July 1st - July 2nd
The plane ride over seemed unbearably long from Seattle. When my plane finally did land, I could barely contain my excitement at finally making it to London. I tried to stop myself from pushing the elderly and children out of my way in my haste to get off the plane. When I was finally off the plane, my eyes began to eagerly scan the swirling mass of bodies looking for Rose. Finally, I spotted her at the same time she found me. We took off running, flying into each other’s arms and hugging like long lost best friends, instead of long distance friends meeting for the first time.
When we finally broke apart, we started laughing as we noticed the audience we had obtained from all our running, hugging, and ultimately inappropriate noises.
No not those noises, just some groaning from the tight hugs and squealing.
Rose had moved to London from America when she was about sixteen, so she had a slight English accent from living there for ten years. We were both the same age, but that was about the end of our similarities on a physical plane. Where she was tall and statuesque, I was fairly short to average in height. She was blond and blue eyed, I was brunette and brown eyed. But those differences didn’t matter; we were basically the same person when it came to our personalities. We were both chill, laid back and just basically go with the flow sorts of people. No drama and we meant it, not ‘
oh my God, I hate drama it always seems to follow me but I swear I don’t like it’ girls. I say if you don’t like it, you steer clear of situations that put you in the middle of it. As a result of our no nonsense no bullshit attitude, neither of us had a ton of friends, but the ones we had were life long.
I don’t know about you but I’d rather have a few life long friends who know you inside and out, than a ton of acquaintance’s who didn’t know you at all.
We both linked arms and made our way towards the baggage claim to get my bags. I was planning on staying for about a month assuming we didn’t try and kill each other first. I had saved up all year for this trip and banked all of my vacation so I could take it and not have to worry about possibly losing my job or going broke. However, losing my job wouldn’t have been the worst thing to happen to me. Sitting in a small cubicle answering phones for a large corporation wasn’t exactly my idea of a dream job, but it paid the bills. So being that I planned on staying for a month, give or take, I had quite a few bags. When I travel… I pack obsessively. I think of every conceivable circumstance that could possibly happen and pack at least three outfits for every scenario, which is ridiculous because when it’s all said and done, I’ll probably stick with my purple plaid chucks, tank top, hoodie and jeans.
After picking up my massive bags and flirting shamelessly with the hot guy next to us, who graciously hauled them to Rose’s car, we finally made it out of the airport, light one phone number.
What? Don‘t look at me like that. He was cute, had a guitar case. Can you say musician? And he helped with my luggage, so it was the least we could do. I found myself hoping that he was local and could show us some new places that Rose didn’t know about… or maybe he was visiting and needed a guide.
Rose drove like a fucking maniac. First of all, the roads were too small and the way she tried to weave in and out of traffic was making me pray to God‘s. I wasn’t an overly religious person, but in cases of life or death, I’d been known to mutter up a quick, ‘Dear Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, Ra, pretty much any deity out there,’ hey, I figured it couldn’t hurt to cover your bases.
“Fuck, Rose! Are you trying to send me back to America in a body bag?” I asked as she took a corner so fast I swear the car was up on two wheels. She laughed at me and suddenly the car came to a stop and had I not put on my seat belt my forehead would probably have smacked right into the dash causing damage to the little bit of my brain that was left.
There’s a great conversation starter:
“
Hey Rosalie who’s your friend with the helmet?” the guy would ask. She’d laugh lightly and go, “Oh you mean Bella? I work with the mentally disabled and she’s kind of like my little sister in the program.” He’d tell her how nice she was for doing that and they’d probably leave me, drooling in my helmet, where ever we were. Then they’d go back to her place and play a rousing good game of hide the sausage.
What a whore.
“Come on, Bella, lets grab your bags and I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.” She had a cute flat on the third floor. However, by the time we had lugged all my bags up three flights of stairs, I was cursing her cute flat. We were both leaning against the wall trying to catch our breath. “Shit, B, we should’ve offered to give cute blond guitar guy a ride so we could have him lug these up before taking him. You know, where he needs to go.”
