Astrid wasn't really surprised when she saw what Heather had stuffed into the bag. Her friend was very extravagant, so it was no surprise that she'd chosen a bright blue dress and silver high heels for Astrid to wear to the party. Astrid didn't know if the party was formal or not, but she hoped it was. No one wore a dress and high heels to an informal party.

She took half an hour to prepare herself mentally to go. Hiccup's words had made her more confident, but she still was nervous. The date with Snotlout had been an impromptu date, she hadn't even known she was going to a date in the first place. Heather had just said, "Let's go dinner," but when they arrived at the restaurant, Astrid's date was already there, and Heather was already running away.

Now she knew she was being set up, which made things more difficult. She would have to act more like a normal person and less than a crazy chick who talks about her sex life with stranger waiters. It would be complicated, but Astrid was sure she was ready. She could do it. Then again, it couldn't be so difficult, could it?

She'd had boyfriends before, and not all of them had seen her weird confessor self.

"Piece of cake," she muttered to her reflection in the mirror. The dress actually suited her, and the shade she'd put in her eyes had turned out to be really pretty. The high heels were a little bit uncomfortable, but Astrid didn't plan to stand up the whole night. When she painted her lips a bright red, she was dazzlingly beautiful.

A sudden realization came to her when the doorbell rang; she wanted to do this. She was a bit frightened, yes, but she wanted to meet the guy, see if he had the pretty blond hair Heather had promised her, if his sister would truly be a good sister-in-law. Astrid wanted to drink and get drunk and kiss someone and even sleep with someone. She remembered the handsome waiter, and she wished she had asked for his name, maybe even his number. She wanted to tell him about what would happen tonight, and with a smile she realized that she also wanted to talk to him about something else—not her love life or her sex life, but about herself.

This was going to be a good night. A perfect night. She was going to fall in love with this blond, and she was going to prove Hiccup that she had found the love of her life indeed.

This was going to be the night that would change anything.

When Astrid opened the door, she was completely ready.

From outside, the house at least was incredible. There was a really huge garden—some people were lying on the grass—and a swimming pool—she wanted to hit Heather for not telling her to bring a swimsuit—but the thing that impressed Astrid the most was that there was a swing on the porch. It was the kind of swing you sat on with a book in rainy days to read while the rain poured down outside. Maybe the guy liked to read. Oh, how Astrid would love having a reading buddy. She was exhausted of talking to Hiccup about her books.

But this was not the time to be thinking about Hiccup.

"Are you ready to have SEX?" shouted Heather, and Astrid winced. Some guys chilling on the swimming pool turned to stare at them, and Astrid wanted earth to swallow her. But then one hottie winked at her—and he was blond! Maybe this was the famous blond. Maybe this— "Ugh," muttered Heather, grabbing Astrid by the arm and dragging her inside the house. "He's not outside."

"Who's he, by the way?"

"Oh?" Heather asked, eyeing Astrid with curiosity. She had black eyeliner and black eye shadow and black clothes, so she looked a little bit like a gothic, but she was gorgeous nonetheless. Beside her, Astrid looked like a lollipop. "He's inside, I guess."

Okay, thought Astrid, kind of nervous again. She felt like a rollercoaster, her emotions turning up and down and down and up. First she wasn't sure if she should come, then she felt super sure, and now she wanted to go home again. Maybe this guy was a jerk like Snotlout; Hiccup had said it himself, all of Heather's friends were weird in their own way. What if he wanted to take her hand nonstop? What if he didn't and she wanted him to? What if he didn't like her? What if he did?

Astrid was sure she was going to puke when Heather liked her arms with Astrid's and started walking to the door. She clicked her tongue and said, "You're too tense. Relax a little, girl."

"I can't," sputtered Astrid, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's okay, you've been to parties before. And Tuffnut is lovely."

Astrid stopped, and Heather almost tripped. "Who the hell is Tuffnut?" she gasped.

"Um, the lovely blond guy I—"

"Oh my god you've got to be kidding me." She turned around and stared at the guys in the swimming pool, and wondered if it was too late to jump into the water. "Is this the Tuffnut that went to high school with us?"

Heather looked at the guys in the swimming pool too. "Um…"

"Heather."

"He has changed a lot, you know. He's more handsome, and he's more muscular, and he's—"

"Heather!"

