Hot Mess | N.H. (discontinued)

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Hot Mess:
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"Once you've lost your privacy, you realize you've lost an extremely valuable thing." -Billy Graham

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Niall

"Where are you taking me?" Emery shrieks once again for about the fifteenth bloody time; we haven't even reached the end of my street yet.

When I don't respond to the oblivious girl, she tries at me again. "Niall!" she yells. I feel her stop in our tracks abruptly and I lurch forward a bit, almost losing my balance since my hand is still latched onto her wrist.

I turn around to face Emery. "What?" I ask, annoyance in my voice.

She raises her eyebrows at me. "'What?'" she repeats. She tears away her hand out of my grasp and throws her arms in the air. "You fucking dragged me out of your house out of the blue, for crying out loud, without an explanation, that's 'what'!"

I raise my eyebrows at Emery's sudden outburst. I didn't know Americans had such bad tempers like that. "I've never heard you curse before."

"Shut up."

"C'mon, Em." I reach to grab her wrist again but she pulls back immediately.

"Not until you tell me when you're taking me, Irish," she retorts, her lips pursed and her head tilted upwards in a way that makes her look a little more confident in this argument, but not by much.

I let a small smile overcome my lips. "Irish?" I muse.

"Yeah, Irish." She crosses her arms over her chest, I assume to try to intimidate me, but it doesn't help; she just looks even cuter. "You call me 'Em'—even though I specifically told you not to—so why can't I have a nickname for you, too?"

I just laugh and shake my head, crossing my own arms over my chest. "You're kind of annoying, y'know, Emery?"

"And you're a dick who's dragging me to God-knows-where. For the last freaking time, where are we going?"

Giving into her murderous looks aimed specifically towards me, I decide to go on and tell her. "Downtown, dummy," I tease playfully, only to get another one of her looks, only a little less murder-like this time.

"That doesn't give a lot of info, you know," she points out, but reluctantly follows me when I start walking forward again. "For all I know, you could be planning to kidnap me; I've barley just met you."

"Knowing for a fact that I'm in almost every tabloid today and I'm sure you've heard numerous stories about me, I'm sure you know I'm not capable of doing so, Em."

She doesn't even budge when I say her nickname again, and I'm glad we're on those friend-ish terms now; she seems like a nice girl I'd like to get to know more in the future.

"So what are we gonna do downtown then?" she asks, walking a bit faster to try to catch up with me until we're walking side-by-side in sync. "I'll do anything but go anywhere near that fountain again."

I let out a loud laugh and see Emery cracking a smile through the corner of my eye as she mumbles a, "shut up," quietly. "I don't know," I tell her, pondering on where exactly would be a fun place to take us. But when I get the perfect idea, I let my lips curve up into a mischievous grin. "Emery, how do you feel about paintballing?"