Chapter 4-The Architect

I summoned my "bartender mode" and walked up to him. After seeing someone that drunk, party time was over for me. Now it was time to be serious."What's your name?"

"Theodore Evelyn Mosby, young man. But do call me Ted."

"Ok, Ted. How much have you had to drink?"

"Does that matter? All I want tonight is to party long and hard until morning. I've been doing and not thinking since 7 pm tonight, and refuse to stop until dawn." He started leaning to the side, as though he thought I was the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and he wanted to see me upright.

"Look, bro. I don't care what you want to do. You're crashing our party, and I will not tolerate it."

Juno then walked up beside the guy and straightened him out.

"Ah, don't worry, Ollie. Mandy's almost as drunk as this guy and we're letting her stay. Let's just let him hang around."

"Thank you, girl." Ted leaned in and kissed her. Juno immediately pulled away, wiped the slobber off her cheek, and Ted walked into the middle of the party.

"Regretting your decision already?" I asked.

"A little." Said Juno through clenched teeth.

Cindy then walked up to us. "Okay, I got 2 guys who are impossibly trashed in the kitchen. Ollie, I need you to get them outta here."

"No problem." I said, rolling up my sleeves. "I got a system."

I made my way through the small crowd to the two drunks Cindy pointed out.

"Ok fellas. Cutting you off." I said grabbing their ears like a mother to her kids. Might have looked stupid, but experience taught me that this is the most effective way of keeping a squirming drunk in my reach.

I took them down to the street where it was really chilly and dark. I then let them loose to go pass out in the gutter and let the cops take 'em. Unethical, but it's what they do at the bar I work at.

I headed back up to the apartment where Juno and Cindy were grabbing the punch bowl. Both looked worried.

"Problem?" I asked.

"Yeah. The bowl's bone dry. No wonder these guys are going nuts. We need to slow them down before they break something."

Cindy, Juno, and I spent the next 20 minutes rounding up most of the people around the place that were completely wasted, sending them out one by one. Before long, only Mark, Joe, and Ted remained. Mark didn't look to hot, and neither did Joe, but they were nothing compared to what Ted looked like.

"So what did you say you did, Ted?" Said Cindy.

"I'm an architect. Building structures for our beloved city. What about you lovely girls, and the guy in the hoodie?"

"Well we're in school for our Econ degrees, and Ollie works as a bartender." Said Juno.

"Might I say you look ravishing when you speak?" Ted said leaning into her face.

"Can you stop that? Please?" She said, wincing. It was clear that she was smelling his breath from the look on her face.

"Okay." He moped like a 3 year old, sliding back into his spot. "I get it. I spend one night going nuts with the drinking, and even then, other than that girl heading to my apartment after I've called her, no one wants to be with me."

"Really?" I said. "Damn! I wonder why?"

"Beats me." Said Ted, shrugging. "My life's a wreck. I'm gonna die alone."

"Are we really doing this?" Asked Cindy. "Listening to a drunk rave about his pathetic life?"

"Hold on." Said Juno. She knelt down beside Ted, and I sat down across from them.

"God, I'm sorry, folks. I'm clearly not gonna remember anything that's happened tomorrow, so just know that I thank you for letting me party with you." He said.

"It's okay, Ted. I know how you feel." Said Juno.

"Are you alone and no one wants to kiss you?"

"Well, in a way, yeah."

Cindy scoffed. "Well we all know that's crap!"

I stood up between the girls. "Enough, Cindy. Let Juno keep talking to him."

Juno sat closer to Ted. "Sometimes most of the guys who do want me only want a one night hookup. I don't see why I can't find someone to have a long term relationship with."

I could see Cindy look over with a slight interest into what Juno was saying. Maybe she was buying it.

"I feel like because of my quirks, and my happy-go-lucky attitude towards life, it drives people towards me, and away from me at the same time, and I'll never find that 'one' guy as a result."

"I feel that same way too." Said Ted, looking at the ground.

"Well, keep your hopes up, Ted. She's out there. Just gotta look." She said.

Ted looked up. "Yeah, funny thing. I know that's going in one ear and out the other. In fact, I don't even remember what your names are."

