb." She smirks at me and then turns the stereo up again. Then she starts dancing again. She plays air gutiar for the first few licks of the song, throwing her hair wildly like an 80's hair band star. She's singing along to the lyrics and not well I might add. Every once in a while when she gets particularly into it she throws her head back and presses her back against the seat, kicking her legs up in the air. I can't help but laugh. She looks so young and...drunk. But she looks so happy and free that I can't help but laugh. This is a side of Cameron that I saw a glimpse of when we went to see Gravedigger a little over a year ago, but even then she wasn't like this. Who knew that sweet, reserved Cameron could act like such a crackhead sometimes.
After enduring the Darkness and then her rendition of Baba O'Riley by the Who, I pull up in front of her building. "Alright last stop, get out." I say as I turn the music down. She doesn't get out though. Instead she turns her head and stares at me for a second. Before I know what she is doing, she leans across and kisses me. Shocked for a second, I don't know what to do. But then I am kissing her back and before I can get used to it, she pulls back and smiles again.
"Thanks for picking me up." She says against my lips. And then just like that she is out of the car and stumbling towards the door of her building.
I am not going to lie on a scale of 1 to 10 in comparison to all my other sloppy drunk kisses that I have received. That was at least a high eight. As I pull away, something inside me wants to turn around to help her get into her place, make sure she's okay. But I never turn around. I get back to my apartment and get back into bed. Its when I am lying in the darkness about to fall back asleep that I think about her again. The way she laughs. Her dancing in the car. The kiss. The fact that she called me. I make a plan to bring her coffee in the morning. I know she is gonna feel like hell. But she called me, the least I can do is give this knight in shining armor thing a decent shot.