Dear friend, I love you

13. With whiskey you'll have fun

Erica

We had a good time, drinking more and more.
But my mind were somewhere else, I didn't talk much. And I felt guilty about it, Aleksi had invited me here, and he even offered that we would stay home. Because of me.
But I wanted to come here to get my thoughts away, but it seems like I failed. I stared my beer, and took sips of it often. I listened what everyone else talked and laughed about. I felt Aleksi's eyes on me, but I tried not to look at him. I knew he was worried about me, and I felt guilty about that as well.

"What about you Erica?" I heard someone asking from me. I flinched from my thoughts and looked around, everyone was looking at me. How uncomfortable.
"Uhm.." Was all I could say. Good Erica. Idiot.
"Is everything okay? You have been quite silent." Niko asked next to me. I saw that everyone was talking again with each other, so they could give us a little privacy to talk. I appreciated that. Aleksi was also looking at me, silent.
"I'm just stressed. I need to drink something stronger." I said and stood up. I walked to the counter and ordered couple shots.
As I got them, I drank them faster than ever. Maybe my thoughts could disappear if I wouldn't be sober.
I could be normal for a while, have fun.

I drank few more shots and then ordered whiskey, I don't usually drink it, but now I felt like it.
I walked back to the table, little swaying but I didn't mind. I sat down next to Niko, he and everyone else were looking at me again.
"What?" I asked and took a sip of my whiskey.
"You know, your hangover will be terrible tomorrow." Aleksi said, and I looked his blue eyes and leaned against the table with my hands.
"I don't care, not my problem now." I said.
They all stayed quiet, and were kinda confused. It just amused me.
"Come on guys, don't you think I can drink?" I smirked and they all started to talk and explain themselves. I chuckled.
"Let's drink then!" Tommi shouted and we all lifted our drinks up. We all cheered and took sips.
I made an eye contact with Aleksi for a moment, he just smiled and I did too.

We've been drinking more for a while, and we all were drunk. Then I saw a familiar looking guy walking to the counter.
"Hey, it's Verneri!" I said and Aleksi, Niko and Joonas turned to look at his direction.
"He's alone?" Niko asked.
"Yeah.. I invited him here to drink with us at the day, but he refused. It made me feel sad to think about that he's lonely." I explained.
"We should call him here." Joonas suggested. Then Aleksi looked at him angrily, it confused me a little but I didn't care that much.
"Verneri!" I shouted and he turned around, as he saw me waving at him he got his beer and then walked away.
"What?" I made a confused look. Why he did that? Like he acted he doesn't know me.

"If he had company somewhere?" Aleksi suggested. I took the last sip of my whiskey and stood up, but it was hard because I got dizzy.
"Where are you going?" Aleksi asked and sat up too to help me stay up.
"Just going to the bathroom." I smiled and he nodded, and sat back.
I walked to the direction where Verneri go, there was many people dancing and I pumped to few of them.
Then I arrived to the right place, Verneri sat there with two women and one man.
"Oh, you had company." I smiled and he turned around to look at me. He looked confused, but not suprised. Maybe it was weird him to see me somewhere else than work?
I placed my hand to the back of Verneri's chair and leaned against it, to help me keep up.

"And who might you be?" That other man asked, who lifted his arm to the blonde woman's shoulder.
"Verneri is my boss." I patted his shoulder.
"Nice, is he treating you well?" An orange haired woman asked who sat next to Verneri.
"Most of the time." I grinned.
"But now I leave you guys alone. Have fun." I smiled and started to walk back to my guys table.

"Erica." I heard Verneri's voice behind me. I turned around slowly.
"Mm?" I looked at him.
He just stared at me and his lips were partly apart.
"The woman I talked about -" He started and he looked nervous. I interrupted him.
"Oh, yeah. She's pretty, keep going and don't give up. Or I don't know which of them she was, but they both were your type." I smiled and he just stared at me. He almost started to talk again, but then got interrupted again, by Aleksi this time.
"Hey Erica. Shall we go? Others are leaving too." He put his arm around me and I smiled to him.
"Yeah, let's go. Did you have something?" I looked at Verneri one last time before Aleksi started to lead me out of the bar. He just shook his head and walked back to his friends.

We walked down the dark streets, we laughed a lot to stupid things. Aleksi still kept his arm around me, and it felt comfortable.
"Where should we go? Who has beer?" Joonas asked shouting as they all started to talk about which of them apartment we should go.
"Really guys? Aren't we drunk enough?" Aleksi groaned, and that made Joonas and Niko almost die of laughter. I smirked.
Niko wrapped his arm around me as well, and now I was between them.
"Little man.. we have to teach this young and pretty lady how to have fun." Niko smirked, his hair was open and the wind made few tress of the hair go into my mouth.
"Oh god, Niko!" I laughed and pulled the hairs out of my mouth. He just laughed, he had so adorable laugh.

"What do you say Erica? More beer or whiskey or whatever to have fun, or will you go to sleep with your Ville?" Niko made an puppy face.
"Who's Ville?!" Joonas shouted from somewhere.
"He's my billionare husband." I grinned, and that made others grin so much that they almost started to laugh. But of course we wanted to tease Joonas a little, right?
"I don't believe you." Joonas walked next to Niko and he looked at me.
"Don't then, but it's true." I was good at by now to keep an poker face.
Joonas' face got more serious and that made us all burst into laugh.
"Come on guys!" He groaned and Niko patted his back.
"Good luck to next time. Ville is cat." Aleksi chuckled. I turned my head to look at him again.

"But who's place we are going to go? Santeri and Joona already left so it's just us." Olli pointed us all and we started to think.
"My place then." Joel suggested and we all agreed.
"Are you sure you want to drink more?" Aleksi quietly asked.
I don't know. Should I? I know that my hungover is going to be already bad, I haven't been this drunk in a long time.
Should I finally listen to Aleksi, and go to sleep?