A Rhapsody Of Sorts

6- Blueberry Pancakes

August 31, 2012.

"Happy birthday, you nutter."

I clapped Liam on the back, and when he threw his arm over my shoulder, I let him pull me into his side. We were standing next to the bar top at Geronimo's — a nightclub on Shaftesbury Ave that I had been to dozens of times before — waiting for the bartender, as he dug through the shelves behind him for the fancy bottle of Gran Patrón Platinum I'd promised to get for Liam.

"I love that you're an affectionate drunk, Rosie!" he shouted into my ear before I pulled away from the embrace.

"Yeah, I'm totally the affectionate one here. I'm not even the drunk one here, mate." I snorted, turning to see the bartender returning with our tequila. He poured a shot for each of us before he winked and sauntered away to serve someone else, leaving the bottle behind for us.

We clinked glasses before we downed the shots, and Liam scrunched his face up in a look of horror, coughing into his fist. Squeezing his eyes shut, he sputtered, "Tequila's disgusting no matter how much you pay for it." I laughed and poured myself another. "I take it back — this isn't what I want for my birthday." He pointed an accusatory finger at the bottle just before I rolled my eyes and grabbed it around the neck.

With my other hand wrapped around Liam's wrist, I started to weave him through the crowded club towards the stairs leading up to the section reserved for very important persons, such as a drunk Liam Payne on his nineteenth birthday. Geronimo's was more packed than I had ever seen it before, and with Liam already stumbling and slurring when we'd only been here for a little over an hour, I knew I had to keep a close eye on him if I wanted to get him back to the rest of his mates upstairs in one piece.

It wasn't supposed to be an official birthday party for him. I'd asked him if he had any plans for the Friday after his birthday, and he excitedly demanded that we go to Geronimo's to celebrate together. Celebrating together quickly morphed into celebrating with Liam and a couple hundred other people that he hardly knew.

I pulled him out of the claws of a woman who looked like she was ready to suck on his neck, and held my arm out for the bouncer attending the stairs so that he could see my red VIP wristband. He gave me a nod of approval, not even glancing at my wrist before he let us through. When we emerged at the top of the stairs, the size of the semi-private party had doubled since Liam and I ventured down to the first floor bar to get him his fancy tequila not even twenty minutes earlier.

For a moment, I basked in how much quieter it was on the second floor, with the speakers turned down low enough for me to actually hear myself think. Liam took the initiative and started dragging me over to the far corner where I Niall and Zayn nestled next to each other in the corner-booth exactly as we'd left them. Harry was nowhere in sight, and for this I was eternally grateful. We hadn't been around one another since our argument the week before, and I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to be around him again.

Niall was turned around in his seat, leaning over the back of the booth to get a better look at the girls he was chatting with, while Zayn kept his eyes on his phone as he chuckled to himself whenever Niall let out a long string of raucous laughter.

Liam slid into the booth with ease, tugging me along with him until we were planted in the middle of the curvature, our thighs pressed together and our elbows bumping on the tabletop.

"Took you long enough," Zayn teased, pushing his fingers through the tuft of black hair on his head. He grabbed some fresh shot glasses from the center of the table and shoved them towards me. "Let's do some shots now, yeah?"

I poured out four shots, but Liam folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his seat to mutter about how disgusting the tequila tasted, and Niall ignored Zayn when he tried to coax him into turning away from the girls to have a go. "Doubles for us, I guess," I laughed and threw one back after the other.