Its ten thirty at night when Alice and I leave her apartment to go to a bar down the street called Moe Bar. They have good music, good people, and cheap drinks. We always go to Moe’s for a couple hours before we go to the club because drinks are so expensive there. Right as we get down the stairs, Zane called me.

I answered as quickly as I could and held my finger up to Alice to tell her to hold on. “Zane?” Alice rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, hey, babe. What’s up?”

“’What’s up?’ Zane, where have you been for three days? I’ve been having a mental break down.” I said almost angrily even though I have no right to be, but he doesn’t know that.

“Oh my god, Makenzie, you know where I’ve been! Where else would I be? I’ve been working like always.” He said my whole name. Normally he would call me “Kenzie”, “Kenney”, or whatever pet name he comes up with on the spot. He also sounded angrier at me than I sounded toward him.

“You couldn’t call me one time for the past 72 hours?” Alice sat down on the bottom step of the stairwell.

“I’ve been busy and tired,” he said shortly.

I get so angry when he does that to me and he knows it. He’ll give me a reason as if I have no right to be upset. I stopped myself from freaking out. “You know, you could have called for at least five minutes.” I was going to say that I missed him, but Zane’s laughing cut me off.

“As if you can only be on the phone for five minutes. You would either keep me up forever or cry when I tried to hang up.”

I can’t believe this. “Well I’m sorry I’m such an imposition on your life.”
“Kenzie, can you please not pull this with me? I definitely don’t have time for bitching and moaning right now. It’s eleven thirty at night and I could have gone to sleep, but instead, I called you. If all we’re going to talk about is how I never call you, then I’m hanging up.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Alice was mouthing for me to hang up the phone. “If you would have just said ‘I’m sorry’ we wouldn’t be talking about it right now.”

“Bull shit. You’re not that nice.” Zane said.

At this point, Alice was making prayer hands at me to hang up and I think it’s about time I listened. “You know what; I’ll save you the trouble. A conversation less than five minutes and not a tear shed. Fuck off, Zane.” With that, I pressed the end call button.

“Thank God!” Alice sighed. “He is such a dick.”

“I don’t know why he’s acting like that.”

“Honey, he’s always been like that just not toward you.”

“Whatever, Alice. I need dark rum and whiskey.” I grabbed her hands and pulled her off of the step. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be in a sober state of mind right now.”

“C’mon, let’s get my widdo baby a dwink,” Alice cooed while pinching my cheek.

When we showed up at Moe’s, I was so happy to see that Jason was working the bar. He is the cutest bartender ever not to mention he always serves me first when I’m at the bar. He’s so southern that sometimes I can’t understand him, but I love that guy. I also think it’s really funny that he turns “Kenzie” into a three syllable word.

“Well if it ain’t Kenzie and Alice! Don’t you two just look like a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day?” He shouted with a dimpled smile.

“Hey, Jason!” I yelled back. Alice and I both ran over to give him a hug over the bar. “I missed you so much!”

“Where the hell have you been?” He asked while already pouring a drink for me. “I still see Alice in here every week!” He gave her a wink.

“Yeah, that’s because I’m a dependable alcoholic,” Alice smiled. “Little Kenny here has been slacking.”

“I still drink!” I argued.

“Yeah, you sure drank enough last night,” Alice mumbled. I mouthed for her to shut the hell up.

Jason raised his eyebrow at me, “Well there’s nothing like a smooth glass of Southern Comfort to get you feeling alright.” He slid a glass to me and another to Alice. “Maybe you should get yourself a nice southern man to go with it.” He smiled at me and Alice while taking someone else’s drink order.

“That’s sweet, but you already know I’m with Zane.”

Alice rolled her eyes and Jason scoffed. “Are you still with that jackass?”

Alice nodded, answering for me and finally took a sip of her drink and recognized what it was, “A Comfortable Screw? Nice.” She smiled at Jason and he wiggled his eyebrows at her.

I watched them look at each other for a moment and finally decided to defend myself, “Zane isn’t a jackass. He’s really sweet, he’s just stressed out.”

“The guy is a dick, Ken!” Alice yelled, clearly over the issue. “Jason, honey, can you please get me a shot of whiskey?”

“Coming right up, sweetheart,” he smiled.

