y/n: your name

l/n: last name

tws: swearing, drinking, mild description of an anxiety attack

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y/n's pov *

"applebee's...?" george asked, trailing off as he stared at the neon red sign.

"why applebee's of all places?" nick added, equally confused.

"guys, guys, just trust the process. applebee's is great," i explained, shutting the car door and stepping out into the parking lot, my feet unsteady on the particularly rocky flooring. i was shamelessly overdressed for the occasion in my favorite formal outfit: the strawberry dress. had i bought the knock-off version on a whim after growing obsessed with cottagecore threads on twitter? yes. had i had no suitable occasion to wear it to and worn it to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon instead? yes. was applebee's the closest thing to a proper setting for me to wear the strawberry dress since i never left my house for actual parties? you guessed it: yes.

"i didn't think i would ever get drunk at an applebee's, yet here we are," clay said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"me neither," nick said, raising his eyebrow suggestively. he was only joking, but he was inadvertently opening himself up to a whole lot of bullying from the three of us.

"can it sippy cup, i'm ordering you an apple juice once we get inside," i said, narrowing my eyes at him with a smug smile.

"okay seriously though, do you think they'd even card me? if anything they'll card george."

"it's literally so unfair, i'm older than all of you," he complained, crossing his arms as the uncanny chill of the night seeped into his sweater.

"you just have a baby face gogy." nick pinched his cheek and george swatted him away. as their bickering faded to the background, clay sidled up next to me, bumping my shoulder with his.

"you look really pretty," he said, and i looked up at him with an affectionate smile.

"why thank you," i replied, my heartbeat thumping quicker as the words escaped my lips. i swished the skirt of my dress back and forth to distract myself from getting nervous talking to him. everybody be cool, it was just a normal night. "you look really handsome," i managed to say, and i meant it. damn did he look good. he was wearing the same style of casual jeans he usually did, but with a button down shirt that hugged his form ever so slightly, revealing the very subtle outline of his muscles. the light from the streetlamps washed him in a soft golden glow, accentuating the dirty blond of his slightly messy hair. his eyes were perpetually creased at the corners from the slightly asymmetrical dimpled smile that i had fallen in love with the first moment he turned on his webcam in that discord call a month ago.

"you think so?" he asked, rubbing his hand to the back of his neck with a shy chuckle that made my heart melt. "i tried to dress up a little, but i think you outdid me there."

"in all fairness, outdoing you wasn't hard mr. i-wear-the-same-sweatshirt-and-jeans-everyday," i teased.

"i told you, they're different jeans!"

"that's getting harder and harder to believe." i bumped his shoulder with mine and he reciprocated the gesture. every moment i was close to him sent an electric jolt through my body.

before the moment could linger for too long, nick and george brought us out of our own little world as they opened the doors to applebee's, the restaurant greeting us with overplayed pop songs and the smell of greasy finger food. it was exactly what i was craving.

a waitress welcomed our group at the entryway and led of to a small private booth tucked into the back. the lighting was suboptimal but set the mood of whatever tonight's chaos was going to be with a dimmed atmosphere surrounded by intimate shadows. i slid into the seat next to clay, nick directly across from me and george on my diagonal, and opened up the menu to skim the options for food and, more importantly, drinks.

i set my menu down after a few seconds of looking and crossed my arms, resting my elbows on the edge of the table as i watched my friend's furrow their brows as they read.

"you already know what you want?" nick asked, amazed.

"yeah, easy. fried green beans and fiesta lime chicken," i rolled of my order to him.

"fried green beans?" george repeated.

"yeah, it's the best appetizer here, hands down."

he shook his head and went back to reading the menu.

"you know, i think i'm gonna get the same thing as you," nick said, closing his menu.

"make it three then," clay added, following his example.

george looked up from the laminated pages, eyes wide. "well now i would just feel left out," he said, closing the menu and pushing it to the center of the table.

"what are you guys drinking though?' nick asked.

