Constellations, Coffee & Chandler | q.h

twenty two

Chapter 22
a Break

| Chandler |

2:34am. Far too early in the morning to be woken up. Way too late to still be awake, unless you're the guys who are trying to get home right now.

To kick off the two days they get off this week they decided to go out to dinner, which turned into drinks, which now has resulted in all of them drunk off their asses looking for a way home. I was woken up, not from the string of 347 text messages from all of them, but from the excessive phone calls that followed. 4 from Carson, 2 from Everett, 7 from Jake, 3 from Brock, 11 from Elias, and 17 from Quinn. My voicemail was filled mainly from Quinn and Elias, with one from Jake whining for me to 'come pick him up so he can come home'. Yeah, the guys now refer to our place as their home. I think I should start charging them rent for how often they're over.

I told them to catch the Skytrain, which resulted in a FaceTime call where they all complained about not wanting to - and it didn't help that they had been out for so long that the skytrain is down for the night. Same with the buses. And when I suggested a taxi I think they collectively groaned loud enough for me to hear it from here. The combined multi-millionaires were disgusted when I suggested they take an Uber or Lyft because it was 'too expensive at this time of night'. When I asked them why they didn't have a designated driver they tried to tell me it was because 'they knew they could always count on me', which might have made me feel a little giddy if it wasn't something I was hearing for the first time at 2. in. the. morning.

It's been a back and forth battle between us, me telling them there's no way in hell I'll drive to pick them up, and them all ganging up on me. Jake pointed out early on that I couldn't say no, and honestly, I'm surprised I lasted as long as I did.

Thankfully, they stayed in Davie Village, which only took my Uber about 5 minutes. They refused to wait outside the club for me, which meant I had to leave my car to go inside and order another 2 to get us all home. Jokes on Carson, because I purposely set up my account with his card a couple weeks ago after I stayed on campus too late to catch a bus home and had to pay $70 for a ride home.

The club they've been at for the past hour is almost surprisingly quiet. Almost surprising because it is almost 3 in the morning, and no sane person is drinking until 3 on a Wednesday night. They're sprawled out between pool tables and the one ping pong table, with a couple random stranglers hanging around. For a group that was desperate to see me they weren't exactly awaiting my arrival.

"Let's go," I sigh as I grab onto Carson's arm. He lets out an excited gasp as he looks down to me, his eyes have a drunken glaze to match the lopsided grin. "Buggy," he sighs before winding an arm around my shoulders to crush me into his side. I don't even try to push myself out of his grip until he loosens up enough for me to slip out.

"The car is gonna be here in a couple of minutes, lets go wait outside, doesn't that sound nice?" It's not my first time having to try to get Everett and Carson home late from the bar, I know how to ease them out, but the rest of the boys are uncharted territory.

Carson opens his mouth, and I can see his eyes start to get a little glossy, so I'm glad Elias interrupts us before it gets too emotional for my liking. "Chaney," Elias breathes my name like it's a sigh of relief, but like the rest of them, he isn't exactly in a rush to leave.

"I'm going home," I huff out, grabbing onto Carson's arm in an attempt to move for the door. Most of the guys seem to follow after us, letting me stuff them into one of the cars and sending them back to Brock's place. They were going to go back to our apartment, but Brock accidentally mentioned a couple of days ago that he had an actual house so they can spend the night there instead.