“Kenzie, and I say this because I love you, if I hear you say Zane’s name one more time, I’m going to take the handle off that beer tap and shove it up your ass.”

Jason slid Alice her shot, “Ooh, sounds hot. That goes double for me.” I shook my head at both of them. “Listen, I’ve gotta get back to work, but make sure you stop by to see me before you leave!”

“Kay, love you, Jay,” Alice said leaning over the bar to kiss his cheek. Jason quickly pecked her lips before she could pull away.

He laughed triumphantly, “I finally gotcha!” Alice rolled her eyes with a smirk and I leaned in to give him a hug. “You girls be good.”

“We’ll try!” I shouted back as Alice started to pull me through the crowd.

I held my drink close to me while Alice pulled me with the other. There was a live band tonight and people were jumping around all over the place. People were moshing and grinding and I’m sure somebody had to be having sex somewhere in here. Shit was that crazy. Alice and I found our friends Becca, Henry, Jake, and Samantha on the dance floor and decided to hang out with them. I was trying not to think about Zane but with everyone flirting and dancing, it made me want to dance and flirt. To tell you the truth it kind of pissed me off. Zane is being such an asshole. I need another shot.

“Alice, I’m gonna get another shot! I’ll be right back,” I yelled to her over the music since she was the closest to me and probably the only one who could hear me. She nodded and hit my ass as I got up to go to the bar.

As I got closer to the bar, I heard yelling, not that yelling was abnormal, but it definitely sounded like a fight was about to break out. All of a sudden I heard Jason yell “God dammit, Kieran!”

Oh fuck, Kieran has been one of my best friends since I moved to Washington. He is one of the funniest people in the entire world, but he’s also very opinionated when he drinks clear liquor. One time we were at a bar in Southern California and some big, muscular guy tried to hit on me and was being really rude. So Kieran decided to say “Seriously, dude? Her vagina isn’t made of gold. Back the fuck up. I thought all the guys from here sucked dick anyways.” He nearly got his ass beat, but I convinced the guy not to kill him. I don’t know why he continuously orders vodka, but he does. Even though he can be stupid, I love him to death.

I ran over to see what was happening and all I saw was some guy that was half drenched with what was probably beer, on top of Kieran, bashing his face in. If he’s going to start arguments like this he really needs to take kick boxing classes or something. I pushed my way through the crowd as fast as I could.

“Will you please stop it? Get off of him!” I was squatted down, pulling at the other guy’s shoulder. “I know he’s an idiot, but can you please calm the fuck down for a second?” The guy got one more hit in and got up after Jason pulled at him to get off.

“Kieran, are you okay?” His lip was busted and blood was running down his chin, but he has definitely looked worse. “What did you do?”

At first, all he said back was, “Fuck.” I took his hands so I could help him up and as he was rising he said, “I told them their band sucked more dick than a retired porn star. The one dude started acting like a smart ass so I threw my drink on him.”

“Kieran, you have to stop all this bull shit. You’re gonna get killed one of these days.” I said shaking my head.

Now, my first instinct was that the band that Kieran was talking about was the band playing Moe’s tonight. They went on break a while ago, and a lot of the time, bands will hang out after their set. I noticed the guy who was kicking Kieran’s ass was only a few feet away. I didn’t get a good look at him, but it’s hard to miss the beer-soaked hair. I figured I’d go apologize for Kieran, like always, because I can’t just babysit him all night and I don’t want him making the situation worse. I made sure Kieran was situated in his barstool and started making my way over to the guy which was difficult because he was walking through the crowd.

When I finally caught up to him, I put my hand on his shoulder, “Hey, I’m really sorry about my friend,” I shouted over the noise. “He talks out of his ass ninety percent of the time.” As it turns out, my first instinct was incorrect. The guy that was kicking Kieran’s ass was Ben Bruce. My head just fell to the side. “Oh my actual God.” I mumbled to myself. I swear things like this happen to me all of the time.

“That jackass was your friend?” Ben said, realizing who I was.

I shuffled my hair around with my fingers, “Yeah, what happened back there?”

“All of us were just having a drink at the bar, and that fuck head came up to us and started talking about how shit our band is. We didn’t really give a fuck, but we told him to fuck off and he threw his beer at me. Then I beat the shit out of him.”

