One can of lager, a quiche, one of those ghastly all-day breakfasts in tins and a change of trousers later, Nick started trying to piece all this together. Had he been out? Was he still out? Was this the dream? Why all the flashbacks? Should he call Rachel? Should he call Matt? Where was Ben in all of this? Would Ben know who the fuck that girl was? Why did he keep pissing himself? Where had all the gin gone? But mainly, why the fuck had he eaten one of those ghastly all-day breakfasts in tins?

“First things first” thought Nick. He got up, walked into the kitchen, tore the label off the ghastly all-day breakfast tin and burnt it. “Now what?” and then it started to fall into place.
* He had been out, and was now home.
* This was in fact, not a dream. Nobody, not even the terminally insane would dream about eating one of those ghastly all-day breakfasts in tins.
* The flashbacks, he concluded were due to the amount he drank, rather than anything especially religious.
On the mysterious girl – Ben might well know the girl, but he shouldn’t ask Ben just yet, in case things with Rachel didn’t work out and the girl might actually be up for it. If Ben found out Nick was interested, he’d tell the girl that Nick was a crackhead. That was his usual tatic. Hadn’t helped when Ben had told Nick’s family he was a crackhead though. On Boxing Day. In front of Nick’s grandparents. On live television. Despite Ben’s claims of “that was six months ago!” it was still a sticking point for Nick. No, it was better to keep quiet on that one, but he should at least ring Matt. Matt was notorious for never answering his phone, however. All things considered, a text message would be way more likely to get his attention. He was probably plumbed into the Internet, or trying to make a cat laugh or something.
“** COCO MESSAGE ALERT ** – Got drunk. Proposed to Rachel. Then told her to fuck off, it would appear. ** END COCO MESSAGE ALERT **”
He waited.
“** COCO MESSAGE ALERT ** – Fuck. Not so typical, then. Did you piss yourself? Have you spoken to her? ** END COCO MESSAGE ALERT **”
He chuckled to himself.
“** COCO MESSAGE ALERT ** – Yes and No. Shit. ** END COCO MESSAGE ALERT **”
Matt replied. It summed it up, really. “Fuck. I’ll ring her for you. Shall I come over?”
Nick shot back “I think your Coco message alerts are fucked. If you could find out what the fuck I did, that’d be a start.”
“Will do.” and with that, Nick had a brief vision of getting into a taxi with that girl. Where the hell would he be going with a strange girl without at least taking a photo of the incident? A flash of panic. He checked his phone. No photos. “Shit”
He really needed to work out who this girl was. He didn’t know her at all, but maybe she worked in a place he’d been? Like a barmaid or something. He would have noticed her though, that’s the thing. He would have noticed her and he would have pointed her out to Matt and Ben. They would have all remembered her. Maybe he had to call Ben, but Ben would just fuck the whole thing up, wouldn’t he? How much damage could he actually do? After calling him a crackhead during a live TV broadcast, having him sectioned and then accidentally having him put on the sex offenders register, there was little more Ben could do to Nick.