“Ya, I bet you’d take him exactly where he needs to go. Besides, Rose, one ride in your car and we’d never hear from him again. He’d probably open the door jump, tuck, and roll to get out of it. God knows his chances of survival would have been higher.” I said as I thought back to my almost brain damage.
“Hardy-har-har, bitch. Explain to me again, why I’m letting you stay with me for a month. You keep this shit up and you’ll wake up bald one morning.”
I gasped in outrage. “You wouldn’t!?!”
She shrugged. “Just try me.”
I fought back my sudden violent urges of tripping or pushing her down the stairs and just picked up a suitcase and brought it inside. I suppose you could say I really lucked out with Rose because instead of being sentenced to a sofa for my entire visit, I actually got my own bedroom. She really did have a great place. It was pretty eclectic, but everything seemed to work together. As I looked around every wall was painted a different color but all the colors complimented each other. None of her furniture matched but yet, it looked like she bought it together as a group. She also had tons of artwork on every wall. Paintings, photographs, sculptures… you name it she probably had it somewhere. And then, there was her DVD collection. I think it almost rivaled my own back in the states.
Once she had shown me my new room and where I could find anything I needed I settled in for a nap. It doesn’t matter how long you can sleep on a plane, flying tires a person out. and Iif I was going to be of any use later in that evening I needed at least a good three hour nap.
~*~**~*~
I woke up three and half hours later refreshed and ready to go.
Okay, that’s a lie. I never wake up refreshed. I wake up groggy and disoriented and I snooze my alarm until the battery dies. I stumbled out of my room to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. After patting my face dry, I looked up into the mirror and cringed. I looked like Hell, if it was left out and then frozen and then re-heated again. I guess this was to be expected, after a fifteen hour flight and then falling asleep in my make-up.
I poked and prodded at myself in the mirror for a couple of minutes before just shrugging and giving up. I turned on the shower and started to strip. It was going to take a total overhaul to make me look human again, so shower it was.
Turning the shower on to as hot as I could take it, I winced slightly as I stepped into the stream of water. I scrubbed away the layer of grime that built up from traveling and reveled in the soothing jets of hot water. Taking my time to scrub my body clean I let myself have a minute or two to reflect on the fact that I was finally in London. I did my happy dance in the shower, deciding it was probably better to freak out in the shower then out in public, where Rose would probably ridicule me for my behavior. Once I got that out of my system, I just had to try and not dwell on the fact that Edward Cullen could possibly be in the same city as me. I just needed to remove those thoughts from my head otherwise it would’ve turn into happy, naughty times in the shower and I’ll be a complete basket case the entire time I’m here and spend all my time looking for him like the obsessive compulsive fan I am.
Finishing up, I wrapped a towel around me and opened the door letting the steam billow up before me and I almost ran smack dab into Rose on my way out the door. She threw her hand out to stop me and ended up with a handful of boob.
Before I could be completely mortified, she gave it a quick squeeze, “Nice handful there, B, if I batted for the other team I’d be all over you right now. You’re just lucky I’m such a lady.” She smirked at me.
I snorted loudly when she called herself a lady and her eyes narrowed at me. If I didn’t know better I’d probably wet myself at the glare she was sending my way. As it was, I walked past her and popped her on the ass. “You keep telling yourself that, Rose, but you know you’ll be dreaming all about this tonight.” I remarked casually while running my hand down my body and giving a little shimmy. She laughed loudly behind me as she walked into the bathroom.
We both got ready to head out for the night. I looked fabulous in a pair of faded, ripped jeans with a white embellished tank. I was starting the night with my hair down but slipped a hair tie around my wrist for later. I loved my thick hair, but with-in an hour of being anywhere with a crowd it never failed it was up in a pony tail. I was just trying to find a pair of shoes to wear when Rose came in and chucked a pair of heels at me. I let a loud, “Oh FUCK,” fly when one went whizzing past my face, barely skimming my nose.
