Sometime that night...

He couldn't believe he had been convinced to come out. But actually staying at home all alone on the eve of his 28th birthday wasn't that appealing to him. So here he was, in a sweaty, crowded, noisy bar. A bar he should have known better to allow them to take him to. This place held too many memories. Memories he couldn't afford to think about. Chris had joined them, but he had left to go get them some drinks as soon as they had found a place to sit.

JC was acting weird though. He was smiling, strangely. Usually he was always smiling, or grinning. But tonight it was like he had an actual REASON behind it. Justin would have just brushed it as him getting laid or something, but he's eyes were jumpy and scanning the room too much.

But he forgot about it. JC always liked to look around and take in his surroundings and with so many things going on in this one room he probably couldn't help that his eyes were jumpy. Also, always before he had someone else to take his mind off just staring at his best friend. Before, she had always been with him.

Chris appeared soon after balancing two beer bottles in one hand and some shot glasses in the other. He set everything down but one beer bottle which he took a sip of himself. "All right, all right. Here's your drinks, now if you excuse me there's a group of hot girls down there."

"Go, get out of here." JC laughed and he did a corny little hand/gun motion at them before he disappeared back to the bar.

Justin yawned. He hadn't been sleeping well. He never did when she wasn't with him.

He bit his own lip hard and cursed himself for starting to think about her too much. He had had a pretty good day, kept her out of his mind and therefore was able to carry on with his life, at least for that day.

He looked over and saw JC sipping the beer and looked down seeing only some shot glasses with what looked like tequila in them. "Hey! That's mine."

Josh slowly took the bottle from his lips. "Excuse me?"

"The beer is mine." He almost laughed at his own voice. He sounded like a 10 year old not getting what he wanted.

His friend smiled and winked. "The shots are for you."

"So your point with bringing me out was to get me fuck-faced?"

"Nooo, we just, well you need to lighten up."

"But I don't want this shit. I want the fuckin' beer." Another thing he realized. Ever since, well what happened, his language had gone down the gutter. IT wasn't that he started hanging out with sailors or whatever, but he just, didn't care...or didn't give a fuck, as he would say, about anything.

JC hit the table with the bottom of his bottle and one of his hands "YA know this is YOUR birthday. You could be a little nicer. You do know because of you we are late."

Justin laughed a bitter laugh and rolled his eyes. "Oh I didn't know we had to be here by a certain time. Did Christina tell you you had to be in before 11? Gotta take you home to mommy."

With a shake of his head, JC stood up off his chair. It was a tall chair, and so was the table. "Ok, this is your birthday. If you wanna act like that, fine. But I'm gonna go...socialize."

"No..wait..Josh..."

He turned around at Justin's plea. "What?"

"I'm sorry." He decided to add a little pout to his lip to see if it would convince JC not to leave him by himself.

"It's ok man..you just..." Someone bumped into JC and he turned to steady the person and himself. "Oh sor- hey..."

Justin looked back and forth. Christina was standing there. They were looking at each other with wide eyes and bright smiles.

"HEY!!" She said like she was trying to act surprised.

JC ran a hand through his hair nervously and glanced at Justin and then at Chris, almost as if he was in trouble. "Um, hey baby. What are you doing here?"

"Oh um, I didn't know you and Justin were coming to THIS club." She was still using that fake-surprised voice.

He pulled a chair out for his girlfriend and she hopped up on it and he pulled his old one out for himself. "Yeah. I thought you were going to the Cantina."

"They weren't open for some reason. So we came here."

Justin cleared his throat and for some reason started looking around. He had this feeling in his stomach. He hoped the left over pizza he had for dinner wasn't coming back up. "Who's we?"

He watched as Chris turned to him with a shocked look on her face, almost scared that he had spoke to her. "Oh, just some girls from work."

He shrugged. "I haven't seen anyone I know."

"Well.. we just got here."

