iambeagle does her best to spot typos, but since I'm the Queen of Typos, some might creep in.
I don't own Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.
4. January 1, 2012 at 12:30 AM
At a bar with dirty windows on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.
"Can we get two vodka cranberries, please?" Rose shouts over the music at Kate, the other bartender.
"Where's Jake?" I ask, watching her mix our drinks.
"I have no idea. Trust me, I'd love to know." She looks stressed out. There are about twenty other people screaming for drinks and she's the only one manning the bar. "You owe me twenty," Kate says, pushing our drinks forward.
"What?" I pretend I haven't heard her.
"For the drinks." Kate points at the two glasses filled with pink liquid before opening up two bottles of Brooklyn Lager.
"Aren't they usually five?"
"Come on, what do you expect? Sam hiked up the prices. It's New Year's."
"Can you just wait until I find Jake?"
"I don't mean to be rude, Bella, but Jake's best buddies with Sam. I can't do this shit. The till will come out low and I'll get blamed." She shoots me an apologetic smile.
Rose gasps and then whispers, "Typical. Wait till I find that douche ..."
"This doesn't help." I give her a hard-nosed look. "Can we split the tab?"
She looks at me like I'm crazy. I'm about to push the drinks back and tell Kate to keep them, when I hear someone behind me say, "I got it."
"Thanks," Rose chirps, not missing a beat, and takes her drink before I can process what just happened.
"Yes, thank you," I say, grabbing mine, as long fingers push a twenty and some change over the counter.
I turn around to see who was nice enough to save me from being flat broke for the rest of the weekend and all I see at first is a cream colored thermal shirt. When I glance up, I notice a disheveled mane and way too much facial hair.
"Let's look for Jake, so I can chew him a new one," Rose says, pulling me away from the bar with a jolt, so that I almost spill my drink and leaving the guy who just paid for it behind.
"He looks like a Yeti. I hope he didn't think we'd stick around to chat. Yuk. I don't get what goes through guys' heads when they grow a beard like that," Rose yaps loudly, leaning on my shoulder to make sure I hear her over the music.
It feels impolite to be just waltzing off like that, but being polite isn't Rose's thing and I know she'd be really pissed if I insist on staying for even a minute. Plus, I'm also dying to find Jake, if only to get the cab fare back and another drink.
We stumble around the bar for a while. Jake is nowhere in sight.
Instead we run into Emmett, who lives downstairs from us.
"Have you seen Jake?" I ask.
"Yeah. He's around somewhere," he says, staring off into the distance, seemingly avoiding eye contact with me.
"How long ago did you see him?" I pester him.
"I don't know …" he mumbles, still not looking at me. I get the suspicion he's hiding something. "So Rose, what are you doing next weekend?"
"Why?" Rose is checking her phone, not even looking up.
"Why?" He shakes his head. "That's your response? Really?" His cheeks puff up.
"Yeah. What's your problem?" she asks, keeping her focus on the phone.
"Nothing. I was going to invite you to our dinner party next weekend, but never mind now." Emmett shrugs his shoulders and moves to walk away—clearly miffed that Rose isn't more excited about his invite. "Excuse me," he says, as he pushes past some girls to get away from us.
"What's crawled up his ass?" Rose asks me, glancing up from her phone. "Is he annoyed that I didn't get all excited about his potluck junk food feast or did he lose one of his puppies again?"
Rose loves to make fun of Emmett's chosen profession. Professional Dog Walker it reads on his card. When he lost one of his dogs last summer, a miniature pincher who wiggled himself out of his harness leash, Emmett didn't eat or sleep until Alice found the dog three days later at the corner bodega, sleeping on a pile of newspapers.
I'm pretty certain none of his dogs have gotten lost recently and I have no idea why he was so easily upset by Rose's normal brusqueness, so I shrug one shoulder and lean against the door behind me.
The door suddenly gives in and I stumble backwards.
"Shit." I fall flat on my ass this time, unable to regain my balance.
Rose just stares past me, as I squeal in pain. The floor is cold, dirty and really hard.
"Some help, please?" I reach my hand out to Rose. My butt hurts. "I think I broke my tailbone."
"Holy shit …" Suddenly, Rose moves into action, pulling me up swiftly before bellowing out the instruction, "Whatever you do, don't fucking turn around."
Of course I do so immediately.
Behind me, in what appears to be the storage room, I see a half naked girl with long blonde hair sitting on a stack of booze boxes. Jake is standing next to her, busy pulling up his pants. His hair, usually held together in a tail, is loose and has fallen around his face, effectively hiding it from my view.
"What the fuck, Jake!" I wail and before Rose can pull me back, I rush forward. "You are such a fucking asshole! You couldn't even wait to do this somewhere else when you knew I was coming here."
I should feel hurt and betrayed, but right now all I feel is rage.
"Bells. You're still my favorite girl," he says with a smirk on his face that I want to wipe right off.
"Are you kidding me?" I shout. He attempts to grab my shoulders, but I step back. The girl has successfully pulled her t-shirt back on and stares at me with a dumb expression on her face.
"You're such a douchebag. And for the record, you owe us cab fare." Rose steps in and holds out her hand.
Jake turns red and starts digging through the pockets of his old jeans.
To my amazement, he hands her a twenty.
"The cab was forty Dollars." Rose taps her foot impatiently.
I think Jake is about to protest, but then he just hands her another twenty.
Rose tries pulling me away. "Bella, let's go."
"Fine." I huff and toss my hair over my shoulder. "We're done," I say to Jake, but don't move.
I don't know what else to do, but feel the urge to do something. Slapping him in the face seems too dramatic, so without much thought I stomp hard on Jake's foot. He's wearing sneakers and cringes briefly.
"Shit, Bells! What did you do that for?"
Not satisfied with the amount of damage I've caused, but unsure what else I can do, I turn around and start walking out the room. Near the door, a crowd has formed that quickly disperses, as I get closer.
Before Rose can close the door and end the show for good, Jake, the snake, is trying to continue what we just interrupted, trying to stick his tongue down blondie's throat and fiddling with her shirt again.
"Jake, nooo," she whines, sitting on top of a box of Baileys, and pushes him away before he can drop his pants again. "It smells like poo in here."
Rose shoots a glance at my boots and starts laughing.
"Let's go home." Rose nods her head in the direction of the exit. "New Year's Eve always sucks. It's overrated if you ask me."
"You're right." I sigh and follow her. Some people are staring at us as we exit the bar.
"Oh my God. How many people do you think heard me?" I ask as we walk home.
"I don't know, but the people near the door definitely saw and heard," Rose answers laughing, setting my cheeks ablaze.
"Great." The rage I felt ten minutes ago has evaporated. Humiliation is all that's left.
"Who cares? The place is full of wannabes … people who think they're cool when they're really not."
"You're right," I say, but don't believe it.
"I know. I always am." Rose grins at me.
"Oh, shut up." I poke her with my elbow.
At home, Rose unzips my dress for me with the aid of a safety pin.
"Cheers," Rose says, clinking her shot glass filled with stale red wine against mine as we sit in the kitchen dressed in our pajamas.
"Cheers. To a shitty beginning."
"You can't toast to that."
"Bite me." I take a sip of the wine. It tastes pretty bad.
"To happy endings." Rose raises her glass.
"Cheers to that." I raise mine and we both down the rest of the wine in one shot.
By two o'clock we switch the lights off and fall into our beds.
I should have thanked Yeti-man properly, I think, before I fall asleep.
So … what do you think? Is New Year's Eve overrated? I tend to think so.
Any good stories about horrible parties, bad break-ups and dog shit? Please share! I'm a sucker for those.
Thank you for reading!