"Well I'm Ollie-" I started to say.

Cindy held her hand up. "Don't bother. He said it himself. He's not remembering this night after all that crap that he's drank."

"Speaking of which, what's with Ben and Mark?"

"They both passed out a few minutes ago. I'll let them sleep it off for the night." Says Cindy.

"I say we should probably give Ted some space, J." I say.

"Fair enough." Juno stood up and took a few steps back. Ted then immediately fell over, and passed out, with the night claiming it's last fainter.

"Crazy 8s?" I asked.

"What the hell?" Said Juno, shrugging.

So we spent the next half hour playing Crazy 8s. After a while, I heard some rustling over by the couch. It was Juno's turn.

"Spades." She said, laying down an 8.

"Dammit." I said. But I wasn't focused on the game at the moment, but at Ted. The man looked like he was just waking from a nightmare. All of the sudden, he jumped up and screamed.

"DARY! LEGENDARY!" He sprinted out of the living room and into the kitchen.

"God!" Exclaimed Cindy. "That guy'll never calm down."

I then set my cards down and ran into the kitchen. Ted had just grabbed the pineapple I had bought that day. For some reason, we didn't remember to put it in the punch. Ted started holding it up above his head like a gold medal winner on the podium, chanting what sounded like Hawaiian gibberish.

"Put the pineapple down, bro," I said. "Or I will kick your ass. And for that matter, why did you even grab it?"

"BECAUSE I CAN, SUCKER! HAHAHAHA!" He ran out of the kitchen and the apartment, flipping me off. I sprinted after him, with Juno following close behind. We ran after Ted in through the hallways, down the stairs, out onto the streets. By then both me and Juno were exhausted, and we were losing ground on Ted as a result. Soon, he was long gone into the city's streets, the pineapple with him.

"Think we can find him?" Said Juno.

"Not unless that pineapple has some crazy tracker technology from Skynet." I said. "He's long gone."

"Why did you chase after him? All he took was a pineapple."

"Well, why did you chase him, too?" I replied, smirking.

"I don't know. I feel like Ted was an important person to meet in my life. It's just a shame he'll most likely forget me the minute someone finds him passed out in the gutter."

"Don't tell me you actually wanted to date that loser?" I asked.

"Not even in the slightest. But I feel something."

"What?"

"Destiny: I was meant to meet him. I just don't know why."

"Life's not really about why, Juno. It's about what. As in, what will you do with the hand you're dealt? If you want to search this damn haystack for a drunken needle, then be my guest. Just don't expect my help."

"But don't you always talk about destiny and fate?"

"Yeah, but you meet one guy drunk off his ass, and you think he's important? C'mon."

"Well," said Juno as we started back to to the apartment. "Aside from dealing with drunken idiots and a pineapple thief, I had a good time tonight."

"Are we doing this again sometime?" I asked.

"Hell no. Unless if you got any other ideas?"

"Drinks on the house when it's my shift at the bar?"

"Now you're talking."

We opened the door to the apartment. Cindy was waiting for us.

"So where's our spaz?" She asked.

"Gone." I said. "Took off along with that pineapple I bought today. Look Cindy, about back there-"

Cindy held up a finger to shush me. "Juno, I don't know how you felt about tonight, but I did not have a good time. We are not doing this ever again, and frankly, I think I'd like to forget that this night ever happened. So what about you, Ollie?"

"I don't know. I'll be glad to forget this night too." I said, trembling slightly fearful.

"Good. One more thing, Juno. After hearing your side of things, about all those guys you stole from me, just know that I only understand your position in this. Doesn't mean I like it, or will want to tolerate it. Now I'm wiped, so good night to you both." Cindy stormed into her room.

"I think I may have made things a bit worse between me and Cindy."

"With that being said, how about we listen to what she said, and after we clean the mess up tomorrow, we forget this night? Never happened?"

Juno nodded. "Never happened."

So the next day, after a good long sleep, me, Juno, and Cindy cleaned up the apartment, restocked on everything we had lost over the night, and tried to do what we could to forget that night. But what I learned a few years later is that it's never that easy to forget certain events.