How I Met You

Chapter Fifty Two

-Chapter Fifty Two-

“You’re so pretty, Alex. I mean like, really pretty.” Audrey stumbled for a second, then straightened up, looking at the stars that were beginning to show overhead. “You’re as pretty as the stars. They’re so sparkly. And shiny!” A giggle bubbled from out of her lips.

          “Audrey, how much did you have to drink?” Jake questioned. To be honest, I was wondering the same thing. For the last five to ten minutes, she had been slurring incoherent and incomplete sentences. About ninety-five percent of what she said didn’t even make sense. Nonsense.

           “I don’t know, I lost count after a couple of drinks. Why does it even matter? It’s not like I’m drunk or anything.” She stumbled once again, almost falling to the ground and nearly injuring herself this time. Jake and I had to catch her before that could happen. “Oops.”

           “You can’t even walk properly. Or stand up straight, for that matter,” Jake stated, pointing out the obvious.

           “Yes I can. I told you, I’m not drunk. Maybe a tad bit tipsy, yes, but not drunk.”

          I saw Jake roll his eyes and bit back a laugh. Yeah, Audrey’s definitely the denial kind of drunk, I suppose.

           “Okay, whatever, Audrey. We’re taking you home.”

          She let out a loud grunt, stomping her right foot onto the pavement like a child. “No! I don’t want to go home.” She let out a little, bubbly laugh again. “I want to stay up all night and watch the stars, and sing, and play Monopoly. Yeah, that sounds exciting!”

           “No, we aren’t going to play Monopoly, honey,” I told her in a slow voice. “We’re going to have to take you home, alright?”

           “Alex…” she drawled, “I don’t wanna go home.”

           “Fine, you want to hang with us for a little bit?” She nodded. “Okay, well we’re going to go to Vicky’s house and I’m sure we can play Monopoly there.” I glanced from Audrey’s eyes to Jake’s, meeting his gaze. He was looking at me like I was crazy, as if wondering why in the world I would propose such a preposterous idea. I gave him a look, saying that I had a plan.

           “Okay,” she mumbled into my shoulder, leaning more onto it.

          By the time we got home, it was just almost eight o’clock PM. Audrey was passed out in the backseat of the car with a thin line of drool dribbling down her chin. Even after waking her up, she still seemed dead to the world.

          Once we were in the house, we guided her to a guest room upstairs, leaving a few Advil pills and a glass of water on the bedside table for whenever she decided it would be a good time to come back to reality. She was out cold as soon as she touched the bed.