“What the hell are these Rose?” I asked, wondering what exactly she expected me to do with them.
“Shoe’s B.” She rolled her eyes at me as if I was stupid and didn’t know what shoe’s were.
“I know they are shoes you, ho. What exactly is it do you expect me to do with them?”
“Put them on, wear them, love them, own them,” she said to me.
I held one up by its red and silver studded strap. “I am not wearing these,” I said as I tried to fling it at her.
She caught it and walked over to me. “And just why not?”
“Those,” I said, pointing to the shoe in her hand, “are hooker shoes. I am not wearing hooker shoes.”
She gasped at me. I started to shake a bit in fear as her eyes narrowed and her face turned about as red as the shoe in her hand. At any moment I expected smoke to start coming out of her ears and fire to fly from her mouth. Then she opened her mouth and I wanted to cower but held my ground.
“How DARE you call Prada, hooker shoes. I’ll have you know I almost lost my hand getting these at a secret sale.” She made to grab the other shoe from around me and I could tell I had really upset her. How was I supposed to know? They were red, velvet and had silver studs covering every available surface. Who wouldn’t think they were hooker shoes?
“Shit, Ro, I’m sorry. I have nothing against Prada, but you have to admit they are a bit ostentatious. I’m just not used to wearing heels that are so ‘look at me’,” I said, throwing out some jazz hands. “But if you’d let me, I’d love to wear them?” I asked some-what hesitantly.
She eyed me up and down taking note of what I was already wearing. “Just out of curiosity what pair of shoes were you going to wear?” she asked with a small little smirk on her lips.
I bit my lip as I reached behind me and grabbed a pair of black ballet flats and held them up to her. I watched in amusement as she wrinkled her nose in disgust and handed me the other hook- errr I mean Prada shoe. I smiled at her trying not to let my triumph show. I had grabbed the flats because I knew there was no way she’d let me go out in them. There was no way I’d let me go out in them. I strapped them on and stood up to take a gander in the mirror. My jeans managed to cover up a majority of them so all you really saw was flashes of red and silver so it really wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Also, because of the platform, they boosted my small stature up a couple of much needed inches.
I turned to thank Rose, but stopped as I took a moment to look her over, really take in her appearance. I wanted to be jealous that she looked so much better than me in her white skinny jeans, blue sequined top and gold heels. Why she pursued a degree in art, I’ll never know. The girl was model material all the way. But ultimately, it was pointless to be jealous of her, there was no competing. Especially dressed how she was.
It was starting to get late, so we both grabbed what little belongings we wanted to take with us and headed out; mainly ID’s, some cash, and lip gloss. We got to the club quickly by grabbing a cab. Rose told me on the way there that the club we were going to was in Camden and she lived in Muswell Hill., With that information she started to tell me all about both areas. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about so, I just nodded and said ’ah uh’ when appropriate so she thought I was listening. Although I probably should have been listening, because I could guarantee you I would be getting lost soon and that information is probably something I wanted to remember.
The club we were going to was called, Undersolo. It wasn’t much from the outside and we had to walk down the narrow death stairs to get to it, but when we walked in it was a lot like most clubs except this one had a fully mirrored ceiling. I kept catching myself looking up the two of us. I had a great view of my cleavage and the girls were looking spectacular tonight. The bar was this huge circle located in the middle of the club so we both made a B-line for it to get a couple of shots and our first drinks of the evening.
Not long after arriving, Rose and I decided to make the rounds. While I was checking out a particularly delicious piece of man-meat, I bumped right into someone. I looked up to apologize but was confused when I didn’t see anyone in front of me, then I heard a throat clear. I looked around, still no one, until I looked down. There was a short girl in front of me, who was positively tiny. I mean really she looked like she was in heels but still was short compared to me. Not that I was all that short by any means at 5’7 but when you combined that with the hooker heels I had on I positively towered over her.
