He wasn't sure what happened to his quiet Thursday evening. It was supposed to be spent lazing on the couch, beer in hand, sports section of the newspaper in the other, video game queued up, burrito micro waved, hot and ready to be devoured. Instead, he was listening to the shitstorm that was Schmidt stampeding through the apartment, demanding he be his wingman to some event-concert-party-networking-whatever-I-don't-care-because-I'm-not-going thing. Ten minutes and a clean black Henley thrown in the face later, Schmidt had said the magic words of, "open bar," and Nick found himself in the passenger seat of Schmidt's car listening to the man babble about his latest conquest.

"Her name is Cece, she's the youngest VP of marketing the company has ever had. She used to be a model and she will be mine."

"Mm-hm."

"Nick, I'm gonna need ya to really step it up tonight, wingman wise."

"Sure thing, Schmidty."

"There's going to be a lot of people that you will pretend to listen to, all while relating every topic back to me. Read through these complimentary attributes of mine and use one every 5 minutes during conversation. I've listed them alphabetically, starting with, 'abs…'" Schmidt took his hand off the wheel to reach into his suit jacket pocket and handed Nick a 3-inch thick stack of index cards. Without looking at them, Nick immediately flung them over his shoulder into the back seat.

The dummy hadn't seemed to notice as he was still talking. "Ok, so the final itinerary. Drinks and conversation from 8:00pm to 10:00pm. I have allotted two bathroom breaks. And please, Nick, don't hover around the hors d'oeuvres like a dog waiting for scraps to fall from the table…"

"I get hungry!"

They pulled into the line for the valet.

"The band goes on at 10:15pm…" Schmidt continued.

"Ugh, there's a band?"

"Yes, Nicholas, her best friend's band as a matter of fact. And you will stand there, smile, and pretend to love it while complimenting how far my core has developed since I completed Level 4 in crossfit."

Nick groaned. He was semi-okay with putting on a clean shirt and getting out of the apartment; he was really okay with an open bar event, even if it came at the cost of talking nice crap about Schmidt for an hour; but he really wasn't okay with having to sit through 45 minutes of undoubtedly shitty lady-band music.

The valet opened his door but he was too frozen from disgruntled misery to step out of the vehicle until Schmidt's shrill, "NICK!" jerked him out of it.

With a sigh and a quick slap to each cheek, he got out of the car and followed Schmidt to his doom.

6 beers, 3 hors d'ouvere table visits and 2 bathroom breaks later…

"We'd like to thank you for joining us…"

Nick saw the Indian girl Schmidt was sniffing after on stage but wasn't really paying attention to what she said as he made his way over to the hound dog himself standing by the bar.

"Heisler," Nick motioned to the bartender.

It seemed like Stacey or Seely was introducing the band and Nick was very tempted into spending money and buying a shot to push him fully into the drunk zone in order to cope with what would undoubtedly be the worst part of his evening.

"Hey, man."

"I must say, Nick. You've done an excellent job tonight. Cece has allotted me 24 minutes of her time thus far."

"So can we go?" He asked eagerly.

"Nick, this is the most important part. Complementing the target's best friend. Her interests are now my interests. And as wingman, your interests as well. So take a seat, smile and throw in a few head bobs – oh God she's coming back. Scram."

Nick took a heavy swig from his beer, gave Cece a fleeting smile as she made her way to Schmidt and slouched down onto an empty bar stool. He watched the crowd turn their focus to the stage as the lights dimmed.

When the lights came back on, the band was on stage, strumming into their first song and Nick's eyes zeroed in on the lead singer. She was a pale, thin girl in a cream colored dress with a sort of fish netting draped over her. Musicians were weird, man, Nick thought. She had wild dark brunette hair that fell well passed her shoulders and thick bangs over her eyes…her very blue eyes. Geez, even from his vantage point in the back, Nick could make out the electric blue color of them. They practically burned into him, shining bright with her clear passion for being on stage.

For the next fifty minutes, Nick's eyes didn't leave the stage. If he'd been able to see himself, he might have been pissed to see the sort of dreamy open-mouthed smile on his face and what was that? Was he bobbing his head…to the beat….to every song? Yes. Yes he was. And he'd deny it if you asked him, but his stomach definitely jolted every time he though he made eye contact with the lead singer.

He was shocked out of his paranoid concentration on the singer when Schmidt smacked his shoulder.

"Ugh, I'm sorry for dragging you to this stupid stupid event, Nick. It was obviously a huge waste of a time."

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Boyfriend?"

"Yes, and they're very happy together and she can't imagine a life without him and she has a friend named Nadia she thinks I'll like."

Nick nodded, half-listening to his friend's lamentation as he glanced back to the stage to see the band had finished their set.

"…and we are Holly Mason and Jess Day. Check out HollyDay dot com for future tour dates. Thank you!"

The crowd cheered and several listeners whistled. Nick put his bottle between his knees and clapped along. And it might have been in his head, some sort of weird fantasy blurring with reality; but he could swear the lead singer, Jess, had held his eye contact during the entire applause before smiling shyly and biting her lip.

"Let's get out of here. I need a stiff drink."

"Ok, buddy," Nick clapped him on the back as he moved to put his empty bottle on the bar and followed Schmidt towards the exit. He couldn't help but glance to the stage once more to see the band packing up. Cece was at the front of the stage and Jess was leaning down to do the girly-hug-squeal thing. He smiled to himself. Although he'd never admit it to Schmidt, the night hadn't been that bad at all.

And when he got home, he might have popped open his final Heisler of the night, grabbed his computer and googled the band name, 'HollyDay.' He may have clicked on the band bio, staring at the picture of Jess Day (the black and white shot was obviously from a show, she was wearing a polka dot dress, her dark hair curly and wild down her back, rocking out on a tambourine next to the male guitarist for the band – he felt weirdly jealous seeing the obvious closeness between the two). After a minute or so, his hand may have clicked on the future tour dates link.

Soon enough, it was Schmidt's turn to be wingman.

fin.

Want more of this story? Check out the continuation: "World's Best Wingwoman (The Not Tryn' to be Rude Remix)" by Ghostcat! (It's so good fellow readers - go check it out on Archive of Our Own!)

AN: So this was originally posted on tumblr with an accompanying gif and was graciously requested to be posted here. Thanks for reading!