Nick was never quite sure how it happened but he never intended to drink most nights he went out. He was honest all of the times he told Peggy that he wasn’t planning on drinking but it never failed that one drink turned into two, turned into ten and before he knew it he was falling all over himself.

Being the designated driver was supposed to be a deterrent that night but it hadn’t worked too well. Mere moments after he and Peggy rejoined the party after their fight he poured himself another drink, telling himself that he was only going to nurse it until the end of the night then call a cab and make sure they got home okay.

The other guys had better plans though and soon they were pouring shots and playing drinking games and he couldn’t very well turn down the challenge when it was put in front of him. He had a very competitive nature and was not particularly fond of being on the sidelines while other people had fun. He liked to be in the thick of things, the centre of attention. Unfortunately, being in the thick of things this time meant he was three sheets to the wind and stumbling down to the dance floor when he should have been sobering up.

The elder in the group, the designated driver, the man who assured everyone that he would get them home safely had instead exchanged responsibility for reckless abandon. He moved through the sea of gyrating bodies, moving himself to the thumping beat of the music that blasted through the club. It was at that point, when the lights were flashing and the music was loud, that things started to get fuzzy. He didn’t know that while he thought he was dancing with a group of people he was actually flailing about, throwing his arms and legs around much to the annoyance of fellow club goers.

Nick’s antics didn’t go unnoticed by the other people in the group but by the time someone had made their way back upstairs and over to where Peggy was relaxing with her friends, around a large booth in the corner, he had taken his dancing to a much more public arena.

“You might want to check on your boyfriend.”

Peggy looked up, vaguely recognizing the girl in front of her. Her eyebrows furrowed in curiosity and she tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

As if the crowd below had heard her question there was a sudden explosion of cheers and screams from the dancefloor and Peggy knew somehow that the cat-calls had something to do with Nick.

“Move, move, move!” she waved the other girls in the booth out so she could escape from the back of the table. Scrambling to run on impossibly high heels while feeling the effects of her own alcohol consumption, Peggy darted to the railing overlooking the lower floor of the club only a few feet away from where she had last seen Nick sitting with the other guys.

What she saw as she looked over the railing was truly unexpected. Her boyfriend, whom she loved, was currently standing on the bar, dirty dancing with a petite blonde to a bass-thumping Rihanna song while swinging his shirt above his head. The camera flashes from various cell phones and cameras in the crowd were unmistakable and Peggy muttered a slew of angry curses at what was likely to come once the pictures inevitably hit the internet.

“What the fuck, Nick?!” she yelled out, despite the fact that he was too far away to hear her. With sudden sobriety she bolted down the staircase, pushing anyone in her path out of the way, all the while thinking how ballsy it was of him to have nearly gotten into a fight over her talking to a guy yet he was drunkenly grinding on a stranger on the bar not two hours later.

She was not the only angry person yelling, she realized as she approached the bar. Two bouncers were standing on the floor, holding people back and demanding the two blondes get down off the bar.

“Excuse me, that’s my boyfriend!” Peggy exclaimed as she tried to clamour around the two beefy men who were blocking her from reaching the bar area. The two ignored her pleas, unable to hear her over the music and the sound of their own voices calling out.

“Margaret?” a familiar voice called and Peggy turned to her left, completely shocked by who was standing next to her. It felt like it had been a long time since she had last seen him and he hadn’t changed a bit, still wearing t-shirts that were slightly too small to try and show off every bit of his muscles as if every woman in the room cared, still sporting the cocky look on his face that she had come to hate.

“What are you doing here!?” she asked, her eyes dodging between the man beside her and the one evading the hands of security on the bar along with his dance partner, both of whom she knew quite intimately.

“I’m here with some friends, I heard you were here...”

Peggy let out a heavy sigh. “Dustin, I really can’t do this right now. I’m dealing with a situation.”

For a moment she had honestly believed that the night could not have possibly gotten any worse. Between the fight, Nick getting drunk and foolish and now her ex-boyfriend randomly showing up at the same club as them, she was sure there was some kind of cosmic force trying to challenge her relationship.

Dustin laughed obnoxiously, reminding Peggy of one of the many things she couldn’t stand about him. “Is that the infamous vegetarian up on the bar with the trashy looking blonde?”

Peggy whipped around, eyes glaring. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who told you he’s a vegetarian?”

Before Dustin could answer the question Peggy cut him off, waving her hand in front of his face with total finality. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t think I want to know. If you’ll excuse me I need to get my boyfriend off the bar.”

“How are you going to do that?” the other man asked, both of them watching as Nick dodged the reaching arms of the security guards for a second time. “Let me help.”