“Shit your short!” I blurted out without thinking. “Fuck, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to say that. I swear I have better manners than that.” I finished lamely blushing at my inability to keep the filter in place.
She looked me up and down slowly, and I suddenly felt very self-conscious standing in front of her. It was as if she was mentally picking apart every thing I was wearing. I kind- of wanted to cover my girly bits I felt so exposed. Then, her eyes landed on my shoes and they widened.
“Hey it’s no problem… happens quite a bit actually. Are those Prada?” she asked quickly.
“Umm yea, I was practically assaulted for not knowing that when they were given to me,” I stated, thinking back to scary fire breathing Rose.
She quirked her eye brow before she smiling at me. “Assaulted?”
I laughed suddenly. “Yea, my friend let me borrow them and I may have possiblycalledthemhookerheels.”
I think I heard her gasp, “You called them what?”
I sheepishly looked at her. She was dressed rather casually in short black shorts and a rocker tee with a vest over it, all topped off with electric blue heels. Casual but you could just tell it probably cost more than everything I owned.
“I… ahh… may have possibly called them hooker heels,.” I said sheepishly.
“Let me get this straight you called Prada ‘hooker heels’ and your friend still let you wear them? Wait no let me re-phrase that. You called them what you did and you’re still walking and talking?” I could only shrug at her. I didn’t really see it as capital offense, but apparently, I knew nothing about Prada.
She just waved her hand in front of her signaling the end of this line of conversation. “Anyways, your American right?”
“Yea I am. You too, right?” I asked, she nodded her head yes. “I just actually got in today or was it tomorrow or maybe yesterday? Well I left the states on the first. What day is it?” I said.
Laughing at me, she told me it was the second. “My name is Alice by the way,.” she said, holding her hand out in introduction.
I took it, “Bella,” I replied.
“Nice to meet you Bella. So what brings you to Jolly ole’ London?” she asked adapting a very fake English accent.
I laughed out loud at the horrible accent and proceeded to tell her that I was here visiting a friend, the very same one who let me borrow the shoes, for about a month. However, I made sure to leave out my unhealthy preoccupation with a certain Brit. She told me she was here for about a month with her boyfriend, Jasper who had the bluest, blue eyes and shaggy, blonde hair that just begged to have her fingers run through it. No lie that’s what she said. They were both here visiting a friend as well, but she told me this wasn’t her first time here, where as this was my first.
“Oh, Hell! I was supposed to meet back up with my friend like twenty minutes ago!” I exclaimed, “I’m sorry to cut this short, Alice, but it was very nice to meet you,.” I said as I started to turn away from her.
“Hey why don’t I come with you?” she asked. “I’m here kind of on my own anyways. I mean, I came with Jasper and his friend, but I’m like the odd woman out.”
I said sure and together we made our way across the club. I was going to ask Alice to help me find Rose, but I figured since she was vertically challenged that might not be such a good idea. Finally, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair and blue sequence and knew it was her.
“Fuck, Rose, I’m sorry I got caught up talking with someone and completely forgot the time.” She just rolled her eyes at me. “Anyways I want you to meet Alice. She’s from the states as well, visiting a friend.”
She looked to my left and raised her eyebrow before looking back at me. “I send you out to find a hot man and you come back with what? One of Santa’s reject elves? Christ, B, only you could find a mythical creature in July.”
I tried really hard not to laugh. I really did, but if I had a hard time keeping my verbal filter in place, Rose doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of hers. Instead, I bit the inside of my cheek and looked down at Alice. I was going to apologize for Rose being an ass, but Alice beat me too it.
“No it’s okay, Bella,” she said looking at Rose. She quirked her eye brow at me, and Rose huffed and crossed her arms defensively. It was really quite interesting watching them together. They were both dressed immaculately, Rose was glam and Alice was rock, but you could tell they were taking mental inventory of the other, both ready to stake their claim as top bitch.
