Shelly woke up disoriented for the second (third?) day in a row. Her vision was blurry; her head was pounding. She felt towards the nightstand where a comically oversized bottle of water was waiting, the cap already off. She chugged as much as she could while remembering a bottle of aspirin was also on the nightstand, so she quickly took two of those, guzzled down even more water, and somehow managed to put the bottle back down before falling into a half-sleep of sorts. 

Shelly woke up again about an hour later, slightly less disoriented, the pounding in her head lessened to a light tapping on her brain. “Wake up sunshine,” she heard a familiar-though-groggy voice of her best friend Mindy say. “I think we have to pack up and get out of here.” Shelly yawned and stretched, tried to sit up, and immediately laid back down. “Where are we? What happened?” “We are in Vegas. We’ve been celebrating your big milestone birthday you told me not to mention the number of, and we’ve clearly been having too. much. fun based on how I’m feeling this morning.” Mindy’s voice was half-covered by her pillow as she was also half-awake. “What time is it?” Shelly tapped her digital watch. “It’s 11:35! Jesus! Isn’t hotel checkout at noon?” 

Shelly sprang up, hangover be damned, and started shoving all of her clothes and belongings into her suitcase. Mindy was falling back asleep, so Shelly started opening the curtains, hoping the sunlight would help wake her friend up. Instead of blinding sun, however, it was pitch black, except for the crazy amount of lights on/around the Vegas Strip. “Wait a minute….” Shelly stood there for a moment, confused. “Did we sleep for a whole day? What did we DO?” She threw a pillow from the couch at Mindy. “WHAT DAY IS IT?!” Mindy groaned in response and automatically reached for her phone. “Holy shit,” Mindy said. “It’s still Saturday night. We came back up to nap after drag brunch where we had those hazelnut amaretto drinks, which had turned into champagne and slot machines, which had turned into ‘It’s 5pm somewhere’ shots of whiskey at like 2pm, remember? We just took like eight-hour naps.” 

Shelly put her hands up to her face and groaned. “We are too old for this. I regret everything. Let’s go back to bed.” “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Mindy said, abruptly sitting up. “We are going to some crazy restaurant for dinner and drinks and then finding some club with bumping music and staying up all night long and you will have fun on our last night in Vegas! Don’t put your depressy pants back on. Let’s go celebrate! It’s Saturday night in Vegas, we are going to go party like we’re in college again. Even if it’s been….” “DON’T YOU DARE SAY HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN,” Shelly said. “Fine. I’ll rally. Let’s get dressed.” 

Several hours later, Shelly and Mindy were dancing on a banquette, free drinks in hand, stomachs full of delicious food. They were having the time of their lives, pretending they were much younger than they actually were, and while they knew they’d pay for it at some point, right now, they were having the best time. Shelly grabbed Mindy and pulled her into the tightest hug. “I lied earlier,” she whisper-yelled into Mindy’s ear. “I regret nothing!!”

Scent Notes: Amaretto, hazelnut toffee, blooming magnolia, whiskey.