"He liked you so much when we were on high school!" she amended, throwing her arms on the air. Astrid was about to say something when Heather clasped a hand to her mouth. "Don't say anything. Just… come inside and see him. Maybe you like him too now that he's older. I swear, he's like fine wine. The older, the better."

Now Astrid was really freaking out.

She'd been friends with Tuffnut for five years before he started falling for her in high school. They weren't besties, but they got along well enough. Until one day, he confessed how in love he was, how much Astrid meant to him, how much he hoped she felt the same. Astrid, obviously, didn't, and when she told him so, he went berserk. He started screaming about Hiccup and how unfair it was that Astrid liked him better. And finally he shouted, "I can't believe you just friendzoned me!"

After that, Astrid stopped passing time with him and instead started to pass more time with Hiccup. Tuffnut didn't speak to her anymore, and Astrid didn't even bother to fix things with a guy that believed in the friendzone. What a guy.

And now… now she was going to be set up with him? Fate did really hate her.

"Astrid?" Heather asked, biting her lower lip.

Astrid waved her hand in the air. "Stop doing that. You're gonna ruin your lipstick."

Heather smiled. "So you're not mad?"

"I don't know yet. But you know what? I need a drink."

"Oh," Heather nudged her. "That, I can provide."

Astrid though she could be drunk.

It had been a while since she last drank like this, so she was not entirely sure. She'd lost Heather some time before—an hour ago? a few minutes? She didn't remember—but the bottle of gin—gin, among of all things; she felt the luckiest girl ever—had stayed with her. The bottle was almost empty, but Astrid wasn't sure if she'd shared it or emptied it all by herself. God, she hated forgetting things like this. It was so annoying.

She hadn't seen Tuffnut the whole night, and she was sure that it was past midnight. Maybe two o'clock. Maybe three. Astrid had been playing beerpong with the guys from the swimming pool and then truth or dare with other friendly fellas who, by the way, had seen her ass. She'd been dared to lift her dress, and she'd done it gladly.

The truth was, she was having a great time. She'd met some great people and told some more about her sex life—whoops—but she'd also danced and sang and it was all amazing. She hadn't thought about Hiccup's thigh touching hers the whole night, which was good, because it had been so weird—he was her best friend, not a prostitute, god—but she'd thought a lot about the handsome waiter and how he frowned at her and then laughed at her and then put a strand of her hair behind her ear. He was so lovely, she really wished she'd asked for his number.

She was sat on the couch, finishing her bottle of gin—one minute of silence for it—when someone sat beside her. At first she didn't recognise him, because, honestly, her gaze was a little bit blurred. But then she took a second glance and—

Great fucking god. Heather was right.

If Astrid had known how fucking handsome he would turn, she wouldn't have friendzoned him. No one would have. "Oh my god," she mumbled, touching one of his dreadlocks. "It is really you."

Tuffnut turned to look at her, and Astrid gasped. His blue eyes. Oh, she was having a heart attack. "Astrid?" he asked, his eyes as big as plates.

"Fuck!" she screamed. "You remember me."

"Yeah, of course."

She thought about something wise, interesting to say, but the only thing that came to her mind was, "I really wanna sleep with you."

Tuffnut laughed and touched her face. "I wish you'd said that years before, because—"

"Fast!" she shouted, pointing at a random guy she didn't know. "That's my ex! Kiss me to make him jealous!"

"Wait—" But he had no time to say what he wanted to say, because Astrid was already sat in his lap, her lips over his. As reluctant as he'd seemed to kiss her, oh boy was he kissing her right now. His lips were the most glorious thing she'd ever tasted. In fact, Astrid tasted vodka or gin or something with alcohol, and maybe tobacco, she didn't know.

One of his hands flew to her waist, and as much as she hated to admit it, Astrid moaned into his mouth. Then all of a sudden, Tuffnut ended the kiss and placed her on the couch again. Astrid wanted to ask what was wrong—she'd been told she was a great kisser—but before she could, Tuffnut sighed and announced, "Look, As," he rubbed the back of his neck, and Astrid knew she was about to her something she was not going to like. "I know I was an asshole in school for telling you you'd friendzoned me, but I realized… um…"

She stared dumbfounded at him when he said, "I'm gay."

"Oh," Astrid mumbled, still looking at him. Then, she said, louder, "OH." She closed her mouth and opened it again. "RIGHT. THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE." She didn't know how that made a lot of sense, but it seemed the right thing to do. It was the thigh everyone said when someone told them they were gay.