Finally, Alice spoke again. “She looks so life like Bella.” I could feel my eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Life like? “I mean, I’ve only seen them on TV during one of those weird specials on NBC or NatGeo or some shit like that but they didn’t look this real, hell this one even talks.” Now I was really confused. I looked over at Rose and she just shrugged her shoulders.
“Alice, no offense, but what in the hell are you talking about?” I finally asked my confusion and curiosity getting the best of me.
She looked at me and I could see the traces of a smirk on her lips. “Why you don’t know? She’s obviously one of those life size silicone dolls.” When I still looked slightly confused, she just laughed and said,. “A life size sex doll!”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer and started to laugh loudly while Rose just attempted to scowl at Alice. They both took a step back from each other and Rose looked down her nose at Alice. Alice just acted like she was ignoring Rose, while she picked at her nails. It was like some weird western show down and, to be honest, I was worried about just how many people they were going to take down in the process. I could tell she wanted to be offended, but couldn’t be mad because Alice one upped her.
“Oh my God! Alice, I remember that special!“ I laughed out loud. “Although, when I saw it on TV, it was normally guys, who spent too much time in their mother’s basement playing video games and admiring their Star Wars toys, who had them. Shit, Rose, you have to admit that’s funny as hell,” I said, unable to wipe the smile off my face while looking at her.
Finally, Rose relaxed her stance and held her hand out to Alice. “Alice was it? Nice to meet you. I’m Rose.”
Alice took her hand and it looked like they were calling a mutual truce, for the time being.
It was getting close to last call and I’d had far too much to drink. Rose was ready to go, but I had to piss like a race horse before we left. Else, I’d have an accident on the way home. I was just heading out of the ladies room when the heel to my hooker shoes got caught on the hem of my jeans. Between the copious amounts of alcohol I had consumed and the fact that a foot was currently preoccupied I started to go down, arms flailing and muttered curses the whole way. Mentally I prepared myself for the inevitable collision with the bar floor when two arms wrapped around me in the nick of time.
“God Damn hooker heels,.” I said to no one in particular, before hearing a throaty chuckle from behind me.
Then I remembered that someone caught me before I face planted and quickly stood up to thank my rescuer. It was then that I discovered I was tangled up in something entirely new, that had nothing to do with the hooker heels. Before I knew it, I was on the floor with the person who valiantly tired to save me, not thirty seconds earlier.
I discovered the source of my tangled uppedness in the form of suspenders. Seriously suspenders! Who wears those? And it’s not like he was even using them. They were hanging down around his legs. We both struggled to get free of each other and stood quickly. I stood much too quickly though, as a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over me. I tried to look up at the guy in front of me but, when I did it got worse, so I focused on the buttons of his shirt. His incorrectly and crookedly buttoned shirt. Didn’t this guy know how to dress himself?
“Are you alright?” I heard a delicious British accent ask me.
I could only nod at him, much too fascinated with trying to figure out how he could have managed to button his shirt up unevenly AND miss a button.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Again, I could only nod, this time fascinated with the glimpse of skin I could see from where he had missed a button. I was transfixed and this insatiable need to feel his skin. My befuddled and boozed soaked brain began to act on its own. Before I knew it, I had hooked my fingers inside the hole in his shirt. A shock ran through my system when the tip of my finger felt smooth skin and then I could feel a sparse spattering of hair. I just wanted to slide my whole hand into that hole created by the missed button. I wanted to feel his entire chest.
With my mind made up, I was just starting to worm my hand in when the house lights flashed. I snatched my hand back like it had burned and realized what I was about to do. I was completely and utterly mortified. My first night in London and already I was molesting the locals. Seriously Bella? They were going to deport me for sure if I kept up that level of fuckery.
