Toxic |H.S|

3

I look at myself in the mirror one last time before making my way downstairs and into the kitchen where my mum and my little sister are and they both look at me with raised eyebrows, "Hey you guys, I'm going out now." I tell them with a small smile patting their shoulders and they smile back at me.

"Go and have fun." My mom holds my hand briefly and I kiss my sister's forehead before leaving my house. Vic is already waiting for me outside in her car and I grin at her as she whistles at me once I open the door of the passenger seat and sit down.

"You look hot! I know for a fact you're gonna have a lot of fun." She smirks, and I look down at my outfit as she begins driving away. I'm wearing a light red cropped button-up shirt but I only buttoned two buttons in the middle, exposing my chest a little and my stomach, with a black skirt that honestly doesn't even reach the middle of my thigh and black platform heels.

" I'm not looking for that tonight, I just want to have fun and drink. A lot." I laugh, crossing my arms as she opens all the windows for a reason I'm yet to discover. It's autumn and the air is chilly outside, so the wind hitting my skin makes me shiver until she slows down to park her car a little bit far away from the house where the party is being held at since the entry is probably filled up with parked cars.

We step out of the car and walk in the windy street towards the house not too far away where music blared loud enough for us to hear it as if we were there already, adrenaline rushes in my veins and my heart thumps to the beat of the music as we get even closer, Vic's hand holding onto mine in excitement.

"Whose house is this? It's huge!" I gasp once we're standing right in front of it and Vic takes a look around before leading me inside through the open front door, the music is loud enough to make anyone want to dance and the rooms of this house are filled with people, some of them I recognize from school but some of them I feel like I've never seen before.

"I don't know, a guy from school invited me but I can't remember who." She shouts over the loud music and I laugh softly at her words while she pulls me to the kitchen and her smile widens when her stare lands on the drinks displayed on top of a table, she fills up two cups before giving me one and taking a sip of her own.

"Do you think Stella's here?" I ask her and she shrugs carelessly, both of us moving to stand by the doorway of the kitchen as some loud and obnoxious guys take our place inside the kitchen, urging each other to drink more.

"Who cares! She's probably doing the same as we are if she is, she won't bother us." She smiles and I grin back at her, both of us feeling electrified by the atmosphere around us and the amount of freedom felt at this moment. Nobody can tell us what we have to do, we might just drink a whole bottle of vodka and hook up with a random person only to have a huge hangover in the morning but nobody can stop us from doing so.

Vic begins telling me about a boy she's been seeing lately and I genuinely start feeling happy for her, after so much time just hooking up with people it feels nice to know she's feeling a different kind of spark with someone. Sure, it might not turn out well but at least it happened.

But in the middle of the conversation, I begin feeling watched and my curiosity gets the best of me, not too far away behind Victoria in the hallway someone is looking at me and I frown when I notice that guy Stella told us about today staring me down as if he's some kind of prey from afar, while someone speaks to him but he doesn't seem to be very interested in them.

I blink rapidly to get back to reality and Vic gulps down the remaining of her drink before taking a look at mine with an arched eyebrow. "You better start drinking, it's time to have fun!"

I take her advice, both of us completely ignoring the fact that one of us was supposed to drive us home and accepting the fact we'll probably either have to get a ride or call an Uber, we drink like there's no tomorrow and until our confidence is big enough to prance to what looked like a living room and dance with many other people around us.

I close my eyes to concentrate on the rhythm and dance to it, we aren't great dancers but we just want to have fun and it's such a good feeling to know that nobody is going to judge us because most people are equally as shitfaced as we are.

"Oh my God, we look so hot." Victoria slurs in my ear after grabbing onto my forearm and I laugh too loudly at her words and nod, feeling the need to agree.

I feel two hands on my hips from behind and raise my eyebrows, but Victoria turns around and her back is facing me which means I have to examine the situation on my own. I keep dancing, swaying my hips steadily while secretly looking down at the hands holding me. Hands say a lot about someone.

I look at the many rings on his fingers, my mouth nearly salivating at the sight, a cross tattoo on one of the hands and the grip is rough yet so soft. I smirk, mentally doing a victory dance but reminding myself not to celebrate too early, sure these hands are hot but what if the guy is a total creep, if I had my best friend looking at me she could give me some sort of sign but right now she's walking in the opposite direction of where I am, disappearing into the crowd.

I breathe in and decide to test my luck, grinding my hips back slowly against him and the grip tightens. "Careful, doll."

Hot, hot, hot.

His voice is deep and raspy and makes me get a tingly feeling in my stomach. I finally decide to slowly turn around to face him and gasp at the sight of the boy Stella talked about, the boy who is in a relationship with that girl Isabelle.

I swat his hands away from me while sending him a glare. "What's wrong with you?!" I shout over the loud music as he stares at me with furrowed eyebrows, not opening his mouth to reply or at least explain himself.

I roll my eyes and leave the room in hopes to catch my best friend in the middle of my journey but she's nowhere to be seen and so I decide to sit on the grass outside of the house. I feel my heart beating too fast and my chest tightens at the thought of what could have happened. What a jerk!

I mean, he has a girlfriend and he's here with other girls, is his girlfriend even here? I shake my head and look up at the sky, trying my best to ignore the people around me either throwing up or getting wasted.

"Hey, look I'm sorry about what happened back there." I hear from behind me and nearly snap my neck to look at the boy as he approaches me with his hands in his pockets.

"Don't apologise to me you fuck face, apologise to your girlfriend." I send him a disgusted look as he sits down next to me but I move a little to put more distance between us. He's so gorgeous and I can't stop thinking about his touch on me, it's like it's still lingering there, but he's in a relationship and this was way too wrong.

"Yeah... I know." Silence falls between us but the blaring music from inside is still heard and people have seemed to start leaving, too drunk to even walk and needing help from their friends to do that task, "what's your name?"

I turn my head to look at him as he's sitting down right next to me, his eyes on me and his arms crossed. This seems all too sudden and it makes me wonder if I'm just that drunk and having some kind of hallucinations. This boy I've only heard about like twice suddenly wants to become my bestie? And he tried to dance with me while in a relationship. It's a lot happening right now.

"Nova," I breathe out in defeat, "and what's your name?"

"I'm Harry."