She re-read the paper in her hand one last time, pride increasing everytime she did so. She passed everything, except for Mathematics of course. Her explanation would be, like always, that the teacher just really didn't like her and she would convince Ruby to agree and play her role as innocent and honest friend. Also Physics could've gone better, but that had been her last exam where she had been far from concentrated; she had been counting down from the moment she woke up to her first real party in college. Her first party that didn't involve babysitting or kissing grandfathers on the cheek. She still felt a little sad when she found out, during her second exam, that Graham couldn't be there. He had a proper excuse though: His grandmother was being buried that evening and Emma had no right whatsoever in accusing him for attending a family-member's funeral.
But that didn't get down her mood, as she happily entered a shopping mall with Belle and Ruby by her side, who were going to share the experience of Tink's party. Emma managed to find something she liked in every store they entered. At first, she was going to wear a dress, as she was planning to look all fancy and hard-to-get. Then she came across a beautiful skirt, decorated with strange figures but Ruby gave her the I'm-going-to-puke-on-it-if-you-dare-wearing-the-ugly-thing stare and Emma quietly pushed it to the back of the racks and proceeded her search for the perfect outfit. After entering and exiting thousands of stores and having a healthy sandwich for lunch, Emma finally found what she was looking for: A grey loose top with a pair of ripped black shorts, not too shaggy and certainly not too chique. It wasn't expensive either, so she could take the spare money that her niece ha given to her and spend it on the blue bonnet she had always wanted.
Only hours before the party started, Emma went to Ruby's place and got herself ready.
"We really have to go now, Nana." Killian sighed at his dog, who was stopping at every single tree they passed, sniffing and holding Killian back from proceeding home. Although Nana wasn't a big dog, she had the power of one at least twice as big. Maybe because he went jogging with her a lot, so he wouldn't have to do it alone. She was being really stubborn again, pulling her leash. Killian kneeled down next to her and rubbed her back, he whispered in her ear "Let's go get…. A treat, lass." Nana didn't have to hear more and her ears levitated. She jumped away from the tree with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
"Works every time." Killian grinned and got soon pulled home by the hungry Nana.
He entered his apartment, which looked extra-ordinarily clean since Liam had visited him a few times and threw Nana some dog biscuits. He opened his closet and picked out some black pants and a black t-shirt. To keep it a little cheerful, he added a silver necklace with a small cross hanging from it's end. When he was picking his shoes, he fist grabbed for his shiny black ones, but made up his mind and chose the oak-brown pair. He took a quick shower and got dressed, not particularly caring about how he was looking, it couldn't be that bad. He just drew on some eye-liner, what he thought was still a little woman-ish but Ruby had said that 'guy-liner' would look great on him so he decided to try something new for a change.
Killian was just filling up his pockets with his phone and his wallet when he heard a loud bark coming from the front door. It was Nana, she had picked up her leash and stood crying loudly at the front door, Killian sighed, though still smiling and kissed his dog behind her ear.
"I just took you for a walk…" But Nana didn't redraw her puppy-eyes "Look, I'll be back before you know it, and then I'll take you to the park, all right?" He winked and as if Nana had understood her owner, she let the leash fall from her mouth and jumped up the sofa, placing her head under her paws. Killian took a look at the clock above the kitchen. The party had already started, so he turned off all the lights in his apartment and left it. He started his car, almost shaking out of stress. To relax a bit, he put on his favorite AC/DC-cd; the one Liam gave him on his birthday last year. He really needed to relax for a bit; his veins were straight up swollen from being so nervous. This would be his first real party since Smee's accident and he had no idea how he had to act. Should he be all sociable and pretend to be the carefree cool guy? Or sit alone in a corner, staring at everyone having a good time? Although Killian hadn't even arrived yet, he somehow knew he would end up as the last one. He exited the car, glanced one last look at it and entered the noisy, flickering house.
The house was enormous, it had more rooms than Killian found needed. A chamber with a pool-table inside, one with just some play-stations and even an empty one where someone had put up a disco ball. Killian couldn't recognize a single face, but he was far from surprised about that since he'd never been anywhere else than the bar for over a year now. So he took place in one of the most crowded rooms. People's voices could be heard shouting from every direction an not one of them not sounding glad. So he was going to be the only one who wasn't going to enjoy himself, great.
