The Best/Worst New Year Ever
This is a one-shot story for Chit Chat on Author's corner New Year Challenge. My pairing is David Rossi/Emily Prentiss, and prompts are: a power outage, fireworks and a New Year Eve party.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the ideas.
Thank you to Flashpenguin for Beta'ing my story – your time is much appreciated.
. . .
Trying hard to stand upright at the bar, while everyone around her continued to push and shove their way through to be served, Emily wondered how she managed to consistently make such ridiculous decisions. As she swayed, with the barge given by a fellow party goer, she was glad for the delay.
Prentiss had decided she was in no rush to return to her 'date', in fact she was starting to wonder if he would notice if she had left. As she waited her turn, for which she had long been bypassed, she seriously considered leaving and going home to celebrate New Year solo. It can't be worse than spending the night being ignored.
As she turned to leave she felt a wet sensation down her back. Great! God only knew what had been spilt down her dress. Knowing my luck it's red wine, she thought. Turning to give the offending happy person a piece of her mind, she was stunned into silence as she came face to face with David Rossi.
"Emily," he seemed as surprised as she was, "I am so sorry. Here, let me get you a drink, after all I need to get myself another." Raising his glass, he grinned, which automatically calmed Emily.
"Sure, why not? A large . . . huge . . . massive glass of wine, please." Her hands seemed to be indicating a bucket full.
"Whoa," he smirked, "are you on a mission to get blasted?"
"Yeah, to get as drunk as possible, and forget this evening ever happened."
"That good. I must admit I'm disappointed with the party tonight. This bar had the best New Year's Eve party last year, so I thought I'd try it again this year, but . . ." his voice trailed off.
"It sucks."
Emily watched as David took control of the bar as soon as he stepped up to it. Within minutes, he was being served and then passing her a drink. Men, she hated them at times. She had stood there over twenty minutes without being served.
Thanking him, she went to return to Ben - her disaster of a date - for the night. As she walked back to the booth they had been seated at, she realised she hadn't got a drink for Ben, oh well, she thought, as she took a large gulp of her wine.
. . .
As the night wore on, Emily sat in the booth, watching Ben kiss the young blond beauty. Typical of my luck, she thought. Why did she think it was a good idea to pick up with an ex, just for the sake of having someone to spend the evening with? When exactly did she become that desperate? She topped her glass up from the bottle of Merlot she had just bought. By the time she would reach the bottom of the bottle, she knew the night would be nothing more than a bad headache tomorrow morning.
"Shit," she cursed, as she spilt wine on the table, startled by the lights going out.
The room went silent and pitch black. After a brief moment the emergency lighting flickered on, greeted by the moans of the crowd.
"OK, I'm sorry we seem to have a power cut. If you can just remain where you are, everything will be sorted as soon as possible," a member of staff announced.
Emily huffed. She was not staying there a moment longer. She glanced round, and then decided not to bother even trying to find Ben. Grabbing the bottle, and then downing what had made it into the glass; she went to get her coat.
"You again," she recognised the familiar tone. "Decided you've had enough too?"
Emily nodded a reply, as she received her coat from the attendant. Turning to face David, she noticed he had an open bottle of champagne.
"Shall we?" he winked, holding up the bottle she had seen and looking directly at hers.
Leaving the bar, Rossi masterfully hailed a cab. He gave his address, and then turned his attention back to his young female colleague.
"Why do I get the impression it's not just the venue that failed to impress this evening?"
"Wow, you should be a profiler; you'd be great at it," she couldn't help but chuckle at her own joke.
"Sarcasm, really Emily, is the lowest form of wit."
"Sorry, you are perfectly correct in your summary of the situation. Rubbish venue, plus crap date, equals pissed off Emily. It's not rocket science, yet I can't seem to master the correct solution to the problem. What I would give for a New Year that I actually enjoyed. I must have the record for the most worst New Years ever."
"Bet you haven't," Rossi smirked, a glint in his eye.
"Really," Emily raised a perfectly formed eyebrow, intrigued.
"I'll tell you my worst, if you tell me yours," Rossi winked.
"Deal."
. . . . . . .
Back at Rossi's house, Emily was making herself comfortable. She was looking forward to David Rossi's New Year's tales, though she doubting it was possible to have a worse New Year track record then hers.
Rossi returned with two glasses of red wine. Emily took a sip.
"This isn't mine from the bar."
"No. I thought I'd," Rossi paused, "save that one for cooking with; this is a personal favourite of mine and much more . . . appropriate for the occasion."
Emily smiled at his subtle way of telling her how bad her wine choice had been.
"So, New Year's Eve disasters. Ladies first."
"Oh, ever the gentleman." Emily took another sip. "Well, let's start with tonight. Ben, my, oh so perfect date for the evening, was my ex. Having met again through Facebook and both realising we were approaching the new year single, we decided to get together - give it another go. Let's just say that within an hour of his company, I had fully remembered why he was my ex. When you and I left, he was happily kissing some random girl, something I had forgotten he had a tendency to do last time we were together." Another sip. "Ben makes Morgan look like innocent!"
David nearly choked at her comparison. "I can top that for a New Years disaster date."
"Really?"
Dave nodded. "The New Year after I split from wife number three, a colleague of mine decided a blind date would be a good option for me. Why I agreed…I am still yet to decide. However, I went along with this plan. Keen, as ever, I got to the venue. I saw my friend and his date enter, then . . ." Dave stopped on the cliff hanger, watching Emily's anticipation.
"Then . . . what?" she squeaked.
"My first wife walked in with them. Apparently, she and my colleague's wife had been good friends since meeting at a cookery class."
"What did you do?" Emily giggled, trying to picture the look on her unflappable colleague's face.
"I did the only thing I could do."
"Which was?" Emily's voice raised an octave.
