CHAPTER 2: GIRLS' NIGHT

Annie stopped at a Starbucks inside the terminal and ordered a chai tea latte, sitting unrushed and alone. After the small reprieve of tranquility, she went outside into the cool summer night and hailed herself a cab, sending a group text alerting two of her friends that she was back. She was in the cab for two minutes before her phone chimed and she flinched at the sound. The reply was from Britta, so she sighed with relief. Her surrogate sister had the night off and demanded her immediate return, going as far as to extend a pick up. Annie quickly released her of the responsibility, letting her know she was already on her way.

It had been 20 minutes since she had sent the text and she wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or anxious that Jeff had yet to reply. They had left things so strangely and she wasn't sure how to move on from that. Three months had passed and she still remembered the feel of being pressed between silk and flesh, lying and writhing in his bed. Now that she was back, what was supposed to happen next? Better yet, what even could happen next? Three months had been enough to change her mind about quite a few things, but even in her vague memories, the boundless passion of that night had never been muted.

After she was dropped off at her old apartment, Annie braced herself, trying to paste on the right face, the right demeanor, the right version of herself for the night. She held down the buzzer and was greeted with Britta's palpable excitement. "I'm coming down!" She shouted.

Britta greeted her with a warm hug and Annie felt her attitude genuinely lighten. "I missed you." Although she offered to take her bag, Annie politely declined and carried it up the stairs.

"Okay, tell me everything!" Her friend demanded before the front door had shut behind them.

Annie immediately collapsed into the couch. "Let me breathe before the interrogation."

Britta scoffed and walked into the kitchen. As she peered inside the fridge, she spoke, her voice subdued by the cover of the fridge door. "I was going to offer you a drink, but I think all I've really got is beer."

"Beer works." She replied nonchalantly.

She heard Britta bump her head on the ceiling of the fridge as if she had climbed half way in. "Really?" She called out.

"Yeah." Annie sighed. "That actually sounds pretty good."

"Okay," the unsure reply sounded.

Britta came to sit on the couch beside her, handing her one of the two beers she held. "So, why didn't you let us know you were coming back? I thought for sure you would give a good heads up."

She exhaled. "I didn't want to make a big deal and things got so hectic I just kind of forgot."

Britta's eyes narrowed, because she knew that the overly neurotic Annie never 'kind of forgot' to do anything, ever.

The brunette set her purse down on the floor and took a sip from her beer. It was no Appletini, but it sure helped to cut into the tension leftover from air travel. As she settled into the couch, her phone rang. "I'm sorry, I have to take this." Annie headed into the bathroom for privacy.

Britta picked up her phone and barely had 2 minutes to scroll through her Facebook feed before the door buzzer sounded. "Britta!" Arrogance personified called out.

She hurried over to the door. "Where have you been?" She accused the buzzer on her wall.

"I left my phone charger here this morning." He sighed.

"I've been texting you for the past hour. A-"

"What part of 'I left my charger' are you not getting here?" Jeff replied, exasperated.

"I-"

"Are you going to let me up?"

She let out a frustrated noise that erupted as if caught between a huff and a groan. She buzzed him up without another word.

When he knocked she opened the door with a scowl. "Dick!"

He grinned snidely.

"I was trying to tell you something, A-"

"Oh, someone's here." He noticed the opened beer lounging on a coaster while leaning over to grab the forgotten charger. "I didn't know you had a date. Say no more. I'm gone."

"I haven't had a chance to say anything!" She whined.

"And you don't need to, I get it. I would totally intimidate any potential guy with my baffling handsomeness." He showed off his Winger grin. "This doesn't happen often for you, so I'll just get my gorgeous self out of your way."

As he turned, Britta threw her arms down, officially giving up, no longer keen on letting the jerk know Annie was there. Jeff heard the bathroom door open and turned at the sound, bound by reflex.

He froze as Annie stood looking back at him. The air in the room was missing in action as Jeff tried to inhale. Her hair had gotten longer and he had missed her more than he thought because the second he saw her, he was filled with such an idiotic happiness that he had to actively force away a smile. "Annie." Jeff wasn't sure if it was just him, but he swore her name echoed the second it left his mouth. "You're back."

"Yeah." Britta said beside him and he had honestly forgotten she was there. "That's why I texted you."

"Oh." He looked back to Annie and replied as if explaining to her, though she had yet to say anything. "My phone died. I had to come get my charger."

Annie nodded and the awkward silence filled all their lungs. He approached her hesitantly. Part of him wanted to kiss her; the other part was full of an instinct to pat her on the head. He quickly realized that neither would be right, so he went for a simple hug. He pulled away as soon as he could without drawing more attention to his strange behavior, trying to not remember the scent his body had been craving for months.

