Where Do We Go Now?

I woke up to the sound of laughter in the flat. Rolling over, I smiled as I checked my phone: 9.30am. Or, as I liked to call it, the perfect weekend morning wake-up time: late enough that I'd definitely got enough sleep, but still early enough to justify lying in bed watching a few episodes of Buffy on Netflix. I'd never watched the series when it originally came out but figured it's never too late to catch up, and had become completely addicted to it within the first few episodes. Although I had to admit, I really didn't get the whole Angel thing - give me Spike any day!

The laughter faded out as I heard the front door open and close, followed by the sound of Dave locking up. After the drama of Dave finding out he was going to America, it sounded like Dave and Jess had finally made up. She still wasn't particularly happy about him going, but she'd agreed to give long distance a shot and they were making sure they made the most of the time left together before he left. Dave was frantically trying to get everything sorted, booking London visits for visa applications, finding the cheapest flights he could, and most importantly, figuring out how many essentials he could fit in one 23kg suitcase! The company organising the placement had already sorted his accommodation for the first month, so finding a long-term flat was something he could do once he was over there. On a slightly selfish note, I'd suddenly been thrown into a panic of what would happen with our Edinburgh flat. Luckily as this was our second year in our flat, we'd passed the initial rental period of a year and were on a sort of rolling month basis, provided we gave enough notice to the landlord. My options were either find someone to move in - which was a bit difficult as not many students were looking to move midway through the year - or find someone with a space. I'd put a few feelers out on room rental websites to see if anyone was interested, but internally I was really hoping something turned up that didn't result in me living with a complete stranger.

As the second episode finished, I finally managed to drag myself out of bed. For once, I actually had plans for a Saturday night which meant a productive afternoon was a necessity. Renae, one of my friends from my course, was turning 21 and that meant only one thing: a night out at the Big Cheese! Drinking, dancing, and singing along to all the cheesiest hits of the last few decades at our university union building was exactly what I needed - between work overload and all the stress of football and Dave moving, I couldn't wait for tonight.

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I nipped past the shop to grab bottles of Peach Schnapps and lemonade on the way over to Renae's. We were having pre-drinks and playing a few drinking games before heading over to the Cheese early to get free entry. Buzzing what I hoped was the right flat number (as I always got it wrong), I tried not to look at the guys heading into the door behind me. Renae was convinced it was some kind of local brothel due to all the guys and interestingly dressed girls who came and went. Unfortunately, her bedroom window overlooked the entrance so I figured she saw more than she really wanted to!

Reaching the flat, I realised I was the first to arrive. Giving Renae a hug and waving hi to her flatmates, I poured myself a Schnapps and lemonade. Offering Renae one, she scrunched up her nose and shook her head vigorously.

"Uh, no, you wouldn't catch me dead drinking that stuff! It's like pure sugar, I don't know how you drink it without gagging!"

"I'm sorry my drink doesn't match up to your super-posh beers, and you know death by sugar is my demise of choice" I laughed back at Renae. "Speaking of which, where are your fancy beers? Parents not get you any this year?" Renae was renowned for getting weirdly-named beer that no one had ever heard of from her parents, but I couldn't see the usual table of bottles.

"Yeah, they couldn't make it out to Edinburgh before the weekend so I'm seeing them tomorrow..." I glanced incredulously over at her; Renae wasn't exactly known for her restraint on nights out. She noticed and grinned wryly. "I know! Don't worry, they've been told not to turn up anytime before 2pm, and they're experts at dealing with me hungover by now."

As I shook my head smiling, Renae dragged me through to see the new Dr Who duvet set her brother had got her. We originally bonded over our shared love of Dr Who, which led to a particularly fun trip to London last year for the 50th Anniversary convention. One of our favourite memories was the actors in full Cybermen and Silurian costumes terrorising the younger kids - plus seeing all the fire and explosion special effects gave us a new alternative career aim if chemical engineering didn't work out!

Whilst we debated how the latest series had turned out (we both love Capaldi but have differing views on his companion, Clara), the rest of the crew slowly turned up. As people poured drinks and chatted away, I glanced around, not seeing a face I was expecting.

"Hey, Renae, did you invite Bob?" She frowned and looked around too. "Well, I thought I did! My phone's dead, can you give him a text?" I nodded and quickly messaged Bob, asking if he was turning up tonight. Things had been going pretty well between us recently - it felt like we both really had just moved on from that awkward night, and I had made sure that there had been no other uncomfortable incidents like the whiskers one. Of course, it helped that we were so overloaded with work that our courses took up around 90% of our conversation!

A few minutes later he texted back:

Me and Gary were going to, but her flat's miles away! Not really too keen on heading halfway across town tbh.

