Chapter 1 - Going out

"What the...."
Sarah slowly opened her eyes. She was still sleeping off the remainder of her hangover from the night before, but her phone was buzzing like crazy. After fumbling around for a few minutes, she managed to find it on the floor.
"Great. 5% battery." She muttered to herself. "Must not have thought it was important enough to plug in my friggin phone last night." She reached over for her charger and plugged it in. It made the familiar beep, telling her that it was getting power. "Okay, so who the hell is trying to call me at... Oh. I guess 2 in the afternoon isn't really that early..." She said as she unlocked her phone. She scrolled over to her missed calls. It was one of her best friends from high school, Briana. She pressed the call button. "Heyyy! Long time no see!" She heard the familiar voice, nearly shouting, on the other end of the line. "Yeah, sorry I missed your call. I was kinda sleeping off a bit of a hangover. So what's up?" She asked. "Well, I'm back from college for the weekend, and figured maybe you would like to go to the pool hall tonight? Grab a few drinks with some guys from high school? I already got Cody and Zach. They're in."
"Yeah, sure. Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?"
"Oh, Josh? The guy from Facebook? I mean, sure. I've really been looking forward to meeting him!" Briana was nearly shouting again. She was the kind of person to get really excited really easy, and has a lot of trouble controlling it.
"Uh, okay then. I guess I'll see you there. I think we will probably get there around 9:30ish."
"OKAY GREAT!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!" and with that, she hung up.
"Uhhhh.. Why does she have to be so freaking loud? I mean I swear she was doing that crap on purpose." Sarah climbed out of bed dressed in nothing more that some yoga pants and her bra. As she made her way into the bathroom, she noticed her side was a bit sore. Looking into the mirror, she saw a light bruise on her right hip. "Man, what did I do last night???" She began to look over the rest of her body. She was 24 years old, still in her party phase. At about 5'6", she was what you would hear referred to as "thick". She was about 160 lbs, but most of her weight was in her hips and thighs. Her stomach, while not toned, was flat, with modest B cup breasts. She had very soft features to her face, light pink lips, hazel-green eyes, and slightly rounded cheeks. Her hair was it's natural color for once, a dark strawberry blonde cut to just above her shoulders. She wasn't a girl that you look at and went, "Damn, she's HOT!" She was one of those girls you saw and thought, "Man, she's really cute."
Sarah had finally finished her after party inspection of her body, and decided on a red plaid button down shirt for now. As she walked out of her room, she immediately smelled something burning. "What the hell is going on????" She ran out toward the kitchen, noticing the oven was on. "Shit!" She exclaimed as she ran over, shutting the oven off. She pulled open the door and saw the charred remnants of about 2 dozen chicken nuggets. She grabbed an oven mitt, pulled the tray out, and threw it out the back door. "Well, that tray is ruined." She thought to herself. "JOSH!" She yelled out. "Josh, where the hell are you?" The two had moved in together about a week ago, so him not being in bed with her when she woke up was something unusual. After searching around the house for about 15 minutes, she still had not found him. Sarah went back to her room, picking up her phone from the night stand. She unlocked it and dialed her boyfriend.
"Hello?"
Sarah had to double check to make sure she had dialed the correct number. Sure enough, she had called Josh, but this wasn't Josh picking up. This was the voice of a woman.
"WHO THE HELL IS THIS?!?!" Sarah yelled into the phone, causing her head to throb slightly.
"Me? Who is this? You called MY phone!" Said the unknown woman.
"You're phone? This is my boyfriend's number! Now who are you, and where is he?"
A few silent seconds went past, then the woman came back on the line. "Your boyfriend, huh? Well well. Guess Josh has some explaining to do."
"Sarah, listen, I can explain..." Josh had finally come to the phone.
"Really??? You're going to lead with that? The f**king movie line?" Sarah was beginning to spin scenarios around in her mind. What had happened? How did he leave? Who was she?
"Look, just let me get home, and I'll tell you what happened."
"Fine, but you have 2 hours to get here, or just don't come back at all."
Sarah hung up the phone and looked around, noticing that the smell from the burnt chicken hadn't exactly gone out the door with the tray. "Ugh. This is just great. Absolutely awesome." She went around opening all the windows, lighting candles, anything to try to get the smell to go away. Finally, after she finally got the smell to settle down, she sat down on the couch with a bottle of yoohoo. As soon as she took her first sip, a car pulled into the driveway. She heard the door close, and shortly after Josh came through the door.
"Well," Sarah said. "I'm waiting for my explanation."
"Look, Sarah, I'm sooo sorry. I guess I got too drunk and ended up leaving with Darrick and his wife. We have the same phone, so they got mixed up at the house. I swear nothing happened, I slept on the lawn..."
Sarah had to stifle a laugh. "The lawn? Really, Josh?"
"So you're not mad at me?" Josh asked, with a bit of caution in his voice.
"Well, I guess not. I just wish Allana had told me it was her instead of trying to make it sound like something happened!" Sarah had known Allana, Darrick's wife, to have a twisted sense of humor, but this was pushing it. "Well, just so you know, we're meeting Briana and some other old friends at Rickoshet tonight."
"Okay, yeah, I guess I'll go get cleaned up." And with that, Josh set off for the shower.