“Mm, yeah, I saw that part,” I laughed rolling my eyes. “Kieran’s a really cool person; he’s just a complete idiot when he’s drunk. Sorry about that. If he gives you a problem again, just talk to Jason.” I pointed to the bar and he waved a hand back at us. “Kieran turns into a bitch when Jason steps up. You didn’t have to go all crazy on him. And you said that I was the one with anger issues? It looked like you were trying to make his face a permanent part of the floor.”

“I probably would’ve if you didn’t walk in. I’m just pissed that I actually have to wash my hair now,” He said jokingly.

I shook my head at him, “Why are you guys still in Seattle? You’re not touring?” Normally bands are in and out of states within twenty four hours.

“Nah, we’re writing and recording here for a couple months. We just moved into our apartment today.”

Oh, that’s great. My one night stand has taken a semi-permanent residence in Seattle. Fucking yay.

“Are you here by yourself?”

“No,” I said while I adjusted my dress. “My friend Alice dragged me out here actually.”

“You should come hang out with us at our table back there.” He said with a smile.

“Should I?” I laughed at him. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said pensively. “I mean, I normally don’t have sex with the same girl twice, but I might make an exception for you.”

I bit down on my tongue, “What makes you think that I would want to have sex with you a second time?”

“Do you want me to demonstrate because I believe last night looked something like,” Ben started rubbing his hands all over his body and moaning. He started shaking around his wet hair. I slapped his arm so he’d stop and he grabbed my hand before it fell back to my side. “Violence is never the answer.”

I pulled my arm away from him, “I guess you might need someone to help you wash your hair.” Ben wiggled his eyebrows at me. “I have to find Alice and let her know what’s going on first.”

“Well hurry up!” Ben shouted, half joking and half serious. He turned me around and pushed me more into the crowd. I trudged in the direction of where I knew my friends would be.

I finally spotted Alice dancing with Becca in our corner. She yelled when she saw me before I could get over to her.

“Kenzie! Where the hell have you been?”

“Yeah, I thought you were getting a drink, Minnie!” We all have matronly code names for one another. Becca’s is Beatrice and Alice’s is Agnes.

“I was, but Kieran was getting his ass kicked—“

“Nothing new then?” Becca laughed.

“No, but guess who was doing the ass kicking?” I paused and I could tell that Alice figured it out. “Ben Bruce.

Becca immediately sighed, “Oh my goodness, he is so hot!”

“Thank you, Beatrice!” I said to her, happy that someone approved of my life choices.

“I never said he wasn’t hot!” Alice argued.

“Well he asked me to hang out with them so… I’ll probably do that,” I said biting my lip.

“Are you sure about this?” Alice asked. “Cause now you lose the ‘it was only one time' excuse.”

Becca’s jaw dropped, “You’ve had sex with Ben? Wait, you cheated on Zane?” She sounded like she was impressed. “Honey, come on over to my side. Why are you still standing here? Go and get it in!”

I looked at Alice, “You know everything that’s happened. I just can’t handle…” I remembered what Alice said about the beer tap, “him anymore. Not right now anyways. I just want to go and have sex like it’s my job.” I joked.

Alice smiled, “Well as long as you know what you’re doing. I’m on your side Minnie.”

I hugged Alice and Becca and kissed both of their cheeks. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow!”

They both whooped as I walked away so I flipped my hair dramatically and looked back at them with my “sexy face” with a dash of kissy lips. I laughed and waved as I made my way through the crowd again. When I finally made it to Asking Alexandria’s table, it was Danny that greeted me first.

“Oh, I do remember you!” Danny said, making it obvious that Ben was explaining that I was in their hotel this morning. “I saw you naked!”

I ran my tongue across my teeth, “Yup, that would be me.”

“This is, uh—“ Ben tried to introduce me. “I never knew your name I don’t think.”

“No, I’m Jenna.” I didn’t think I would even see him again the first time. I also don’t want him to know my real name. So if any of Zane’s nosy friends going around spying on me, as far as they know, Ben never had sex with Makenzie. He had sex with Jenna.

Notes

This is definitely one of my favorite chapters so far :)
I hope you guys like it!
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Thanks for reading!! <3