Well, that didn't make sense. Renae's flat was a five minute walk from our street, if that! After bouncing a few messages back and forth, it suddenly made sense - Bob had google mapped 'Road' instead of 'Street' in the address, giving him a completely random house on the other side of town. With that sorted out, he said he'd be over in half an hour. As I was letting Renae know, Ethan produced a pack of cards and started setting up Ring of Fire. Inwardly groaning (as any game involving dirty pints immediately has me scared), I grabbed another drink.

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We headed over to the union at about half nine - Renae had been unlucky enough to lose both games and consequently drink two dirty pints, so when she started demanding that we head out now, none of us decided to argue! I ended up walking over with Gary, Bob's flatmate. He was one of those deathly silent types when I first met him, but I'd been round at Bob's often enough that he'd opened up a bit around me now. We'd recently connected over Glee, which both we knew Bob hated and therefore had started watching every time I came round.

For some reason we'd started talking about penguins, and as soon as I'd mentioned that polar bears are probably quite fond of penguin suppers he'd burst out laughing - apparently, they're from different hemispheres... proving what a geography-challenged idiot I can be, much to Gary's amusement. In my slightly drunken state, however, I was not to be defeated, and launched straight into an argument of how a polar bear could travel from the North to the South Pole if it did decide to snack on some penguins.

By the time we'd reached the union we were both giggling helplessly at the ridiculous picture I'd painted. Not paying attention to my step, I tripped over the cobbled street and would have fallen flat on my face if Gary hadn't caught me. Finding this even funnier, I went straight into uncontrollable giggling territory as the Schnapps properly hit me. Gary insisted on linking arms to 'save my face from the floor', and that's how we arrived at the bar. Gary insisted on buying my first drink, so I hung back a little away from the bar to wait for him. The dance floor was still completely empty apart from Renae, who for no clear reason was full on galloping around the area yelling. My amusement was interrupted as a presence at my shoulder caused me to look up.

"So... you and Gary, huh?" Bob nudged me, grinning slyly. For one of those very rare periods in my life, I was lost for words.

"Um - I mean - what?" I couldn't feel more awkward if I tried - I genuinely hadn't been thinking that way about Gary, I'd just been enjoying our ridiculous conversation. And for Bob of all people to be commenting on it - I didn't know how I felt about that. It almost felt like I'd been doing something wrong, and I had to remind myself strongly that there was nothing going on between us, and that there never would be. His smirk ignited a flash of strange anger in me, and words flowed back.

"Me and Gary as friends? I know, it's taken long enough for him to relax round me! You should really have told him I'm not that scary, just a bit crazy!" I smiled at him as Gary returned with our drinks, and swept past him to the table with the rest of our group.

Trying to shake the weirdness of the moment off, I threw myself into the game we were playing. I'm naturally competitive at the best of times but this time the focus hit crazy levels! It was one we played quite regularly on nights out - the basics of it being you start at 1 and 'pass' on to the person on your left or right, who says 'two' and passes on to the person on either the left or right of them and so on. At certain numbers you have to point in a particular way or do a certain action and if you forget you drink and the whole process starts again. Gary was next to me and whenever I passed to him he immediately passed straight back to me. It ended up in a few intense battles just between the two of us, but Bob's words were still at the back of my head and I always caved and passed to Renae before they could go on too long.

A couple of drinks later we all headed over to the dancefloor. Ethan was chasing Renae and pretending to gallop like she was doing earlier, whilst the rest of the guys stopped dead and started singing as 'Don't Stop Believing' came on. Laughing, I started dancing away between Gary and Nate, another guy from my course. The night blurred as other classics such as Blue (Da Ba De) and 5, 6, 7, 8 came and went, accompanied of course by our stunning dancing and singing.

Eventually, between people going to the bar and disappearing outside for a break, our group dwindled to just me and Gary. He was twirling me around to a song I didn't know, any awkwardness from earlier completely forgotten. As the song drew to a close he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the centre of the crowd. He turned back to me and slipped his arms around my waist, and the only natural thing to do seemed to be to put my arms around his neck. He smiled at me and leaned in slightly - only for me to leap back in excitement as the opening chords for 'Sweet Child of Mine' rang out.

"I LOVE this song!" I yelled at Gary, grinning wildly. I threw my arms back around his neck and started enthusiastically singing along. He danced along, laughing at me. As the solo hit and I stopped singing, he leaned in quickly and kissed me lightly. He drew back, looking at me warily, until I pulled his head back to mine. We stood, surrounded by strangers, lost in each other for the moment. Reality slowly set back in as I pulled away, the music filtering back into the moment as Slash's guitar solo faded away and Axl Rose's voice filled the room singing: "Where do we go now?"

Over Gary's shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Bob staring over from the edge of the room, his face unreadable. I tried to hold in drunken giggles and tears as I started singing along with the song again, but this time meaning the lyrics with all my heart. Where do we go now, indeed.