"I'll admit. I'm a little thrown." He offered.

"Good thing you admitted it, otherwise we'd never have known." Britta scoffed and continued; in love with seeing him so unraveled, ignoring his obvious scowl at her. "Actually, this is perfect timing. I was just in the middle of giving her a hard time for not letting us know she was coming." Jeff nodded in complete agreement with Britta.

Annie looked back at her. "I let you guys know I was here." Her voice sounded nearly the same, even nicer though, more melodic.

"That you were here, but not that you were coming." Britta sighed. "We would've had something set up for you." Jeff mutely nodded again.

"Which is why I didn't say anything." Annie exhaled. "I've only been gone for a few months. It's no big deal."

"Annie, it's a huge deal. You were interning with the FBI." Britta asserted and Jeff nodded once more, still silent, not sure if he trusted himself to speak.

"Okay, fine, you win. It's an incredibly colossal deal and I'm totally amazing." She said sarcastically. "Am I done being scolded with positivity and praise?" She smiled.

"Sure." Britta nodded. "In fact, for a change of pace, we can now get back to scolding you for keeping us in the dark." She nudged Jeff.

"Uh, yeah. You suck?" He tried, his brows lifting along with his inflection, too happy to see her again to possess any irritation to reprimand her.

"Nice backbone, Winger." Britta sneered.

"Well, I do the best I can when taking on a job that was clearly meant for Buzzkill Britta." He shot back.

She opened her mouth to retort, but Jeff held up his hand. "Although I'm dying to hear your intellectual and verbal evisceration of me right now, I'm sure that time could be spent more wisely, by say, I don't know, welcoming Annie back."

"Yeah, that's what I was doing until some narcissistic and vapid talking forehead interrupted us."

Jeff's eyes left Annie and narrowed at Britta. "You know what?" He practically growled, his emotions easily provoked by the surprise of her presence.

"Ooh, should I leave you two alone?" Annie joked, sounding like herself yet again acting as peacekeeper between the snarky bickerers.

They both turned on her at the same time. Britta's expression was undiluted disgust. "Ugh, not even if hell froze over, or if I even believed in hell."

Annie smiled at the guileless contempt with which Britta viewed the prospect of Jeff. The latter wore a much quieter and indistinguishable expression.

He couldn't disguise the worry on his face. It was a knee-jerk reaction, but the idea that Annie could think and joke about the possibility of him and Britta together; it bothered him, to say the least. He didn't want her to think that, but more importantly, he didn't want her to be okay with it.

"No, of course not!" He said simply in a soft volume, coated in a hard tone, completely dismissing the implication. He lifted his face to find Annie watching him. Jeff quickly looked away, suddenly feeling exposed to her unnervingly focused gaze.

"So what did you have planned?"

"Obviously nothing since I had no time to plan." Britta scoffed.

"Well, duh. I knew as much." He sighed and shook his head. "I was asking what you guys were thinking of doing? We could go to The Vatican or maybe The Red Door?" He raised his brows playfully. "If you want, we can get real wild and 'brown bag' it at Greendale. Summer Semester is over, but I know a guy who can get us in." He smirked devilishly and lifted his key ring, causing Annie to laugh lightly.

Britta noticed Jeff's chumminess and interrupted it. "How in the hell do you have the key?"

Jeff tilted his head and gave her a look intended to make her feel stupid. The Dean had probably given Jeff a key to his apartment as well. She scoffed. "Talk about an abuse of power."

"Hey, I have no power, so how can I be abusing it?"

"I'm talking about The Dean."

"That goes without saying."

"Unfortunately for you though, you weren't invited."

Annie and Jeff both looked back to Britta. "Come again?"

The blonde shrugged. "Girls' Night, Jeff."

"You said you had no plans."

"I didn't, but I figure since I didn't get to see Annie off and since she came here first, it's only fair. You can come back tomorrow for dinner or something, but I call dibs on tonight."

Jeff couldn't help but feel like Britta was putting him on 'Annie Restriction'. He didn't want to take it lying down, so he looked at Annie, who happened to be looking at Britta. "That sounds fun. We haven't had a Girls' Night in so long."

He had to bite down what would've surely been an agape and somewhat offended expression. Even knowing it was ridiculous to feel at all betrayed, he couldn't fight it off. "Maybe when Troy comes back, I'll take him out for a Boys' Night." He antagonized.

Unfazed by the threat, Annie cooed. "Oh, when's he coming back?"

Jeff sweetly smiled at her. "Later this week."

