Chapter 23

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"Collins, we need to talk."

He didn't respond or even acknowledge my presence. Sighing, I walked closer to him.

"What is your problem? Xavier is a sweet guy and he just asked to dance. You had no right to get Elliot to make him leave. You are just unbelievable." I yelled.

He grabbed a bottle and took a long chug from it. "You know what's unbelievable? How incredibly blind and trusting you are. Clearly, you don't know how this world functions."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked frustrated.

"You accepted his invitation to dance and you don't know the first thing about him. That type of foolishness can get you in serious trouble," he said as took another drink.

"It's not foolishness. But nonetheless, I don't see how it concerns you. I mean what do you care?"

He finished off his drink before jumping off the wall. He stumbled on the landing and nearly toppled over. My hands shot out to help but he straightened himself.

He walked towards me, swaying side to side. The smell of alcohol hit my nose and I backed away from him. Although he didn't get the message and kept walking towards me.

My back hit the wall behind me and he grabbed my hands and pinned them to the wall.

"Joshua," I wringing my wrist to get him to let go, "back away."

He did the exact opposite and leaned in. "You know that every guy in the club was watching you tonight."

"I highly doubt that," I said ducking my head down.

He smiled and laughed a little. "Ah, your naivety is refreshing. But it's true, you were the most beautiful girl in that room."

I looked up at up and saw him staring at me.

"In fact, you're usually the most beautiful woman in most rooms." His words slurred slightly but I still felt the blush creeping up.

"Are you feeling okay?" I asked thinking he was delirious.

He smiled once more and shook his head. "Nope, I feel intoxicated."

"How many drinks have you had?" I asked.

"I don't know," he shrugged his shoulder, "like seven."

"You're drunk." I stated.

"Excellent observation princess. Would you like a prize?" He said between hiccups.

Great, I get stuck with the drunkard. I pushed him away and made him lean against the wall. I pulled out my phone to text Elliot that I was taking Joshua home as he was drunk.

"You can be incredibly stupid Collins. What was the need to drink so much anyways?" I asked as I finished typing. I put the phone back in my purse after I was done.

He laughed. "To get the image of you dancing with Xavier out of my head."

I froze and stared at him. "What?"

"I don't like you dancing with him. In fact, I don't like you doing anything with anyone. But I don't know why." He mumbled. He slid onto the floor and started closing his eyes.

"Hey! No, stay awake." I ran over and pushed him to his feet. I hooked his arm over my head and onto my shoulder. He leaned his entire weight on me and I nearly fell over.

"God, what do you eat?" I mumbled to myself as I dragged him toward the doorway.

Struggling, I took him down the stairs and out of the club. I hailed us a cab and gave the driver directions back to the house.

Joshua played with strands of my hair and mumbled incoherent things. I didn't even bother stopping him. I just wanted to get back to the house and put him to sleep.

When the cab pulled up in front of the house, I quickly paid the driver and pulled Joshua out.

"A little help would get nice Collins. You don't have lean your entire weight on me you know," I said as struggled to pull him up the stairs.

"Sorry," he slurred. But he took some of his weight off me and helped me take him up the stairs as best as he could.

I let a sign of relief when we made it up the stairs. I kicked open his room door and dragged him in. I took his arm off my shoulder and attempted to lower him into bed, but his arm was still wrapped around my waist and we both fell onto the bed.

I struggled to get him off me but he pulled me closer and snuggled his head in to the crook of my neck.

"Joshua let go." I tried to pull his arm off me but he wouldn't budge.

He mumbled something and brushed his lips against my skin. I felt goosebumps along were his lips were and groaned out loud. This was turning into a routine thing. Seriously, how many times will I find myself in this position.

"Joshua..." I sighed.

He started snoring slightly. Seriously, he was sleeping?! That just made things a whole lot harder.

I pushed and shoved with all my might but he wouldn't budge. I couldn't even shout for help, no one was here.

I flopped my head against the pillow and let my mind drift until someone came home. I didn't even realize when I fell asleep.

I awoke with the sun irritating my eyes. I lifted my hands to block the sun and sat up slightly in bed. I looked beside me to see that Joshua was gone. I looked around the entire room but still didn't see him. I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. I knocked and opened the door slightly but he wasn't in there either.

I was about to leave the room when I saw him standing on the balcony. I went to the kitchen quickly to get some water and aspirin before I went back and joined him.

"Morning."

He nodded his head in acknowledgement. I passed him the glass of water and pills. He took them without even looking at me.

"Am I getting the silent treatment? That's funny, considering I dragged your drunk ass home last night." I leaned on the ledge and watched the sun slowly rise in the sky.

He didn't answer my question and remained silent. After about 10 minutes, he finally talked.

"Sorry."

I looked at over him but he was still staring straight ahead.

"Fine, whatever be Mr. Moody, see if I care." I turned to walk away but he grabbed my waist and pulled me back. He placed me between him and the railing.

"I'm sorry about last night, I don't know what came over me. I don't remember much, although it couldn't have been good. When I woke up and saw you sleeping beside me, pinned under my arm, I realized I must have went over the line."

