My new fanfic – first attempt at an AU! I hope you enjoy it, please leave a review if you can :D

Authors note: After I'd started work on this (and wrote this chapter) I found 2 other fanfics that start with a similar premise by imeantsomethinglikethat and MayaLala (go read their stuff – it's awesome!). Having read their great writing I just wanted to say that this will be going in a somewhat different direction – the hint is in the name of the story!

Also BIG thanks to ztofan for the feedback and editing help!

Chapter 1 - Vodka soda, please

After walking aimlessly for over an hour, Jessica Day realized she was hopelessly lost. All around her were unfamiliar buildings and street names she did not recognize. Walking over to the curb by the side of the road, she paused and sank down to sit: today had been one of the worst days of her life.

She adjusted the short, beige trench coat she was wearing to cover her legs and considered the events that had led to her walking the streets of suburban Los Angeles, alone at 8pm, on a warm summer's evening. The day had started so well, she had spent the weekend away on a teaching retreat and was returning home. She had decided to surprise her boyfriend, Spencer, and get home a little early. Things between them had been a little, well, dry recently. After six years she realised they weren't going to be hot and heavy forever but it didn't feel right, so she resolved to do something about it.

Amy, a fellow teacher friend, had told her about the time she'd been having relationship problems; they'd spiced things up by pretending to be strangers – she was the prostitute and her boyfriend was the cop sent to arrest her and she'd paid him off with some 'services'. Since Jess didn't like the idea of pretending to be a prostitute, she decided to be a stripper. The plan was to leave the retreat early, take a cab home and surprise him wearing her little trench coat and nothing much else.

During the drive home, she was nervous. She'd never initiated anything like that – to be honest she wasn't overly confident sexually. If she admitted it, she was kind of a dork. Not that she'd ever wanted, or tried to be cool. She definitely marched to the sound of her own drummer. That said, she was still a woman and she wanted to be that confident, sexy girl who made guys go crazy.

When she arrived, she'd found Spencer in the living room and immediately began her pre-prepared sexy routine which involved a deep voice and some questionably sexy dance moves (Jess had never actually seen a stripper, but she figured there was a lot of thrusting involved). She was deep into her act when she appeared. A girl. In her house. In her bedroom. Wearing hardly anything.

It didn't take a genius to work out what was going on. Jess felt the colour drain from her face; the bile rise in her stomach. Her mind began to spin and she couldn't focus. Spencer was cheating on her. Spencer, the guy who she had pinned so many hopes on and loved for six years was sleeping with another woman. She had to escape the house. She couldn't get more clothes from her room so she grabbed the coat and, quickly re-fastening, she ran out of the house; running blindly away from that awful sight.

And this was how she found herself, an hour later, lost, no phone battery and exhausted. Standing back up, her eyes searched the area around her. She was reaching the end of a residential area and could see other buildings in the distance. Was that a bar? She saw a long, flat building with a small, flashing neon sign. She began walking to it until the sign outside became visible, Clyde's Bar. Great, she thought, they'll have a payphone and she could then call her best friend, Cece, to come get her.

Stepping into the darkened bar, she felt the cool chill of air conditioning and the smell of polished wood. The place was quiet. Unsurprisingly as it was a Monday evening, not the hottest night for partying. What looked like a few regulars were propping up the bar, whilst in the booths around the room there were a smattering of couples, huddled close together.

As she walked to the service area, the bartender came into view, wiping down the bar with a cloth. He engaged her in a smile, his stubble covered face just the right side of untidy. His hair was wavy and ruffled and he had kind dark eyes. "What can I get you?" he asked, placing a napkin in front of her.

"Actually, do you have a payphone?" she asked.

"Sure," he replied, pointing to the opposite side of the bar. Jess found the phone and rang Cece: It went straight to voicemail. She was probably working. Cece was a model and worked very strange hours. Jessica, as a teacher, valued the structure of school and she often wondered how Cece could stand her unpredictable schedule. She left her a message with the pay phone number and headed back to the bar.

"Can I get a vodka soda?" she asked. Normally she was a wine girl, but a day like this required something with a lot more kick. She watched as the bartender's s experienced hands made light work of the drink, garnishing it with a peel of lime and a little pink cocktail umbrella. "Thank you," she said.

