Accident Prone |h.s|

Chapter 4: Birthday(s)

February 2017

I'm looking through every single item of clothing I own. Nothing is working.

Why is it you always buy outfits just in case you have an event but as soon as you have one, none of the outfits work? Being a girl is the worst.

And tonight's event is kind of a big deal.

It's the first day of February. Harry's birthday.

As promised, he texted me a couple days after the club and invited me and Kim (as well as her boyfriend, Justin) to his house for his birthday party.  He said it would be a casual affair just some friends of his and his new band mates. Oh and every single celebrity he's friends with. Casual.

So now I need to figure out what the hell that means and find an outfit. I work in fashion... this shouldn't be that hard.

Kim of course knows exactly what she's wearing. She picked out the red dress and over the knee stilettos with ease. She looks incredible and sweetly offered to let me borrow anything in her closet. To which I laughed and thanked her for her consideration, but looking like a stuffed sausage in one of her dresses wasn't the effortlessly cute look what I was going for. 

So much has changed in the last few weeks. My routine was pretty solid with work and drinking alone on a Tuesday watching friends reruns. Then he had to come in and shook everything up.

I know Harry thinks of me as a friend and after his unknown rejection, I began to think of him as one too. We text as often as our hectic schedules allow. He's been traveling back and forth to Europe and time zones differences are the worst. But even with all the stress of work, I felt more comfortable talking to him than I thought possible.

After about fifteen different outfit options, I decide on a black tee shirt dress, a distressed denim jacket, and combat boots.

I've never been good at heels. They make me too tall and I look like a newborn gazelle when I try to walk in them.

But this outfit is what I would call my typical style. Like grumpy teenager meets 90s sitcom star.

The Uber is four minutes away as I down my third gin and soda and reapply my plum lipstick.

Kim is ready to go sans boyfriend. He decided a big Hollywood party wasn't his thing but promised to pick us up if we needed it.

We both do one last cheers to a good night and have to race down the two flights of stairs to catch our ride.

On the ride over, I'm almost shaking at the idea of meeting hoards of Hollywood's elite. I'm gonna need those drinks to kick in soon so I can act like a normal human.

We begin to wind up a big hill towards the address he sent me earlier. Harry's house is one of those perfectly situated mansions that doesn't really look like a mansion. It looks like a painting of a Spanish villa on the hillside of a cliff. It overlooks the Pacific Ocean and is settled among every kind of fruit tree imaginable.

The various codes I have put in the security gates make me feel like I'm entering a forbidden fortress. But it also reminds me that Kim and I still haven't gotten our deadbolt fixed and it's been two months. I should really get on that.

The front door is already open to invite all guests in without question. But there is a large bald man standing in as security just outside the opening. Loud music can be heard from the yard and some people stand among the trees as they sway in the night breeze. I'm slowing down a bit, almost to a complete stop, as I gather all my nerve. Kim knowing exactly what is going through my mind at my hesitation, pulls me inside with a reassuring squeeze of my hand.