They basked in the toasty warmth of one of many bars they had come across, lounging on the ridiculously comfortable leather sofas after having come in from an outside bar. Lori returned from the bar with four glasses of rum and cola, only to have to return to the bar to grab the vodka shots she had left behind.
As she finally sat down, Rachel laughed.
“You're certainly not holding back are you”.
“Time waits for no one, babes. Get those shots down your system”, Lori insisted.
“God, I am so going to regret this tomorrow… quite possibly even tonight”.
“I'll look after you, now drink!”
“You?” Rachel gulped down the shot and winced. “You'll probably find it difficult just to see straight, how the hell are you going to be able to look after me?”
“I'll think about that, you just concern yourself with having fun”.
“Excuse me”, a guy and his friend interrupted the pair, “Are these seats free?”
“Yeah, we're only using this one”, Lori replied, pointing towards the seat where Rachel sat.
“Okay, thanks”, he replied and took a seat with his friend, placing his beer on the table they all shared.
Lori returned her attention to Rachel.
“Better hurry up and drink those two”.
“Can't we just stay here until we're ready to hit the club? It's warm”, Rachel moaned.
“We still have four more bars to hit”.
“Ugh…”
As they sipped their drinks, Lori took interest in the familiar accent of one of the guys.
“Are you both Australian?” She asked.
“Me? No”, one of the guys chuckled, “I'm from the great southeast London, he is though”, he replied, referring to his friend.
“Oh, I've always liked the Australian accent”, Lori admitted, much to the curiosity of Rachel and to the guys.
“Oh really? Have yer been?” The Australian guy replied.
“No, never, but I hope one day I'll be able to. It's on my bucket list”.
“How are you going to do that without getting on a plane?” Rachel asked her.
Lori hushed her with a hand gesture.
“Go, you'll love it”, the guy replied.
“Really?”
“Certainly, you have my word”.
“Convince me”, Lori replied cheekily, taking a seat opposite them and next to Rachel.
They discussed the thrills of Australia and the stereotypes, which the guy was quick to shoot down as nothing more than unfounded paranoia. Needless to say, they had gotten deterred from their original plan and it wasn't until deep into their conversations did they remember that they hadn't even introduced themselves.
“I just realised I hadn't even given you my name. Sorry, I'm not with it today”, the Australian guy declared.
Lori chuckled.
“Well it's not as though we had either, so you're good. I'm Lori and this is Rachel”, she replied, turning to her girlfriend.
“Are you two…?”
“Us two what?” Lori retorted, knowing full well what he was implying, but choosing to tease him a little.
“You know… together, lady and lady”.
“Are you implying that we look like… lesbians?”
“Sorry if I'm wrong, you two were just…”
“Just what?”
“Just giving off serious vibes. You know what, ignore me, I'm an idiot. I should learn when to shut my mouth sometimes”.
Rachel and Lori burst into hysterics. When they had finally managed to compose themselves, Rachel spoke first.
“No, ignore her, she's just pulling your leg. Yeah we're together”.
“Oh, that's cool, I have nothing against… you know, I'm not homophobic or anything, I'm totally cool with it”.
“Why do people always do that?” Lori questioned between laughter, “you don't have to validate your acceptance, we can work that out plenty through your actions alone”.
“Okay, fair play, but let's not forget that a few minutes ago you believed the stereotypes about Australia”.
“Touché. So what about you, what's your names?”
“Tristan and this is my friend, Kunal”.
Introductions out of the way and further into tipsy conversation, they for some reason got onto the topic of close encounters with death. Tristan started things off with a harrowing story about how he narrowly escaped an intense forest fire and Lori followed up with one about drowning in a swimming pool at the tender age of nine and being technically dead for all of two long minutes. Unable to match either of those two seat gripping stories, Rachel was left recalling a weak story about choking on a bone. Regardless of how much she was convinced she was going to die, the others couldn't help but laugh at how mild sauce it was, like it was a badge of pride to almost lose your life.
“Well I'm sorry for not having come close to death’s door like you guys, death just has less need for me than you”, she protested.
It was Kunal’s turn to think of one.
“This one is going to creep you the fuck out. So three years ago my girlfriend and I were at this fucking live festival out in the country. It was amazing, drinking, music, weed, you name it. Some people we knew were there and we met some peeps there too. We were completely out of it most of the time, hardly knew what was going on. Anyway, police must have got wind of the rave because they came in, but hear this before you think oh damn, because when I tell you, you'll wish they arrived sooner. So even from early that night people were vanishing without a trace, but everyone was so fucked that it was easy to just assume that people probably wandered into the woods or tried to make their way home or something, but then we heard screaming and not the normal drug induced, having a fucking good time sort of screaming, I'm talking full blown terror filled, holy shit sort of screaming. So naturally people went to check it out. No word of a lie, there was this guy bleeding like a fucking fountain