Nick had been watching the girl at the bar for over two hours now. She had arrived, red eyed, dishevelled and wearing a minimal trench coat, underneath of which he was sure there was little or nothing. She had steadily worked her way through four vodka sodas now and was beginning to look a little tipsy. With her pale skin and wild hair, she looked like a doll. He'd noticed her large blue eyes that dominated her face, they were almost hypnotic. But they looked so sad.

"Barkeep, another round please," she asked. He grabbed the bottle of Stoli and poured another round, putting in that a little bit less alcohol. He didn't want her to get too drunk. She was alone; vulnerable. He felt somewhat responsible for her.

As he placed the tumbler on the counter before her, he watched her hands play with the little pink cocktail umbrella. Twisting it, opening and closing it in a preoccupied way. "Excuse me, I hope you don't mind me saying, you don't look like the kind of girl who usually hangs around a bar alone," she looked up at him with her big blue eyes and cocked her head to the side. She let out a sigh.

"Er, yeah, this is not normal behavior for me. I've not had the best day."

Nick could feel that this girl needed to talk and the bar was quiet. He leant over and rested his crossed arms on the wooden surface. "Want to talk? They say bartenders make the best therapists." This made a small smile dance upon her lips and she looked up at him through her heavy, dark bangs. He noticed for the first time how full and red her lips were.

"Urgh, I found out today my boyfriend is cheating on me. Six years. Six years and I find him having sex with some, some floozy," a frown covered her face as she took a large gulp of her drink. "I went home to surprise him, trying to be spontaneous, and there he was with her… So I ran away and ended up lost, without a phone and half naked, in a strange part of town," self-consciously she pulled the collar of her coat closer to her throat. He swallowed; he was right about the coat. His mind wandered slightly as to what was underneath.

"Uh, that's terrible. He doesn't deserve you," he figured that was the kind of thing a barman should say in this situation. To be honest, he didn't often talk to the customers and when he did they were usually middle aged drunks. Attractive, young women at the bar were only interested in flirting with him when it got close to midnight and their other options were slim.

"No offense, bar guy, but how would you know? You don't know me," she asked, with a little bit of sass.

"That's true, trench coat girl, but I do meet a lot of people in this job and you seem like a nice person. And nice girls should be treated well," he locked her in a gaze and smiled until she broke her frown and reciprocated.

Reaching he hand toward him she said, "Jess, Jessica Day."

He took her hand and shook it, "Miller, Nick Miller, nice to meet you Jessica Day."

"Urgh, I feel like such an idiot Miller, Nick Miller. All I wanna do is go home and watch Dirty Dancing and cry but I can't as I live with that asshole," she downed the rest of her drink and tapped the glass on the bar before pushing it to him to request another.

"You got a place to go?" he asked as he made her another, even weaker, cocktail.

"Yeah, my friend Cece has a place I can crash. But she's working, that's who I called earlier, just waiting for her to call back. I don't even have my car here. So for now, I'll drink!" She said raising her fresh glass of vodka and soda.

"Hey is there a Jess here?" came a cry from over the bar.

"Me, I'm here! That must be Cece," she exclaimed as she ran over to the payphone.

Nick watched her go as he mopped up the spilled soda on the bar. He was intrigued by this wide eyed girl, who used old fashioned words and was wandering around LA half naked. She seemed so different from the people he normally met. Very different from Caroline.

Caroline and Nick had broken up 3 months earlier. They had been dating for five years. Five torturous years of being told he didn't have a good enough job, was too messy, was childish, wasn't what she wanted… But he had still thrown his heart and soul into that relationship until one day, just like that she had ended it. It wasn't as dramatic as the story this girl, Jess, had told him but it had crushed him like a rock. So he knew what betrayal felt like and he felt an affinity with Jessica Day and a curiosity to know her better.

"Okay, okay Cece, thanks," Jess replaced the receiver and returned to the bar. Cece was going to be shooting all night, she was in a video for Little Wayne and was hoping it may be her 'big break' so she couldn't leave in case she lost her place. But she had told Jess her roommates were home so if she caught a cab over to Cece's place they would let her in.

Sitting back on her bar stool she began to sip again at her icy cool cocktail. She watched the

Bartender (Nick was his name?) as he served a small group of college girls. As he poured their wine and vodkas, she watched them flirt with him and his self-conscious smiles in response. He was wearing a grey button down shirt with dark jeans that clung to him in all the right places. The alcohol was beginning to seep into her veins now, numbing the pain of Spencer's betrayal and she began to daydream about this stranger, this bartender. It felt like a safe daydream – it wasn't like she would see him again. She imagined his strong arms grabbing her, taking hold of his butt with her hands, him kissing her and the feel of his stubble against her soft skin…She felt a hot flush ride through her body. Maybe she had had too much to drink.