"that's a good question sippy cup." i tapped my finger to my chin and pulled out my phone. "gah, there's this really good drink i can't remember the name of, hang on." i opened google to type a description of what i was thinking of, but got distracted by an ambush of twitter notifications that made it impossible to focus. they flooded my screen one after the other, blurry to the point of unreadability. dread settled in the pit of my gut. i glanced up at the boys engrossed in their conversations and hesitantly opened up the app, half expecting fake drama or a cancel attempt, but it wasn't. it was so much worse than that.

peep u/n's face reveal lolol. her real name is y/n l/n and she lives on 6 bayberry ave. in brooklyn, ny sorry not sorry to expose

attached to the tweet was a thread of pictures of me, some from high school, some from my childhood, and some from a youtube account i had made when i was really little to make craft videos. i clicked off my phone immediately and put it in my lap, scared to scroll through the replies. all i knew was that there were a lot of them. i thanked every star in the sky that i had moved and that address had become irrelevant, but all the other details were jarringly accurate, which shook me to my core.

i stared down at the table, my thoughts blurring together into incoherency and my breathing hitching in my throat. i could feel my body slipping into shakiness, a cold chill that rattled my bones, and i wanted so badly to curl up into a ball and plead for it to pass, but i couldn't. i was in a restaurant surrounded by people, crammed into a small booth next to clay, bumping legs with nick across from me. i prayed they wouldn't pick up their phones and see the tweet.

a tender touch on my hand drew me from my thoughts, and i struggled to make eye contact with clay as he leaned in close to whisper. nick and george were too wrapped up in a continuation of their conversation from earlier to notice anything was wrong, and they completely missed our quiet exchange.

"are you okay?" clay asked softly, eyes searching my face.

i nodded and forced a smile. "i'm okay."

he traced circles on my hand with his thumb, slowly easing my nerves from calamity. "are you sure?"

i nodded again, urging myself to take a deep breath. "we can talk about it later."

he smiled weakly and hesitantly reached to wrap his arm around me, and when i didn't say anything in protest, he relaxed into it, gently rubbing my arm as he draped over my shoulders.

i leaned into him, the reassurance bringing me warmth and comfort. i could have fallen asleep like that if it weren't for the tacky pop music and loud diners, so instead i slipped into relaxation, the anxieties of the tweet slowly turning from a loud drum beat to a steady hum in the back of my head. i did everything in my power to silence it out.

"did you guys pick your drinks?" i managed to ask nick and george, who stopped their argument to answer.

"nick is telling me i should get a beer, but i don't know," george said, shrugging.

"do it! channel the frat bro energy, bro," i said, shaking off some of my nervousness with a joke. clay continued to rub my arm, assuring they would stay away, and i exhaled slowly.

"yeah bro, just like, do it bro," nick added, bumping george with his shoulder.

"oh god, no, you do the chad voice too well. i'm scared that's just, like, your real voice you're hiding from us."

"okay, no, now look, y'all know my real voice sounds just like this," he countered, smothering his usual accent with a really emphasized country one that sent us all into a wheezing fit.

in the midst of our laughter, our waitress hesitantly approached our table, drawing a notepad from the pocket in her apron. "hi.. sorry if i'm interrupting! i'm marina and i'll be taking care of you today. are you guys ready to order yet or do you need a minute?"

clay cleared his throat. "no, we're ready. we made it easy. four fiesta lime chickens and an order of fried green beans. and.. three beers?" he asked, looking to us for approval.

"and four waters, please. i can only handle a certain level of your drunk idiocy," nick added.

the waitress laughed. "okay, sounds good. anything else?"

"can you bring out some shots?" i asked, smoothing a napkin across my lap.

"we're doing shots?" george looked me with wide eyes.

"i told you we were gonna party," i joked lightly, masking my ulterior motives of drinking away my pain.

marina laughed again. "that would be no problem. i'll be back with your drinks in a minute—"

"oh, wait, one more thing, sorry!" i added, grabbing her attention before she walked away.

"sure, what's up?" she asked, clicking her pen again.

"it's my friend here's birthday—" i started, patting clay on the shoulder.

