Speak Now

XXIII

"Martha, are you dead?" Someone croaked as I cracked an eye open and winced under the light. 

I groaned. "I only wish. Fuck, how many shots did we do last night?"

"Too many," a third voice spoke from somewhere in the room. "Oh, God, my head hurts so much. Why on Earth did we agree to all of Sophie's stupid plans?"

No one answered. In all fairness, at the time, all of Sophie's ideas seemed good, it's only after the fact that we realise that they were all sorts of wrong. After the show, we hit a few bars, indulged in some karaoke, drank even more, went to a club, came back to the hotel and carried on partying. We raided the mini-bar and called down to reception so that they could bring us more. When they refused, Keira pulled rank and demanded that they re-open the hotel's bar. After that, I don't remember anything. 

"I don't necessarily think that it was Sophie's fault," a new voice muttered. American. "It was probably the alcohol."

I laugh. Or at least, I try. I sound like a croaking frog. "In alcohol's defence, I've done some pretty dumb stuff while sober, so I don't think it's necessary alcohol's fault, either. By the way, who are you all?"

It turns out, we have Larkyn Leahy, Logan's sister, in here, as well as Keira and Aoife. Between us, we managed to piece together a lot of our antics from last night; a hangover-free Larkyn gleefully recalled that Keira and I had to be stopped from joining a male stripper on stage in one of the bars we visited in the early hours of the morning but they didn't manage to stop us from taking drunken videos and photos and sending them to both Sam and Logan. There was, according to Aoife, an obligatory 'I LOVE YOU' phone call from myself to James, telling him how glad I was that he and I were friends. 

At times, Keira and I both had flashbacks to events and cringed, although we did laugh when Aoife played a video of us singing Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart, at full volume, in a karaoke bar. Even though we couldn't see ourselves since Aoife was on the other side of the room and no one was quite yet able to stand, the audio alone is really something unique. 

The room fell quiet. No one had the energy or inclination to move for another hour, by which time, Aoife's snoring was driving the rest of us crazy. Dragging ourselves out of bed picking ourselves up from the floor, we slowly start to head back to our rooms, leaving Keira's suite. We were vaguely aware that Sophie has further plans for us today and knew that we had better get ready for the day ahead, so the second I got back to my room, I jumped into the shower and breathed a sigh of relief as the warm water washed over me. Too tired to stand, I slid to the bottom of the shower and sat there for a few minutes, washing and rinsing my hair before clambering out, wrapping a towel around me and crawling back into the main area. 

"This would be a lot hotter if you were naked," a man's voice teased. Momentarily distracted by the person in my room, I crawled directly into the side of the bed, making me fall sideways and the towel knot come loose. Lying there, fully naked, I sit up to see Sam smirking from where he's sat on the couch. "Not quite the sights I came to Paris to see but this'll do nicely."