The Chloenicles #1 [COMPLETE]

Chapter 15: Sparks flew

The atmosphere in the secret room could not have been more different from the diner's.
The room was packed, groups of people where standing and sitting everywhere, laughing and talking to each other.
And everything was red.
Red carpets separating the red booths from the dark brown wooden floor.
Red table cloths on the dark brown, round tables in the middle of the room.
Red glasses with small candles on every table.
Red curtains covering the windows.
To the left of us, right next to the entrance was a bar, where a very good looking bar keeper in a red shirt prepared drinks.
The room was separated into different sections by big wooden pillars, some of which were holding a TV that showed a news program on mute with subtitles.
I could not make out the source, but something in here played music. It was so loud in here that I could not tell which song was playing, or if I even knew it.

Only seconds after we entered, we had not even taken a step further into the room, Paul Herford already bumped into people he knew.
„Oh my God! I haven't seen you in forever!" A small black woman and slightly taller white woman hugged him before they turned to Miranda: „Oh hi! Remember us?"
Miranda nodded, and tried to smile, but she could not keep the exhaustion out of her face anymore. „Hi Cathrine, hi Stacy!", he said and waved tiredly.
They waved back before they turned around and shouted: „Ernest! Get over here you won't guess who just walked through the door!"
It didn't take long and Miranda and I found ourselves on the outsides of a big circle of people who wanted to say hi to Paul Herford.
When it became clear that he could not, or did not want to free himself from the crowd, Miranda pushed a couple of them aside. „Chloe and I are going to find a table and order food, okay?", she told him.
He just had time to nod quickly before two more people, who had come over to say hi, occupied his attention.
She jostled herself out of the crowd. „Let's go Chloe."
I tired to follow her but it was harder than expected.
Moving felt a little bit like swimming against the current, because she and I seemed to be the only people in this room who moved away from Paul Herford.
With a lot of ‚sorry's and ‚excuse me's we managed to move forward at least a couple of centimeters at a time.
Our tries to make our way to an empty table were briefly interrupted by a couple of people screaming in the middle of the crowd.
Miranda immediately turned around to see if her boss was okay, but when the screaming was followed by laughter, she relaxed.
When she started to move again, she bumped into yet another guy.

„Sorry", she said automatically and tried to squeeze past him.
„Miranda?", he said with disbelief.
She looked up to see who was talking to her.
Her eyes widened and she blushed a little.
„Lars?"
The guy, whose name apparently was Lars, was very tall with broad shoulders. His eyes, hair and beard all were of the same light brown color. I don't really know why, but his whole appearance, including the knitted dark blue pullover he was wearing, made me think of vikings. He looked like he was in his thirties, but because I was surrounded by alleged vampires, I had to wonder, for how long he had looked that age.
Miranda and Lars both stood there like they did not really know what to do or how to behave.
I had never seen a Miranda who did not know what to do next.

After a brief moment of awkward silence Lars said: „What are you doing here? Wasn't the last time I saw you at your fare well party?"
I noticed that he had a slight Scandinavian accent when he spoke.

Miranda was still a little startled, but managed to sound like her normal confident self when she answered: „Yes, you are right! But an emergency required me to stay on a little longer than expected."
To my surprise Lars turned to me. „So you must be the emergency?"
„Only when I'm stripping.", I replied without thinking.
He just stared at me, metaphorical question marks in his eyes.
„Well.... because... Emergency is my ... stripper name....", I tried to give my brain fart some substance, losing sound and volume with every word.
I was very embarrassed.
„Ah", he said before he, fortunately, turned to Miranda again. „And what brings you here tonight?"