I turned quickly to walk away hoping to God I didn’t fall flat on my ass because that would be the very last thing I needed now.
Oh shit, moved too fast.
I could feel myself stumble just a little and knew I was going down, when a hand grabbed my arm. Oh shit, he’s going to have me arrested for assault.
“You alright B?” Oh thank God for Rose.
“Yea, let’s get out of here before I‘m deported,” I said quickly as we walked away once I got my bearings. She looked at me puzzled but just shrugged her shoulders and we both managed to get out of the club and navigate up the stairs of death.
We both linked arms and headed down the street. It wasn’t until we got to the end of the block that I remembered Alice. I felt like a douche bag. I had left and didn’t even say goodbye to her.
“Rose, where is Alice?”
“Oh she left with her boyfriend, but gave me her number so we could meet up later. She also said not to worry about leaving without saying goodbye.” Well I felt relieved that she didn’t think me to be the tool I so obviously was. “Then she said some shit about you being busy, getting a feel for the locals. Whatever the hell that means.”
I groaned out loud. She must have seen me molesting that guy back by the bathrooms. “Something you’re not telling me there, B?” she asked, coming to a halt and yanking me back to her.
I started looking every where but at her directly and stuck my hands in the back pockets of my jeans shrugging nonchalantly. “I may have possibly had my hand in some guys shirt.” I tried to mumble hoping she didn’t hear me.
“Bloody hell, Bella, I didn’t think you had it in you. Was he hot?” I just shrugged in answer to her question. “What do you mean just,” and she shrugged too.
“I mean I don’t have a flippin’ clue. I went to look up, but got dizzy from all the alcohol. So, I never got to see his face. You know he actually caught me because these damn hook…” I started lift my foot before she shoved me.
“Call them hooker heels, Bella, and I will be sending you back to the states in a body bag.” I could only laugh as I fell against the brick building next to me.
“Well I did get them from a hooker, so I just assumed...” I said as I let it trail off. Rose just smacked me on the arm and kept walking, so I had to jog a bit to catch up to her.
“What I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted was that I had tripped on these beautiful shoes.” She snorted. “Fuck, Rose, will you let me finish telling you what happened!?”
“By all means, don’t let me stop you,” she said, waving her hand in front of her.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her. “Anyways, I tripped and thought I was going down, when two arms wrapped around me before I could hit the floor. And get this, I go to stand up only to get tangled up in suspenders. Who wears suspenders? And it’s not like he was even wearing them they were hanging off his pants down around his legs.”
She started laughing. “Are you sure it wasn’t some old man who saved you?”
“Yes I’m sure it wasn’t an old man. And if it was, the old man kept in shape, at least from what I could feel. I was literally ready to shove my whole hand into the hole in his shirt when the house lights came on in the club, and I realized I was about to molest some guy. I can’t believe that I did that,” I said, covering my face in mortification.
“Hey don’t worry about it Bella, I’m sure the old-hobo guy, who works out, won’t even remember you come tomorrow.”
“A girl can hope can’t she?” I asked as we kept walking down the street. “Hey where are we going? Didn’t we take a cab to get here?”
“Chicken shop.” Was all she said by way of explanation.
“What’s a chicken shop and why are we going there?” I asked instantly on alert, not sure if I could trust her after the hooker comment. “Is that were you buy chickens? Cause, I’m not so sure I want a chicken. Ohhh… or is that why the chicken crossed the road? To get to the chicken shop?”
Rose stopped walking and looked at me, hands on hips and one eyebrow raised. “Seriously Bella?”
Okay maybe I was a wee bit drunk still and maybe it wasn’t the best joke, but she didn’t even crack a smile. No twitch of the lips to give anything away. “No, I guess not.” I said sighing. “So why don’t you just tell me what it is?”
“Fried chicken, B. Let’s get this show on the road because I’m eff’n starving,” she said as she kept walking. Well, hell, chicken did sound kind of good right now.
