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Josh opened one eye, but the room hadn't stopped spinning yet. This was... not good. He felt a nagging somewhere in the region of his brain that he had a meeting to get to, but the details were beyond him.
He remembered making a call. Thank God for cellphones.
The room went black again.
A sharp pressure against his shin woke him, and he opened both eyes (damn, ow, too fast) to find an angry blonde standing over him. Hardly the first time, he smirked, at least until he felt too queasy to smirk any more.
"You have got to be kidding me!" the blonde hissed at him. She sounded like a pretty snake, which was weird, because snakes were just not something that Josh found pretty. That damn Scotch had to be behind it.
He could just hear Donna now, announcing his "delicate system" to the entire bullpen. Yeah, right; it had taken at least four drinks before the ground had gotten all wobbly. Nothing delicate about four shots of Johnny Walker, no sir.
Which meant (wait a minute) that the angry, pretty blonde couldn't be his assistant. Donna was from the butt of Josh's jokes, the northern oasis of Wisconsin. Her hard, flat vowels didn't sound like that, not even when hissing. No, there had been something almost lilting in the woman's voice.
"Aimsley?" Josh hiccuped. Okay, that was pretty funny. Or embarrassing. No, definitely funny.
"For the last time, it's Ainsley, with an 'n'."
Josh nodded, though he'd already forgotten what she'd said. Good old Ainsley with her Second Amendment and her small government, trying to topple them all from her basement lair.
"Have you seen Sam? I think I called him?"
Well, he was pretty sure that's who he'd called. The bouncers hadn't been too friendly about dropping him by the entrance of a... yup, definitely a strip joint. Apparently they had 'policies' that included nobody dancing on the tables but the strippers. He'd only fallen off once, Josh felt the need to point out. He'd still ended up on the damp sidewalk with lipstick on his cheek and no doubt bruises on the arms that had been so firmly grabbed.
"You did call Sam," Ainsley replied. Josh found it kind of hard to look directly at her, with all the neon behind her head. "But he's sleeping," she continued. "Sleeping for the first time in three days, so I decided to come get you before you could yell into his answering machine any more."
Well, that didn't make any sense. How would Ainsley know what was on Sam Seaborn's answering machine? In his apartment? Wait a minute... was she...
"Are you and Sam doing it?"
Josh couldn't quite keep the girly shriek out of his voice. At least two people on the sidewalk turned around to stare. Ainsley grabbed him by the elbow with a freakish amount of strength, pulling Josh to his feet. The look in her eyes was murderous, and Josh swallowed hard in sudden fear.
"You will shut up about Sam right now. I am here simply to get you home before you end up splashed across the morning papers."
Josh raised his hands in surrender, letting Ainsley steer him towards her waiting car.
"I was at a bachelor party," he explained.
Ainsley sighed, putting a hand on his head to stop him whacking it on the roof. It was a lot like being bundled into a police car, an indignity Josh hadn't suffered since his last days of high school.
"I know; Donna told me. Let's just get you home Josh. It's getting late."
He managed to put his seatbelt on without too much fumbling, and Ainsley slipped into the driver's seat a moment later. She slapped his hand when he started fooling around with the radio, and Josh sat back in defeat. His head was really starting to hurt. There had better be some damn aspirin in his apartment.
Realizing that Ainsley couldn't exactly throw him out into traffic, Josh decided to seize his opportunity.
"So. You and Sam, huh?"
"Oh dear Lord," Ainsley muttered as she pulled into the correct lane for Georgetown. Josh smirked at her in the semi-darkness of the car. There was always time for some gossip.