Fortunes & Follies - ON HIATUS!! (sorry)

2

Ending tours was quite the ordeal, and usually, it was followed by quite the party. This one was living up to expectations. The band decided to finish off their just-over-a-year-long tour by spending some time getting trashed with three hundred of their closest friends at their buddy Harry Styles's London bachelor pad. It was a good decision.

The booze was flowing and the music was shaking the property. Arden almost felt sorry for the neighbors as she danced with Calum to the obnoxiously loud tunes. Instead, she took another sip of the concoction in her red cup and ignored the fact that one of Calum's hands had settled on her hip.

She surveyed the room. Laney was sat on Michael's lap on the couch, assaulting his lips between sips of whatever she was drinking. Vi could just barely be seen. She was in the kitchen taking shots with Jack Barakat. Ashton and Luke stood in a corner near a large plant, talking and occasionally trying to chat up girls that walked past them.

Arden decided she'd had enough dancing for the time being and left Calum to go see what other mind-altering substances she could dig up in the kitchen. She found a rather unexpected one: a shirtless, tattooed boy.

He waved her over; she could feel his eyes skimming her body as she sauntered over to him. She felt butterflies flitting through her veins. What could he possibly want with her?

"Ahhhden," he drawled in his insanely attractive British accent.

"Hey, Harry," she greeted him, silently reminding herself that she was Arden Irwin, a sophisticated music journalist and radio host, and she'd better act like it.

"Are you enjoying yourself," he asked, always the gentleman. There was a slight slur to his words, but she chose to ignore it.

"Of course," she answered, mirroring his smirk. "How could I not? In such a lovely house? With such company?"

He looked rather smug at her reply. His hand snaked down and found hers, pulling her closer.

"You look like you could use a shot," he stated.

She laughed. "Do I look that bad?"

"On the contrary! You look absolutely ravishing, and I will not be able to call this a successful party unless the hottest girl here takes a body shot off me."

Arden felt her heartbeat in her throat. Harry's emerald eyes looked at her expectantly and full of lust. Her own eyes trailed down his sculpted torso, and she was gone.

She raised her eyebrows at him and pursed her lips.

"Only if you return the favor."

•••

Violet Clifford stuck her arm out blindly in the direction of her equally as drunken companion, nearly pushing him over in the process.

"Don't be a pussy, Jackk! One more shot; c'mon, one more! Uno masszzz, amigo," she shouted in his ear.

Jack groped the kitchen counter for the tequila bottle he couldn't seem to locate.

"Onl-Only because I can't let you say that you've out-drunk me," he slurred, accidentally knocking one of the shot glasses on the floor.

Vi bent down to pick it up and ended up stumbling into Jack, her lower back pressing into his groin.

"Heyyyyyy..." Jack shouted appreciatively at the unexpected contact with his denim-clad dick.

"Oh shit," Vi choked as gravity threatened to pull the contents of her stomach towards the floor.

She stumbled backwards, and the next thing she knew she was falling through the threshold of a bathroom. She meandered across the light blue tiles to the toilet, where she expected to blow her chunks in peace, but she instead she was met by a rather large blur of black, blue plaid, and blond hair.