"it's not—" he interrupted.

"— so i was wondering if you could hook us up with an ice cream scoop after the meal?"

"oh, no problem! can i get a name for the song?"

"we don't need a song—"

"— clay." i smiled at the waitress and then at clay, who looked at me with a bewildered stare.

"okay! i'll put your order in and be back with your drinks in a minute," marina said, and picked the menus up off the table before whisking away through a door in the back of the restaurant.

when she was long out of view, everybody looked at me like i had gone crazy. i shook my head and clicked my tongue. "don't look at me like that, it's not the full applebee's experience if you don't have the song."

"why couldn't you have at least made nick the birthday boy?" clay whined.

"because i knew he would enjoy it too much," i smiled, balling up a straw wrapper and flicking it at him.

"exactly. i'm hurt you didn't pick me," he said, flicking it back.

i pointed at him as he proved my point correct. "i'm looking to incite chaos, not spark joy."

"you confuse me."

"good."

marina brought out our drinks soon after, sliding a plate with a row of shots in the middle next to the basket of fried green beans. i picked up two of the small glasses, raised them both in the air as cheers, and downed the contents one after the other, the alcohol burning the back of my throat like acid.

"woah! slow down! you haven't even eaten anything yet," clay advised, pushing my water glass towards me.

i rolled my eyes and took a sip, the hot fire brewing in my stomach quickly quenched by the ice cool drink. "gotta kick things off with a bang," i said simply, popping a green bean in my mouth.

"don't go too fast though," george added, eyeing me before downing his shot glass with clay, scrunching his nose.

"this tastes like piss," clay said, putting the glass down on the table and pushing it away, shaking his head. "how the fuck did you down those both?"

"with enough motivation, i can do anything," i stated matter of factly, taking a sip of beer, which admittedly tasted just as bad as the shots.

"wow, thank you for bestowing that wisdom upon us, oh wise one," nick joked, dipping a couple green beans into one of the sauces before popping them into his mouth.

"you're welcome," i shot back with a shit-eating grin, throwing a green bean at him.

marina came back about twenty minutes later with our food and slid it across the table to each of us. we practically inhaled the greasy meal, desperate to fill our stomachs with something other than shitty alcohol. after we scraped the cheesy remains of our meals off our plate, we leaned back into the cushioning of the booth, hands resting on our stuffed stomachs as we groaned nonsensical mumbles.

"i'm never eating again," nick complained, stretching his arms in the air.

"never again," i repeated breathlessly.

"oh god," clay stated plainly.

"it hit you that fast?"

"no, i—" he ducked his head, leaning closer to me and shielding his face with his hand.

"oh, hi," i giggled, staring at him as we met each other's eyes between the close distance. the alcohol made him a little fuzzier than normal, but i could still make out the faint sun freckles that dotted his cheeks nonetheless. words seemed to float on the tip of my tongue though, words like "you're cute" and "are we about to kiss right now" mere seconds from slipping, but i bit them back, taking a sip of my water to sober up.

nick furrowed his brows and looked in the direction clay kept darting his eyes to.

"no, don't turn around idiot!" he said, grabbing his arm and tugging him forward.

he ignored him and turned around anyway, his eyes scanning the dimly lit seating area of the restaurant. a huge grin plastered on his face when he saw what was of interest, and he looked back at clay with a mischievous smile. "oh."

"oh?" i repeated, looking around the room but not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

"oh ho ho," nick egged on.

"stop it! stop making noise! she's gonna recognize you!" clay said, practically putting his head down on the table.

"she?" i questioned.

nick leaned in close, steepling his fingers beneath his chin with a scheming look on his face. "y/n, if you look behind me and to my right, you will see clay's hot ex having dinner with a gentlemen in the two seater booth."

"she's not that hot, okay—" clay argued, still hiding his face.

"oh she's HOT! what the fuck, how'd you convince somebody like that to date you!" i joked, and he poked me in the side, resting his forehead on my shoulder.

"please hide me, i beg."

i patted his arm sympathetically.