After a few minutes of looking back and forth at the couple giving each other knowing smiles he slid off his chair. "I'm going to go get myself a beer."

----

As soon as Justin left JC nudged Chris like she was about to tell him some big secret. "Where is she?"

"She got here and practically ran to the bar. I was gonna call you on your cell and let you know I was here. I didn't mean to run into you." She bit her lip and she looked up at him as he finally, for the first time that night, smiled sincerely at her

"No, no...that's ok."

They were content with smiling at each other for a while until it registered to Chris what had just happened. She grabbed her boyfriends hand and looked at him with huge eyes. "Wait! He is going down to the bar?!"

"oh god he is gonna see her." JC started to panic.

"Just calm down...if it happens it happens."

"What happens?"

She jumped at the sound of Justin's voice and breathed, "Holy shit."

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing." She knew she was in trouble when her and JC said it quickly and simultaneously. Justin sat down on his chair looked at them with a wrinkled forehead. Her palms were sweating and she just knew he was gonna find out. '

But that was the point of this whole thing. For him to find out Meredith was there. And she didn't know why she was stressing about it.

He sat his beer bottle down on the table, a napkin sticking to the moisture around the bottle. "ok what the hell is goin on?"

"I don't know you tell me." JC said.

Chris cleared her throat and figured she could change the subject. "Oh yeah Happy Birthday Justin."

He's eyes were boring into her. Meredith had always told her how him staring at her made her feel like she could orgasm just by looking at him, but it didn't really have the same effect on Christina. She felt like she was gonna faint, and not the good faint either.

He muttered out, "It's tomorrow."

"Hehe, same thing." She laughed uncomfortably and reached for the shot glass in front of her and choked one back.

Moment later she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked to see Chris standing there smiling. "HEY guys! I just saw Mere-" He coughed when he saw Justin and covered up. " Mary um, Catherine down at um, the bathrooms."

"Oh yeah...Mary Catherine." JC repeated.

She wanted to cringe when Justin asked, "Who's that?"

"Um, ya know..." Chris stuttered.

Christina spoke up for him while Justin gave her a weird look. "Some girl he met at a club a coupla weeks ago."

"She hot?" Justin asked.

Chris nodded and turned his eyes to JC and Christina. "yeah, she's hot. But she's talking and ALL UP ON some other guy."

They both looked at him and shouted. "WHAT!?!?!" He just nodded.

"Cant win them all. Ever think about one of those blow up dolls Chris." Justin was the only one that laughed at his own joke.

He gave them a weird look when they just stared at him and then took a sip of his beer.

"I'm gonna go. I'll be back. Yeah...I'm gonna go." She immediately stood up and looked at each of them, lingering on Jace longer. Hoping he could give her some hope. If Meredith WAS down there all up on some other guy, she needed to stop it before Justin found out.

She leaned over and kissed JC quickly and whispered, "don't let him move" before making a bee line to the bar.

-----

Justin stared at JC hard. He noticed how his friend was shifting uncomfortably, he had even stole one of the shots on the table and coughed it down. He glanced at his other friend. He was obliviously looking at some chick. He looked back at JC. He jumped. "Ok, something's going on."

JC hit Chris in the shoulder and gave him a serious look. "So what's up Chris how you doin."

"Great great, you JC, anything new going on in your world."

"Not much. You see that football game the other day."

'Yeah, um, what about those giants."

"Yeah..what about them..."

Justin watched their faces and listened to their voices clearly, dissecting everything. He finally slammed his palm down on the table shook his head. "Ok, shut the fuck up both of you. What the HELL are you doing. You are acting like freaks. Like...like you are keeping something from me. What is it. I swear to God I'm Leaving if you do not tell me."

Chris coughed a little and said, "Um, we um...we were gonna have the DJ announce its your birthday."

JC looked at him and pointed, like he had said a good idea. "YEAH!"

Justin hit the back of Chris's head. "No you weren't. That's gay. What's really going on!?!"