Peggy protested but Dustin didn’t wait for a response. He easily pushed past the bouncers that were nearly his equal in size and build and Peggy quickly slipped in behind him, using the opening as an opportunity to get to the bar.

“Nick!” she yelled, butting her way in front of Dustin before he could make any moves. “Get down here!”

For the first time since fiasco started, she managed to make eye contact with her incredibly drunk boyfriend, finding too much familiarity in his droopy eyelids and alcohol reddened cheeks.

“Baby!” Nick called back excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. “Get up here and dance with me! I lost my shirt and I don’t know where it is! I love you!”

“No, I really can’t... you have to get down! You’re going to get us in trouble!”

“Oh, I think he has already managed that.” Dustin cut in and Peggy rolled her eyes at him.

While Peggy would have liked to take some time to come up with a game plan, it was made clear by the pair of angry bouncers that they wanted Nick off their bar and out of their club immediately.

“Nickolas,” she called out, trying to keep her voice as stern and matronly as possible. “Come down from there right now.”

Nick simply laughed and shook his head as if it were all a game. Out of the corner of her eye Peggy watched as Dustin started to move closer to the bar, looking more like he was approaching a wild animal than a half naked drunk guy. She would have complained but she needed Nick to get down so if that meant accepting Dustin’s help, just once, she was willing to deal with the consequences.

Dustin, just like Nick, was a fit man with an athletic build but the two of them could not have been more different in physical appearance. Sometimes Peggy imagined what Nick would have been like in high school, thinking that if he would probably have been the quarterback on the football team and maybe ran cross country. Dustin on the other hand had been on the football team, as a linebacker, had wrestled and played rugby in an adult rec league when he was just 16. In short, he was a big guy, wide and muscular, standing a couple of inches taller than Nick when his feet were on the floor instead of the bar.

Peggy wasn’t entirely sure what Dustin’s plans included but they became apparent as soon as Nick turned away from them. She thought for a moment that Nick was looking for a place to step down off the bar but he didn’t get the chance before Dustin’s arm wrapped around his middle and he was yanked off the bar and thrown unceremoniously on the floor, knocking the wind out of him.

“Oh my god!” Peggy exclaimed, immediately running to her boyfriend’s side. “Are you okay?” she asked hurriedly, watching an expression of pain cross Nick’s face as he grabbed the back of his head where it had hit the floor.

Without answering her, Nick sprung to his feet and reached out to shove the stranger that had grabbed him. “What the hell, dude? You could have cracked my head open!”

“You’re fine,” Dustin replied with a roll of his eyes. “I didn’t even drop you that far.”

Peggy pulled Nick away from the bigger man, having witnessed enough pissing contests that night to last her a lifetime. He didn’t know what Dustin looked like and she didn’t want to have to explain the whole situation while everyone was standing around staring at them and the bouncers were waiting to escort them out the door. It was a conversation that would be better saved for when both of them were more sober.

“Please stop,” she pleaded, pressing her forehead to his shoulder blade. “Everyone is watching you.”

“Fuck them,” Nick slurred in response, his body wavering slightly as he fought to keep upright.

The issue of the spectators was quickly rectified when security (while muttering about spoiled celebrities) not-so-politely removed the two of them from the building, informing Nick that his behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated and he wasn’t to return to the club, VIP or not. After a lecture about how lucky they were that the police weren’t called, they stood a few feet apart on the dark sidewalk, Nick still without a shirt, Peggy fighting to hold back her anger.

She knew it would be pointless to say anything to him just then because he would likely not remember it in the morning but she really wanted to chastise him for his behaviour. She was nearly in agreement with the bouncers about the elitist, rich boy act that Nick was putting on. Although they had driven there she couldn’t get behind the wheel and he certainly wasn’t driving anywhere in his condition. She was about to suggest they get a cab when Nick suddenly bent over and threw up, not making much of an attempt to not vomit on himself.

Peggy sighed and ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “You know that most cab drivers in New York won’t pick someone up if they’re puking, right? Why do you have to make an impossible situation even more impossible? You don’t have a concussion, do you?”

“Please no questions,” he muttered, lifting one shaking hand off his thighs to wave her off. “I can’t listen.”

He heaved again and she shook her head as he wretched on the sidewalk for a second time, hoping that there wasn’t a TMZ camera crew lying in wait somewhere. She pulled her phone out of her purse and scrolled through the contacts, angrily hitting the call button.

“Hi,” she spoke as the line connected. “I’m really sorry to wake you up but it’s sort of an emergency. I need a ride. Fast.”