Maybe It's Been You All Along - Alex Turner

37

Alex furrowed his brows as he squinted and leant closer to her arm, inspecting what the dark spot was. A small smile made its way to his cheeks.

"What is it?" She asked, looking over her shoulder to see if she could sneak a peek at it.

"It's a clock," Alex smiled. She rested back on her back and looked at him quizzically. "A clock that's dripping at the bottom. And instead of the numbers it's got the letters that spell out 'orange'."

The crease in Rosanna's brows ceased and the corners of her mouth tilted upwards. "A Clockwork Orange," she said quietly. "Of course I would." It was her favourite book.

"It suits you," he smiled. Alex dropped his arm and chuckled once again, "what the fuck happened last night?"

~

Thirteen hours earlier, Rosanna was on Alex's back as they stumbled in their group down the streets of Sheffield. She was cackling into the night sky as Alex weaved side to side, barely able to keep his balance as he carried her to the next bar they were headed to. The group of them were singing out random songs as they travelled across the town to different bars. Their voices echoing out into the night air.

They'd been to at least four bars by now and everyone was their own form of drunk. Alex had moved on from his 'sleepy' stage of being drunk to his 'party hard like a mother-fucker' stage. They'd just gotten kicked out of their last pub because Alex was standing on one of the tables dancing like a mad-man and swinging his leather jacket around above his head. No one stopped him, in fact they were cheering him on and the guys carried him out like a champion once he'd gotten told to leave.

"Olay! Olay, olay, olay! Olay. Olay!" Alex chanted as he stumbled down the street, Matt, Nick and Jamie joining in.

As they reached their fifth pub at the stroke of midnight, Alex lowered his girlfriend to the ground from the piggyback he was giving her, and wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked in. Leaning close to her ear he whispered, "gotta act normal so we don't get kicked out again," and started laughing like a child, Rosanna joining in.

"Shhh!" she giggled and put a finger over his lips, "you're gonna get us caught." Alex snorted and tried to contain himself as they walked in through the doors and made a beeline for a large booth seat. To fit everyone, Rosanna sat on Alex's lap and so did Katie with Jamie. Everyone was surprised that Katie was still propelling on because she'd been off her face since about ten thirty.

Miles, who was the best at acting sober offered to get everyone a round of drinks to which many applauded and then ducked their heads as if hiding from the workers before they could kick them out.

"What's everyone want?" Miles had asked to which Alex quickly responded.

"A fooken pint of vodka," and slammed his hand on the table.

There was music playing at this particular bar and an empty dance floor lay eagerly awaiting someone to fill up the empty space. The music was sort of jazzy, sort of rock and roll and had Alex tapping his foot along.

"Come dance with me baby," Alex said, looking up at Rosanna who was still on his lap.

"Of course I will," Rosanna smiled and kissed him, "I'll take any opportunity to see you dance with your two left feet."

"Ay!" Alex chuckled and pouted, "I'll 'ave you know I'm one of the best fooken dancers I know."

Rosanna smiled cheekily, "well you mustn't know very many." Alex shook his head with a devilish smile.