Ignoring the overjoyed interaction, Britta barked out. "The hell you will!" She began nudging Jeff towards the door, more determined than ever to kick him out and corner Annie. "Troy's been gone for almost 2 years, okay? Annie hasn't even been gone 3 full months." She opened the door and gave him a light shove into the hall. "I'm sure you can survive one more night without her." She closed the door on his face, leaving him to dwell on the loaded implication she had purposefully dumped on him.

He looked back at the door and fought off the urge to force his way back in. The air was clearer in the hallway without Annie's distracting scent and suddenly he was breathing again, completely unaware he had ever stopped. Deciding to file it away as a necessary defeat, Jeff drove home agonized with the knowledge that no matter what he did, the night would end with him reeling that Annie was back, as he tossed and turned in the setting of their one night together.


Annie watched Britta closely, sensing a silent intensity from her friend. She pointed to Annie's seat and waited until the brunette sat, before joining and ultimately verbally tackling her. "What the hell happened?"

She took a sip of her beer and tried to not look guilty. "What do you mean?"

"Between you and Wounded Puppy!"

Annie opened her mouth and floundered a second before finally saying. "Nothing; what could've happened, I just got back."

"You know what I mean and that sarcastic deflect makes me even more sure that I'm right. Jeff has been acting strange ever since you left. Spill."

"There is nothing to spill."

"If you don't tell me, I'll assume the worst." Annie stilled ever so slightly. "Did you guys kiss again?"

Looking for the safest way out, Annie took the bait. "Yes, in the Study Room, the week before I left." Technically it wasn't a lie, just an omission of what took place later on.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I didn't think it was something I should rehash." She answered, level-headed and reasonable.

Britta watched her for what felt like a minute before her eyes dramatically widened. "You had sex with him!"

"What?" She blurted wondering if her friend had recently been bitten by a radioactive telepath.

"You did!" Her friend shoved her shoulder. "You would never act so cavalier about a kiss unless something else happened. What the hell, Annie? You were going to keep this from me? Come on; details!"

Still frozen, Annie looked at her and felt like an idiot for not vehemently denying the accusation. It had caught her completely off guard. "I can't talk about this." She lurched up and paced with her beer.

"That's as good as any admission."

She shook her head. "Isn't this too weird to talk about? I mean, you and Jeff used to sleep together; I think that makes this a taboo kind of conversation." She was ranting more to herself than to Britta.

"Annie!" The pacing stopped while she continued. "What Jeff and I did was purely physical; scratching an itch for one another. Nothing more."

She grimaced and dropped into the recliner, cradling her head. "I've never scratched an itch like that before."

Britta laughed, leaning over to touch Annie's hand. "Like what, exactly?"

She groaned. "It's not right or fair for me to talk about it; what about Jeff?" She shook her head, mortified with the direction of the night. "I can't talk about him so intimately behind his back." Any other guy and she knew she wouldn't hesitate, but this was Jeff.

"If you want, I can call him back over and we can all talk about it." She wagged her eyebrows with a laugh.

The blush responded. "No."

"That bad, huh?" Her laugh sounded again. "So, one awkward and unpleasant sexual experience is nothing between good friends. Trust me, I know. At least you didn't have to make eye contact with him during. It's easier to fake it that way."

Annie shook her head, unaware that her blush was a becoming, yet obnoxious scarlet. She spoke softly. "There was eye contact."

"Really? That almost sounds like progre-"

"So much so that it felt like he could see through me." Too caught up in reliving that night, Annie hadn't even realized that she interrupted Britta. "He looked at me like I was going to disappear."

He wasn't looking at her, Britta understood. He was watching her, every last second he had left. Annie gave a small, nearly imperceptible squirm that Britta realized was a shiver. "And?" She barely prompted.

"He was so serious and intense." She sighed. "I would never have guessed he could be so attentive. I just-" She again openly floundered for words this time huffing when she came up empty. Britta was taken aback, unable to reconcile this new information with the selfish and lackluster performances she had experienced.

"That good, huh?" Complete disbelief chimed in her voice.

Annie focused on her and there was a marveled sadness in her glossy eyes. "I didn't know it could be like that. I never-"

Britta took advantage of the silence. "Hold that thought. I'm ordering takeout." She grabbed both beers and set them on the counter. "I'm sure I have wine somewhere. We're doing this right." She briefly ordered on the phone while pouring two glasses of an old, forgotten wine that had been abandoned in the pantry long ago.

After hanging up the phone, she brought the glasses to the coffee table. Sitting on the heels of her feet, she took a sip. "Now tell me everything."