"don't sweat it, it looks like they're getting the check anyway," george said, stealing a glance over his shoulder before taking a sip of his drink.

"thank god," clay muttered into my dress.

"can i have everyone's attention please!" a loud voice called from a high point in the restaurant. "we have a birthday in the house today!"

"oh no," we all said in unison.

"everybody turn your attention to that group over there and sing along with our happy birthday wishes to clay!"

a rhythmic clapping emerged from the back of the restaurant, and soon more people joined in until their was a parade of employees marching towards our table, wooing enthusiastically. when they reached our table, they all took one deep breath and, despite our attempts to call them off, started singing at the tippy top of their lungs, waving their arms to encourage diners to join in. it was slow at first, but the song quickly built, and soon everyone in the restaurant had their eyes on our table. "happy happy birthday, from all of us to you, we wish it was our birthday so we could party too! hey!"

marina slid a small cup with a single scoop of vanilla ice cream and a sad, melted pink candle in front of clay. he looked at it with a blank stare, and the employees waited expectantly for him to blow it out. after a few seconds and a suggestive hand gesture from us, he huffed once, extinguishing the flame, and the waiters and waitress celebrated with one last hoorah before dispersing back to their designated tables. we all forced smiles as we thanked them for the song and the dessert, hiding our faces from the curious onlookers that were spectating our table.

we stayed speechless as we stared at the cup of ice cream, the silence of the restaurant slowly turning back to normal conversations and clinking silverware.

nick finally spoke up. "maybe she didn't notice?"

clay met him with a blank stare, eyes narrowed as he looked like he was about to leap across the table and strangle him.

"she's coming over, red alert, she's coming over," george said, sliding farther down into the booth.

"oh my god, no, this isn't happening," nick said, eyes darting between the approaching ex and clay. he pointed a finger at him determinedly. "i will not have you look lame! you are his new hot girlfriend," he said as if it was obvious, moving his finger to point it at me.

i choked on my drink. "i'm what?"

"please you already fit the part," nick said, gesturing his hands wildly at the arm draped around my shoulder. "please, please, please, please, please," he begged, "just pretend for like two seconds and then you will be designated the best wingman ever, i promise."

i looked from him to clay to the ex. "i am not drunk enough for this," i stated before kicking back another shot just as the dreaded woman of the hour approached our table.

nick was right about her though, she was the hot ex. she had on a simple black top and low waisted jeans, styled perfectly with rings, necklaces, and a simple black bag. her black hair was short and bobbed, and she ran her manicured nails through it, which brought my attention to her perfectly winged eyeliner and the single mole below her left eye.

"i didn't know it was august 12th today," she said as she approached our table, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before clasping it around her purse. "hi."

"hi." clay responded, practically holding his breath as he stared at her.

she smiled briefly and turned her attention to the other people at our table. "nick, george. it's good to see you."

"yes, good to see you," nick said, nodding his head vigorously.

finally, she turned to me, her soft brown eyes kind but assessing. "i don't think we've met before. i'm naomi. this is my boyfriend, ethan."

"hi," he said plainly, nodding his head once and giving a brief wave, seeming just as uncomfortable as the rest of us.

"y/n," i stated with a forced smile. i turned to clay for a brief moment to look for confirmation, but he was staring straight ahead. i looked back at naomi. "i'm clay's girlfriend."

her smile brightened. "oh, that's cute! good for you guys. i love your dress by the way," she complimented.

"oh, thanks! it's a knock-off," i laughed nervously.

"really? where'd you get it from? i wouldn't have been able to tell."

"oh!" i said again, kind of shocked by her responses, "i got it from a thrift store in new york. sorry, i don't remember the name." i shook my head, waving my hands as i spoke.

"it's all good! that's a lucky find then. are you from new york?"

"yeah! i moved there after high school."

"oh, that's cool! i lived there for a little while too."

"really? what part?"

"brooklyn."

"same!" i gasped, feeling like i had found my soulmate in a sea of floridian men. "oh my god, we totally could have passed each other before."

"seriously though!" she laughed. "where did you live exactly?"