"Nothing." JC forced a smile.

He stared at them a while and finally scoffed, gulped down some of his beer and stood off the chair and started to leave. "Aight, I'm out. Later."

JC stood up and blocked Justin's path. "Justin no."

"MOVE JOSH! Go find your girlfriend. Look I can see..." Justin's eyes had caught Christina's sparkly silver top near the bar from where he was. "..her.." But it also caught someone else."..from.." Someone he didn't think he was gonna see for a while. "..here."

Before he knew it he was pushing JC out of the way, drowning out the calls for him to come back and speed walking as best as he could in the crowd to get to her.

And then he was there, standing right behind her, staring at her back.

The burgundy top she was wearing had rode up on her back a little and her light khakis had rode down and he could see the lower portion of her back. He wanted to reach out and touch her there, but he knew he didn't have the right.

He also noticed how long she had let her hair get. Usually if it got that long she scheduled an emergency hair appointment. She liked it kinda long but this was halfway down her back.

Chris was perched on the barstool beside her, and when she turned and saw him her eyes widened and she started whispering to Meredith.

But she never turned around.

"Hey." He said. It was quiet. He would have laughed at himself if the situation were different. There was no way she could hear that soft of voice in a room that loud.

She might have had trouble hearing it if they were alone.

Soon Chris slid off her barstool and motioned for him to take her space before someone else did. He didn't think, just walked there and sat down.

She didn't notice him at all. He noticed the tall empty glass which looked like it had some kinda red liquid in it, in front of her. Her head was tilted down.

The bartender came over and asked if he wanted anything, he shook his head no and then he went over to Meredith to ask if she wanted anything. She ordered something else and Justin found the perfect opportunity to show his presence.

He reached for his wallet and pulled out a 5 and plopped it on the counter in front of her.

The bartender smiled at him, took the money and started to make her drink.

"I was wondering if you were gonna come talk to me."

"W- what?"

He looked over at her sharply and she didn't make a move to look at him, just lifted her head and stared straight at the many bottles of liquor that were sitting behind the bar.

"I knew something was up when Christina bypassed the Cantina and brought me here. Everyone knows this is our bar, this is where we go. Plus I saw your car in the parking lot. And Chris came over earlier and said hi. I figured you'd be out parting for your birthday."

"I don't know. I'm not much into drinking or partying tonight."

She rolled her eyes. "hmmm."

"I'd kinda rather just go someplace and talk."

"Then go." She scoffed at him, and acted like he was some dumb fool. It was working, he sure felt that way.

He leaned over a little and could smell the perfume that she always wore. "I mean with you."

"We're talking NOW aren't we." She nodded at the bartender and took a huge gulp of her drink that was placed in front of her.

"Come on, why don't we go someplace private, where we can be alone. I'd like to talk to my wi-"

She cut him off. "Don't go there. I see what it is." Her eyes moved to his and he saw how distant they were. They were the eyes of a stranger.

"What?"

"Alone eh? You're so transparent." She laughed bitterly. And that pizza he had had early was surely churning.

"What are you talking about?"

"The whole reason you came over here Justin. Need a little ass on your birthday eh?"

His ears started to ring and his face burned. He turned to her and asked in a harsh whisper. "What.."

Her eyes narrowed in on him. "Figure you're precious wife will give you a nice long birthday fuck eh? Or maybe you'd rather have it fast."

His eyes turned away. She had gone too far. "I cant believe you just said that."

"Well believe it."

"Why are you acting like this?"

She talked with her hands, only something she did when she was excited or angered. "Why are you talking to me? Weren't you gonna wait for me to come bother you. You didn't see me approach you. I was fine by myself."

He had had enough. He couldn't take her mind games or her attitude. He stood off the stool, bent to kiss her cheek roughly and growled out. "You're exactly right. Sorry I bothered you. Have a perfect fuckin night."

With that he turned, and walked away. Back Forward