"Run!"
"Dave, you didn't?" Both were laughing uncontrollably.
"There is one good thing that came out of this story."
"Which is?"
"That she took my advice and learned to cook."
"David Rossi! You actually told her that? No wonder she left you!"
"That might not have been the only reason," he winked mischievously.
"Ok. Worse than a bad date, how about a bad choice of venue? The first time mother invited me to one of her official New Year's engagements. We were in Dubai and the event was being hosted on the biggest yacht I have ever seen. All was going well, - I was on my best behaviour, smiling at all the right times, faking interest in whatever they were discussing…"
"Sounds charming."
"Oh it gets better. Just before midnight we were gathered together to watch what was billed as 'the most amazing firework display ever', never heard that before. As the first monumentous explosion shuddered across the sky, I jumped in surprise."
"And?"
"And fell overboard. One rather embarrassing rescue later - including the host insisting on me being taken to hospital by helicopter, to be checked out - what does my ever sympathetic mother say to me?"
"Let me guess: she thanks you for ruining her evening." Dave couldn't help but smile; he had an inbuilt dislike of politicians.
"Very close. She accused me of doing it on purpose as an excuse to leave; honestly, as if I would."
"Don't you just love natural motherly instincts." Dave paused to drink his wine. "I must admit I will find that hard to beat. In fact the closest I can get in bad venue choices is not checking out a venue before I went."
"Don't try the 'I didn't know it was a strip club' line," Emily played on his reputation.
"If only it had of been; no instead of the jazz bar I thought I was taking my date to, it turned out to be some punk rock club. She thought I'd done it deliberately to get her back to my place, which led to New Year's Eve on my own."
"You're right that isn't even close to my near drowning," Emily sniggered.
Dave left to top up their glasses, Emily smiled to herself. She was really starting to enjoy the evening. If anyone had told her that she would spend New Year's Eve with David Rossi, she would have laughed in their face, but he had made an appalling evening turn into a reasonable one.
Dave returned and placed the glasses in front of them. "Ok worst New Years due to illness and a hangover doesn't count."
"Easy, during my FBI training, I went out with the other trainees and ended up with the worse bout of food poisoning. No-one else did, so when I didn't turn up two days later it was assumed I was still suffering a hangover, no-one bothered to check," Emily rolled her eyes dramatically.
"Are you sure it wasn't a hangover."
"Certain, I didn't even drink that much, as I felt rough when I got there. Needless to say, when I did return I got in trouble for the time off and had to try and prove it was food poisoning not a hangover. Our training supervisor, Olley, makes Hotch look like the easiest boss in the world. He never let me forget it. Every opportunity he had he would get another dig in about it. How about you?" she enquired.
"The New Year after my first book launch I had arranged a huge party. I had book signings in every state, University tours, you name it. I was run down and keeping myself going on pure malt whiskey and caffeine. I had organised a New Year's Eve party for everyone who had been involved along the way. The list was growing daily. The tour finished two days before Christmas and I just crashed. I went to bed and didn't get back out for nearly a fortnight. I have never had such a bad case of flu. I didn't even make it to my sister's that year. The party went ahead without me and apparently was quite an event."
"They carried on without you?" Emily said in disbelief. "How rude. Ok worse 'own party' and you can't use the same story twice."
"Oh, unfortunately, I have another story to fit the criteria; and to add insult to injury it was the following year." David finished his glass of wine. Looking at Emily's empty glass. "Shall I fetch the bottle through?"
Emily nodded, adjusting her position to get more comfortable; she was surprised at how much she was enjoying the evening. Emily had always got on well with Dave at work, but they had never spent much time together away from work. She didn't imagine she would be this relaxed with her superior.
David returned to the couch, he placed the bottle down, after topping up both their glasses.
"So, where were we?" Dave paused to sip his wine dramatically, "The following year to my near death flu experience, I decided to recreate the party, for my own benefit. The comments had been so positive, I rebooked everything straight away. After all if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Emily nodded in agreement.
"Everything was booked, I was feeling fine. The venue looked great when I got there, however the manager had a slight problem to share with me. The caterers hadn't turned up. There was no food. The party was still good, so not the worse ever, but not up to my usual standards."
"That is not a disaster, it's just an inconvenience. For example, my first ever party I organised all by myself, no help, or should I say no interference from Mother. Well let's say it brought the house down, literally." Emily sipped her wine, cringing as she remembered what happened. "I did everything myself. It was a full on anti everything my mother does event. So that included catering the party myself."
"There's your first mistake, always hire."
"Of course, because what's the worst that can happen, oh yeah, they don't turn up."
"Whatever happens, you can blame someone else."
They both giggled, relaxing into what was left of the year.
"As it happens you're right. I cooked everything myself. Problem was I forgot the last tray of food and set fire to the kitchen. Yet another New Year ends in sirens for me."
"Well at least you tried a range of emergency services." Dave stopped, looking at Emily and smiled, who would have thought the year would end with the two of them enjoying an amazing bottle of wine and some cringe worthy stories.
Just then Emily jumped, startled by a loud noise and the proceeding spilling red wine onto Dave's cream coloured sofa. She slowly looked up, mortified.
Dave could see the funny side. "Is that revenge for me soaking your dress earlier?" he said, as he went to get a cloth. Returning he nodded towards the window. "Great firework display my neighbours are having, shall we go and watch? I'll bring the champagne and we can herald in the New Year in style."
Standing outside on the deck, they watched the multicoloured explosions illuminate the sky, as they shared what remained of Dave's bottle of champagne. Decadently drinking from the bottle; Emily turned to Dave.
"Here's the deal, next New Year, my place . . . but I promise not to cook!"
Dave laughed and nodded while slipping an arm around her shoulders. This had got to be his best/worst New Years ever.