Nick sidled back over when he had finished with the girls, "So did you get in touch with your friend?" he asked. Jess explained the conversation and asked for a cab number.

"You could try but they rarely turn up, usually get flagged down before they make it here," he told her.

Jess sighed. "Damn, what am I going to do? I can't stay here all night?" Nick felt a wave of sympathy go through him.

"Look, I never do this, but I finish in an hour. If you can wait til then, I can give you a ride," he really never did this. Actually, it was rare his car worked but he thanked God it worked tonight. He wanted this meeting to last as long as possible.

"Really? I mean, are you sure you are not like a serial killer or something? My mom told me never take a ride from a stranger," she replied in a silly, sing-songy voice.

"I assure you I am not. Actually I hate blood, I once fainted when I had a nosebleed. I'm also scared of dead people. My cousin Bobby locked me in a funeral home with my nana's body when I was eight. Never got over it." Jess laughed, she appreciated this strangers attempt to make her laugh.

"Okay, why not? At this point I have nothing to lose. Thanks." She gave him a smile as she tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

Leaving Clyde's and stepping into the balmy air, Jess felt a little self-conscious. She still couldn't believe she had accepted a ride from a complete stranger. Cece would kill her. But she had a good feeling about this guy. He had this sad, resigned feeling about him, tinged with a dose of humor and ,just under the surface, she saw potential. They reached Nick's beaten up car and he opened the door for her, letting her slide inside before rounding the car and getting into the driver's seat. He started it up and the gentle purr of the engine filled the silence. "Sorry, CD player is broken," he apologized with a lopsided smile.

"That's okay. I like silence," she replied.

He pulled out of the parking lot and for the first few minutes they travelled in silence. Nick kept glancing at her. Her face was shrouded in darkness, but he could make out the street lights shining on her dark curls and ivory skin. The trench coat had slipped a little lower and he could see the slight curve of her breasts and more than a little of her slim legs. He swallowed. Not going to happen, he thought. Regardless of the fact she just found out her guy was cheating on her , why would she be interested in you? You're a loser bartender Miller. Give it up.

Jess could feel Nick's eyes glancing at her as they drove along the highway. She felt that she should be a bit indignant at least but she found it… exciting. Arousing even. After the spectacular rejection she had faced today the attentions of another man were a balm to her fresh wounds. Well at least someone still finds me attractive, she thought, twisting in her seat, until just a little more leg was on show. She pursed her lips, feeling a little naughty.

The journey continued with bouts of silence punctuated by short questions back and forth. Where do you work? Where did you go to college? Do you know such-and-such? They discovered a couple of mutual friends and a few bars they both frequented. Funny we haven't met before, she thought.

As they finally pulled up outside Cece's apartment block, Jess felt a little reckless. The half dozen vodkas she had consumed had flooded her body by now and she felt warm and fuzzy. She turned to face Nick as she undid her seatbelt. "Hey, thanks, thanks for the ride. You've really helped me out."

"No problem," he said. She observed him, his face half in shadow. He looked rugged, messy, the opposite of sappy Spencer. Feeling bold, she lunged across the seat and grabbing his face in both hands she pressed her lips against his before easing her tongue into his mouth. His arms quickly slipped around her and he pulled her into a tight embrace, passionately kissing until they were both breathless. Finally, they broke apart. They stared at each other, wordlessly for a few seconds, before Jess pulled at the door handle beside her to make an escape, but she couldn't get it open.

"Um," she began. But then, Nick leaned across her, and flicked the door handle effortlessly. He was so close. She could feel his body heat radiating from him and smell his scent, a mixture of stale beer and Old Spice, she felt a warm wave flood through her. "Thanks," she said swallowing and quickly exiting the car. She ran towards the building and buzzed Cece's apartment. Her racing heart began to slow and she smiled thinking about her crazy behaviour. At least I'll never see him again, she thought.

As Nick pulled away, still a little dazed, he ran his fingers across his lips. He could still taste her, the berry lip balm and hint of vodka soda. That had been unexpected, his mind spun at the memory, the feel of her body in his arms, the fire behind her kisses. What a night, he thought. Wondering if he would ever see Jessica Day again.