A familiar voice resounded in the distance, first very vague and far away but it seemed to be heading towards him. A girl with blonde hair, held up tight in a bun was blushing and approaching him. She looked back awkwardly a few times and stood suddenly giggling in front of him. Now he knew why, because a brown-haired girl's head had popped up from behind the woman's back, still holding both hands onto it. Ruby pushed the girl a little closer to Killian. She shouted over the voiced of the people and slightly into the blonde girl's ear.
"HI KILLIAN, THIS IS TINK!"
Killian scratched the back of his head because he knew what Ruby was trying to do here. She knew all about what happened between him and Milah and was constantly coupling him with girls that, she thought, 'looked his type'. Out of pure awkwardness, Killian winked at the girl and before he knew it, she had seated next to him.
"You didn't miss me, then?" She chuckled, still flashing red now and then. The girl was very pretty, but Killian had no idea what her red lips were babbling about right now… He didn't recognize her at all and bit his lip.
"I'm sorry to ask, love, but have we met before?" And now the pretty girl's face turned red again. But she wasn't blushing, she was furious.
"Wh- But, a few weeks ago, at the bar! YOU DON'T REMEMBER?!" And a burning fist of embarrassment hit Killian right in the face. She wouldn't have been the first bar-wench he had brought home completely drunk, but she was definitely the first who he came across again.
"Sorry, lass, not really…" But he immediately regretted he had said that as a manicured hand slapped his cheek harder than Killian would've thought she could hit. He felt the figure of her hand still burning on his cheek when the girl stood up and left the room, shouting angrily.
Killian turned his seat around and let his hands rest on the counter. Couldn't he just skip this night and return back home, to Nana? Of course that would've been kinda lame and Ruby would be straight up disappointed when she would find out he hadn't even stayed past 1 a.m. And suddenly Killian noticed something; tiny glasses with see-through liquid stood in a proper line in front of him. He licked his dry lips and looked around, to be sure neither Ruby nor Liam was watching him, even if he knew Liam surely wasn't at the party. His mind seemed to perform some kind of a backflip as he forgot all the promises he made to himself.
"Ah fuck it. One can't hurt." He whispered to himself and he tossed down his first glass what was soon followed by a second and a third, as if Killian was rewarding himself for being clean for so long. God how he'd missed this. It quickly got out of hand when he got both his hands on a delicious brand of scotch, although he preferred rum. And a weak smile appeared on his face, at last enjoying himself. Alone he still was and he inspected the room yet again. The booze that filled his stomach made the room look like paradise with loads of happy people. Except for one. He had seen her earlier, talking to Ruby and another girl, but Ruby had already seemed to have left the party. Bloody hell, how late was it? And she was now doing exactly what he had stared apparently a couple of hours ago, probably out of loneliness.
Killian had moved, or more fitting stumbled , away from the counter and was now leaning back into a sofa with a half-empty bottle clenched in his fingers. The girl seemed to have noticed Killian looking at her and now staggered towards the sofa. She clearly didn't have as much to drink as Killian, but seemed to have had just enough to almost land on his lap. Killian didn't complain and caught drunkenly her eyesight. Having an extremely hard time trying to focus his view on the girl, he noticed how beautiful she was. Blonde hair was flowing on a grey loose shirt like a waterfall, and although Killian saw the girl's eyes as a blur, he could tell they were pretty.
Without spilling a single word, the girl suddenly attached Killian's lips, pulling him by the collar of his shirt. The sober Killian would've pulled back from the drunk girl but now that three quarters of a whisky-bottle had raised up into his brain, it felt like being kissed by an angel. Killian, the aggressive drunk as he was, lifted the girl up from the couch and smashed her onto the wall, hearing several whistles and loud giggles from behind them; a crowd had formed around them and looked at the two wasted strangers licking eachother off. How long him and the strange girl had stood there, Killian didn't know. But what he did know, was that one moment he was pulling her towards a bedroom but stumbled over a carpet in the kitchen, and the other he was ripping off her clothes on the cold kitchen floor. She was doing the same with him as she stretched his fancy shirt a bit too much to get it over his head. The Martini-taste from the girl's lips tasted bitter and after she had wrapped her legs around Killian's waist, it all went strangely black for him. As if his own brain censored the scenes out of itself.