"I want more gin," she said at last, and Tuffnut laughed again. "But you're so handsome," she pouted. "Bye, handsome."

What the fuck am I saying? She thought to herself as she found a bottle of vodka and poured some into a plastic glass. She'd heard that mixing different types of alcohol was bad, but whatever. She stole a glance at Tuffnut and found him kissing a guy. Good for him, she though. Bad for me.

She really wanted to sleep with him. But first Astrid wanted to do something even more.

She walked out of the house to the swimming pool, where the guys were again. They were very muscular, and she wanted to sleep with them, too, but now she wasn't really in the mood. When she reached them, they cheered, "A-woman, A-woman, A-woman!" Astrid didn't know why, but she smiled nonetheless.

And then she jumped into the swimming pool.

It was refreshing, to say the least. Astrid thought that they guys had seen her ass again—they were laughing when she got out of the water, and she could've sworn that the water had lifted her dress just enough. They'd already seen it, so she decided to ignore them and walked to the porch of the door, where she sat.

Thinking in retrospective, it hadn't been such a good idea: she was now soaked up, except for her purse—she wasn't foolish enough to jump with it—and the night was chilly, and she was shivering like a pro. She could say she was sick, and anyone would believe her—even she doubted she wasn't.

She decided to call Hiccup.

It was a bad idea.

It took Astrid a few tries until he picked up the phone. He was mad, she could tell it just by the grunt she heard when he finally picked up the phone. A disturbing grunt that she hadn't heard in ages; Hiccup wasn't an angry person, she was. And hearing him angry was like hearing her singing a song—she'd sung many tonight, but he didn't have to know that. Obviously.

"Astrid, it's four a.m."

"Yeah," she said, hugging her legs, trying to keep the cold at bay. "But I just jumped into the swimming pool and Tuffnut is gay and I'm freezing and I wanted to tell you about it."

"Astrid," he gasped, maybe horrified? Astrid couldn't place that tone. She hard whispers, and she didn't know if they were directed at her or at other person… but she couldn't decipher them, so she decided that they were spoken to another person. Was Hiccup with someone? At four a.m.?

"Who's with you?" she asked, shutting him up.

"Huh? No one, why?"

"I thought I heard you—"

"You heard wrong," he snapped, but Astrid heard someone talk, and then Hiccup muttering, so low she almost didn't hear him, "Let me handle this, she's always like this." Astrid opened her mouth to ask, to protest, to say something, but he was faster, "Listen to me, where are you?"

"Don't know," she snapped back, sounding as mad as he.

She was definitely drunk, but she didn't like how he'd described her. 'She's always like this.' What? It'd been ages since she last drank. Ages. What the hell was he saying? Maybe he was talking about the situation. To him having to pick her up from a disastrous date, which was exaggerated, too. He'd only saved her from one or two horrible dates, including the one with Snotlout, so he was being a jerk no matter the case.

"You don't have to come, you know," she said, trying to sound mad. But her brain hated her, and she started to think about her disastrous life. How she didn't have a decent job, a decent house or a decent payment. How she still lived from her parent's money. How depressing she was. And then she wondered what could happen if she stayed at the party.

Maybe a guy approached her. Maybe he wanted to have sex. But Astrid didn't really want to sleep with someone she'd just met, not at this stupid party. So she mumbled, "Do you remember where Tuffnut's house is?"

She heard Hiccup sigh again, and wanted to punch him; but she wasn't going to call a taxi—not alone—so Hiccup was her best option, as much as she hated him right now. He said, "Of course I know where it is."

Astrid didn't say anything else—she didn't plan to. She feared she could snap at him again, and then he wouldn't come and pick her up. But a minute passed, and he sighed again. "I'll be there in five." A pause, and then, "I knew this wouldn't end up well."

This time it was said with all the hatred in the world, "Hiccup, shut the hell up."

So! The plot thickens! This was so long, and it ends up with Astrid hating Hiccup, but she's drunk, so... what do you think she'll say to him when he comes? Surprise surprise! Did you expect this? Did you like it? Tell me in a review! Also, I wanted to say that, as always, your reviews are amazing, but there was this one I really liked who was written by TimPlazasta that said, "You think the reviews you've got are lovely? I bet you've never read your story!" It was really cute! It made me smile so much, thank you all!