Drunk Dial

"I'm going to create a diary entry about this so that next time I decide to move, I can go back, read it, and laugh in my own face," Ash remarked, collapsing on our brand new (read: CraigsList find) couch, her blonde hair twisted up into a messy knot. 

"Agreed," I said, wiping sweat off my forehead. "But get up, you're sweating all over the suede."

Ash reached over for a pillow and halfheartedly tossed it in my general direction, missing me by a good four feet. We had spent the last eight hours moving things from her storage unit and my studio all the way down to the West Village, and had just finally finished. Even though we had hired movers, it ended up being a lot more work than we had anticipated. Now we stood in the overcrowded apartment, faced with the daunting task of unpacking everything we had spent all week boxing. 

"Food first," I said, scanning the boxes that were lining the walls of what would, eventually, be our living room.

"Yes," Ashley said, sliding off of the couch to join me in my seated position on the wooden floor. "And since we burned roughly 9,000 calories today, I vote pizza."

I nodded my head and opened up the Seamless app to order. As I was selecting pepperoni as a topping, the screen switched to an incoming call from Dylan. Standing up, I strode down the hall to my new bedroom to take the call.

"Hey," I said, flopping down onto the bare mattress. 

"Hey sexy, you guys about finished with the move?" I heard his rough voice reply, and although it hadn't even been a week yet I realized how much I missed him. 

"Yep, just about to order dinner," I replied. Dylan had graciously offered to come up and help us with the move, but I turned him down not wanting him to see me a sweaty, grunting mess just yet. "What are you doing tonight?"

"It's Mike's birthday, so we're going to head over to Lit a little later," he said, referring to a nightclub in Philly.

"Oh," I replied, picturing half naked girls dancing all over him. "Well have fun," I said, picking at a stray thread hanging off the mattress. 

"I miss you, ya know," he said, lowering his voice. I smiled in spite of myself.

"Me too." 

"Well have a fun night unpacking, I'll text you later," he said. I returned his goodbyes before clicking off the phone. As I walked back out to the living room, I completed the pizza order in the Seamless app. 

"Okay, where should we start?" I asked Ash, who was still fetal on the floor.

"At a bar with martinis?" she joked, and I smiled down at her, walking over into the tiny kitchen. Digging around a bit, I unearthed a bottle of wine from the old apartment. 

"Here," I said, handing her the screw-cap bottle. "Luckily we don't need an opener, since I have no idea which box that is in." 

Ash unscrewed the cap and took a long swig directly from the bottle. I gave her a judgmental look. 

"What!" she defended, "If you know where anything resembling a cup is packed, lets see it."

"Probably the box you so astutely labeled "kitchenware"," I remarked, reaching for the bottle to take a swig of my own.

"Yes, but lord knows where that box is," she replied, scanning the room. 

Two hours, half a pizza, and another bottle of wine later, Ash and I had completed both the living room and the bathroom. We had even managed to hook up our TV and the 17 boxes that come with it to enable cable and internet. 

"I think I've had about as much unpacking as I can handle for one evening," I said, collapsing onto the couch.

"Agreed," Ash replied, curling up on the opposite end with the wine bottle in hand (we still hadn't located the cups). "Should we go out?" she asked, and I glanced at the numbers on my screen. 11:45.

"Honestly, I'm so gross and tired, I'd rather just stay here and watch a movie or something," I said, very aware of the layer of grime that had settled on every inch of my skin. 

"Okay, well there's a RedBox a block over, why don't I go see if they have anything good while you shower," she offered.

"Deal."

After I was squeaky clean and Ash had snatched up The Other Woman from RedBox, we were lounging on our new couch watching Leslie Mann try to take down Cameron Diaz. They were just driving into the Hamptons to try and catch the third woman that Leslie's husband was screwing, when my phone went off. 

"Who is calling you so late?" Ash asked without tearing her eyes from the screen. 

"Dylan," I replied, scooping up the phone and heading back into my bedroom.

"Hello?" I asked, greeted by the sound of what sounded like a party in the background.

"Hey baby," Dylan's voice was nearly inaudible on the other end. He had never drunk dialed me before, this was definitely new. But then again everything was new right now, since I had owned cartons of milk longer than I had known Dylan.

"Hey, are you still out?" I asked loudly.

"Nah we're back at my place, the club was lame so we moved the party back here," he said, slurring his words every so slightly. I heard a girl squeal in the background and my mind instantly jumped to Kara.

"Oh, that sounds fun," I replied, unsure of why he was calling me at 1:30 a.m. when he clearly had a million people in his house.

"It'd be more fun if you were here baby," he crooned. This was officially two more "babys" than he had ever used on me. 

"I know, I wish I was with you too," I said with a smile that I knew he couldn't see.

"Dylan!" I heard a girl's voice in the backdrop. "Come back!" 

"Sounds like you're wanted," I said flatly.

"Nah it's just Kara," he replied nonchalantly. 

"She's there?" I said, raising my voice. 

"She's always around, we have the same friends. I figured it is better if you knew that, you know, honesty and stuff," his words were becoming more jumbled as the conversation went on. So he called me just to tell me Kara was at his house? Was that what he thought I meant when I told him no more lying? 

"Okay.." I trailed.

"Danielle I want you to be my girlfriend," Dylan said suddenly, and it took me about 10 seconds before I realized I didn't invent that he had just said that. Half of me was elated, and the other half was pissed that he had to drunk dial me in order to say that.

"Can you say something?" he persisted, when I still hadn't spoken.

"I want that too..." I heard myself say. "But not when you're drunk."

"Fine," he said, sounding irritated. This call had been less than 3 minutes long and I was already finding I did not like the drunk-dialing Dylan. 

"Call me tomorrow?" I asked sweetly, hoping to make up for whatever I had said to make him so mad. He couldn't possibly believe I'd want to start a real relationship via a drunken phone conversation.

"Yeah," he said. 

"I miss you," I added.

"Me too, babe," he said, before I heard the line go dead.