Crowded Room

3. Too Many Drinks

“ Close your eyes.” Hailee tells her before fixing her eyeliner. “ There. Now it looks perfect.”

 “ Thank you.” Camila smiles at her new friend before looking at herself in the mirror. She had never been that good at doing her own makeup, even though she did try for several years for all of her performances. It was nice to have a friend to do it for her, someone that actually knew what she was doing. “ Oh my god, Hailee! You’re like really good at this!”

 “ I know right?” Haile smiles at her reflection excitedly. “ You look gorgeous. I’m sure guys will be all over you tonight.”

 Camila looks at her friend through the mirror, feeling uncomfortable with the comment.

 “ Oh, girls then?” Hailee asks suggestively, but Camila grimaces at her. “ Okay, so… no one I guess.”

 “ Is that weird?” Camila asked, turning on the chair and working on putting on a pair of black high heeled boots she bought a long time ago, but only wore it once.

 “ Not at all.” Hailee smiles at her, sitting down on the edge of Camila’s bed already in her red sleeveless tight dress and silver high heels. “ So you don’t like… anyone?”

 “ I don’t know.” Camila confesses, trying not to feel embarrassed. She never told anyone about that, but Hailee seemed really interested and was not making fun of her at all. “ I dated a guy when I was like fourteen, but I never felt whatever I was supposed to feel with anyone.” Camila stands up and analyzes her black skinny jeans with a cute baby pink shirt and the boots she just put on. Her hair was down, almost reaching her butt in waves and she had her contacts on instead of her glasses. She looked stunning, but it made her feel weird to dress up so much if she wasn’t really trying to impress anyone. “ Maybe I should just get this over with already. Find a random boy at this party and just hook up with him.”

 “ Boy? So you do have a preference.” Hailee teases her. “ Look, don’t force yourself to do anything you’re not ready for. Everyone has their own time to figure things out, so either if you do like guys, or girls, or no one… it will happen when it’s supposed to happen. Just give yourself some time.”

 “ I feel like I’ve been giving myself some time for too long now.” Camila whispers under her breath. “ You sound like a therapist or something.”

 “ Well, both of my parents are therapists.” Hailee laughs. “ You learn a few things growing up with parents like that.”

 “ That must be nice.” Camila smiles.

 “ What about your parents?” Hailee asks curiously as they wait for Taylor and Charli to show up like they said they would.

 “ My mom was a dentist, just like my grandparents. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the three.”

 “ Was?” Hailee asks, not letting it slide the fact that she referred to her mother in past tense.

 “ She died when I was six.” Camila tells her, expecting a pity look like she always gets, but Hailee just reaches for her hand and squeezes it.

 “ What about your dad?” Camila stays in silence and Hailee can see it’s a delicate subject for her. “ Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

 “ It’s okay. He’s just not around.” Camila leaves it like that. Her father is not her favorite subject to talk about, she even avoids thinking about him most of the time.

 They hear a knock on the door and when they walk out of the common area, they find Taylor, Charli and a girl with short blue hair with them. Taylor has a cute pink dress on, but no heels, just flat sandals, and Camila thinks she didn’t need it anyway because of how tall she is. Charli and the other girl have pants on instead of dresses and Camila feels relieved that she’s not the only one that didn’t opt for a dress.

 “ This is Ash, my girlfriend.” Charli introduces them to the blue-haired girl, who is also super nice to them. They’re all so nice and Camila has a hard time understanding why they would want to hang out with first year students like her and Hailee.

 “ Come on, we should get going.” Taylor says, hooking arms with both Camila and Hailee. “ We can’t lose Niall embarrassing himself while trying to get into some freshman girl's pants.”

 “ We’re freshmen.” Hailee says, slightly offended.

 “ And that’s why I’m here.” Taylor says as they leave the building. “ To warn you about these college guys.”

 “ Who’s Niall?” Camila asks. “ Is that the one hosting the party? I thought you said he didn’t like freshmen.”

 “ No, that was Shawn.” Taylor explains. “ Niall is his best friend. Well, we’re actually all friends. I met Joe because of them, he’s Niall’s roommate.”

 “ And who’s Joe?” Hailee asks, confused. “ That’s a lot of names. I don’t know if I can keep up with that.”

 “ Joe is my boyfriend.” Taylor says, laughing. “ Don’t worry, you’ll meet all of them.”

 Camila laughs and shakes her head while they walk down the street. Taylor is quite energetic and talks a lot, but Camila already loves her personality. It takes them around twenty minutes walking to get to the building and it looks expensive. This Shawn guy clearly has money if he lives in an apartment like that instead of in a dorm on campus. The girls guide them to the elevator and once they get to the right floor, the door to the apartment is open and they just walk in. 

 Camila feels slightly overwhelmed by the amount of people there, all of them drinking, talking, laughing and dancing. There’s a few smoking by the balcony and others doing shots by the kitchen, but when a tall guy with dark curls walks into the living room, coming from inside the apartment, all eyes are on him. He greets a bunch of people with a smile on his face, but something about it doesn’t look genuine to Camila.

 “ That’s Shawn.” Taylor whispers to her when she sees Camila staring at the guy.

 She just nods her head, not knowing what to say. It was the weirdest feeling ever. She never felt like that by just looking at a guy, but something about him made her mouth go dry. Sure, she could tell when a guy was handsome, but this was different. It was like he was the only one there. She couldn’t just look away.

 “ I see you like what you see.” Taylor teases her with a giggle as his eyes find Camila’s. “ I guess he likes what he sees too.”

 Camila finally looks away when she realizes he’s walking to them with two other guys by his side.

 “ You made it.” Shawn says, reaching out and messing with Charli’s hair, who slaps his hand and sticks her tongue out. They act like siblings and it’s actually kind of sweet to look at. “ And you brought company.”

 “ Don’t even waste your time, Mendes.” Taylor warns him as he smiles at Camila and Hailee. “ They’re freshmen. Not for your taste.”

 Taylor immediately has her arms around one of Shawn’s friends, who Camila assumes is Joe. The other one has his eyes set on Hailee the second the word ‘freshmen’ leaves Taylor's lips, so she thinks that must be Niall.

 “ Well, that’s too bad.” Shawn says, disappointed as he keeps his eyes on Camila. She feels her cheeks burning, hoping he’s not seeing her blushing because of his comment. This guy even made her blush, that was a first. “ How about a round of shots, huh?”

 Soon they’re all in the kitchen as Niall prepares shots for all of them. Camila is a little nervous, though. She never drank alcohool before, but maybe it was time to try new things now that she’s away from home in college. She felt it burning down her throat, her eyes watering as she tried not to lose her cool, but then she found Shawn observing her from across the counter.

 “ First time?” He mouths to her with a smile and she nods. Camila watches as he walks around the corner and stands next to her, grabbing the rest of her shot that she didn’t finish and drinking it for her.

 Camila laughs as Shawn keeps helping her finish her drinks without anyone seeing so she wouldn’t lose whatever game Niall insisted they should play. She ends up drinking a few more either way and soon enough, she feels like she’s losing her balance. She feels strong arms holding her so she won’t fall, but after that she can only remember flashes of laughing and dancing before passing out on a really comfortable mattress.