Limitless

Chapter 3

Right when we walked out of Liam’s room, my phone vibrated in my pocket.  I opened a text from a number I didn’t know. 

-Ready for me to come get you, Red?

“Aww, shiznit,” I said, cursing myself for forgetting that Josh was supposed to pick me up.

“Everything okay?” Emma asked.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “We just forgot about my party date.”

Emma looked back at me and rolled her eyes as we pushed through the crowded living room. “He’ll survive.”

-So sorry, I’m actually already here with Emma!

A few moments later he texted me back.

-That’s okay!  We can still dance together when I get there :)

I smiled.  Josh was pleasant, and currently I liked him a lot more than I liked Harry.

Emma and I walked into the kitchen and looked around the clustered island of drinks.  I glanced out of the small wall window into the living room as Emma poured two cups of something and saw Liam making his way toward the kitchen.  He beamed when he saw me and waved spastically.  I laughed and returned the hello.  When Emma finally looked up and saw him, he signaled her over to him.

“We’re coming! Patience!” She shouted at him, holding up her pointer finger.  He blew her a kiss and disappeared back into the crowd of people.

Emma brushed some of the hair behind my shoulder and pulled me close to her, whispering in my ear as she handed me a drink. “We have our own little party area - a place where people like Phoebe and Claire can’t find us. C’mon!”

She began to lead me back through the crowd and down the hallway, past the busy bathroom and Liam’s room.  There was one more door beyond that, which I assumed was Harry’s room, and then a bookshelf at the end of the hallway.  Right as we began to pass Harry’s room, the door flung open. Claire fixed her hair and straightened up her shirt, giggling at something the guy behind her had just said.  My stomach dropped when I saw that it was Harry.  Both he and Claire stopped dead in their tracks when they saw us.

“Eww, slut, were you standing there listening the whole time?” Claire asked, looking me up and down.  She pushed past me and swung her butt from side to side as she strutted down the hallway. 

“Really? Really Harry? I mean like, really. You can’t do any better than that? Seriously?” Emma stood with her hands on her hips as she looked up at Harry.  I laughed in my head because it reminded me of something that I said to my older brother once.  He was born 10 years before I was, so we didn’t really have a great relationship.  He did a lot of acting out in California for small shows and unpopular movies, so he was never home.  For my 16th birthday, he told me he would buy me a car and ended up buying me a rusty piece of shit from a junkyard down the street from our house.  The thing didn’t even have seats or an engine.

Harry glared down at Emma as she reprimanded him.  He hadn’t looked at me yet.  He didn’t look away from Emma as he began to button up his dark jeans and reached right inside the door of his room to grab his drink.  He took a sip and threw on a black v-neck before he closed the door, pushing past Emma and walking toward the bookcase.  I frowned and tried to look past Emma as Harry reached into the bookcase and felt around behind some of the books for a moment until he felt what he was looking for, and immediately the bookcase started to swing open like a door.  I raised my eyebrows impressed, but I wasn’t given much time to appreciate the ingenious hidden door before I was dragged through it and onto a spacious outdoor area.  A group of six people sat in comfortable hammocks and cushioned chairs all around a fire pit which contained a roaring fire.  The sun wasn’t yet down, but the lights that hung all above us were lit up.  A small table with a few snacks was sitting right outside of the circle of people as well as a cooler filled with ice and an assortment of drinks.