I didn't have anything to say so I stayed quiet. He sighed and placed on hand on cheek.

"I mean it, I didn't do anything on purpose." I saw the worry in his eyes and decided to put him out of his misery.

"I know, don't worry. Besides, I would kick your ass if you did."

He smiled and I returned it. Although I dropped it when I realized how close we were.

I slipped out of his hold and stood beside him.

"I'm going to go freshen up."

I left without waiting for a response. A quick shower and I was back down in the kitchen. All the guys were still sleeping and I knew they would be hung over, so I placed glasses of water with aspirins around the tables and started making breakfast.

I was just taking my handmade croissants out of the oven when they came into the kitchen holding their heads.

"Well good morning," I said quietly.

They smiled in thanks for the quiet voice and gratefully took the pills. I passed them their plates and they started eating quietly.

"So what time did you all come in?" I asked as I took my seat.

"I don't even know, like almost three." Johnathan said as he groaned and rubbed his temples.

"Did any of you sleep with someone?"

Lucas started chocking on his drink. I innocently took a bite of croissant waiting.

"Well?" I asked.

"How can you just outright ask that?" Lucas said with big eyes.

I shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal. If a girl wanted to sleep with you then she did it on her own. I'm not that judgmental you know. But back to the question, did you?"

They all shook their heads and I was actually surprised at that.

"No, we didn't sleep with anyone." Elliot said.

"What?" I asked confused.

"We are pretty old fashioned. Sure we dance with girls and we flirt but we don't sleep around. Given our life, we only focused on destroying River Pearson. Nothing else mattered."

When Ron explained it, it made more sense. When you have so much tragedy in life, you can't find joy in anything. Who knew that better than me.

"But we're all wondering if you and Joshua got some last night." Jonathan said suddenly.

I chocked on my orange juice. I looked at them and they were smirking.

I grabbed a tissue and started cleaning up the mess. "What do you mean?"

"Oh please, we all saw you sleeping with Joshua. When we got back, Elliot wanted to make sure you got home safely so we went to your room to check but you weren't there. Elliot started freaking out and barged into Joshua's room. Low and behold, there you were laying under Joshua." Lucas wiggled his eyebrows in a mischievous manner making me want to smack him.

"Then calm your filthy minds. He was drunk and I had to bring him home, I even told Elliot that. We fell onto the bed when I tried to get him to sleep and he wouldn't move. I was waiting for one of you to come home but fell asleep."

"So there's nothing going on between you two?" Ron asked.

"No," I said as I stood up and put my dish in the sink, "there is nothing going on and nor will there be. I'm only here until this deal is done, then I'm gone. I'm not here to make long term friendships or did you all forget that?" I looked at them questioningly.

They all became quiet and didn't respond. They actually looked a little sad when I said I'm leaving.

"You all know I'm going to leave, that has always been the plan."

"Do you have to though? Why don't you just stay with us?" Lucas asked.

I smiled sadly and shook my head. "I can't, I don't belong here."

"Yes you do," Elliot said as he stood up and came to me, "we all care about you Amira."

I backed away from him. "I know you do and I care about you too but I just can't stay. But let's not focus on that right now, let's plan something for our last day here."

Although they all wanted to say more, they nodded their heads and started shouting out ideas.

"Roller blading!" Lucas said.

"Hiking?" Johnathan suggested.

"Shooting!" Ron said.

I looked at all them like they were stupid, especially Ron.

"Why don't we go play laser tag or paintball?" Elliot suggested.

"Finally a good idea. Let's do both, we have the time anyways." I said.

Everyone agreed and went off to get ready. I cleaned up and took a plate of food up to Joshua's room. He hadn't come down since I saw him in the morning.

I knocked on his door and entered when he said come in. He was on his phone so I put the plate on the bedside table.

"Your breakfast. We're all going to laser tag and paintball, so get ready." I said before I turned to leave.

"Hold on." He pocketed his phone and walked towards me. "You don't have to be so uncomfortable around me, this morning didn't mean anything."

"I know that, I don't change my behaviour according to you." I informed him.

"Alright then you can get out." He said turning his attention back to his phone.

"My pleasure." I gave a mocking salute before walking back to my room and slammed my door. I just couldn't stand that guy, he had more mood swings then a girl on her period.

I mean yesterday he said he couldn't stand the image of me with another guy and now he was kicking me out of his room.

I quickly changed into a white floral dress and threw on a white jean jacket. I threw my hair into a messy bun before slipping into a pair of ankle boots. I packed in extra set of clothes in my purse before meeting everyone downstairs.

Joshua ignored me when I entered the room and the entire way to the laser tag arena.

"Alright, let's do teams of three again. Elliot and Amira, I'm assuming you want to be on the same team?" Ron asked.

When we both nodded our heads, he continued.

"Okay then Joshua is also on your team again, but mostly because he's being a moody bitch and I ain't dealing with that."

Joshua glared at him but Ron just ignored him. He took Lucas and Johnathan away to make a plan.

"Alright, so what's our game tactic going to be?" Elliot asked looking between me and Joshua.

"Doesn't matter as long as we beat them." Joshua said.

"Of course it matters," I said, "you can't just go in guns blazing. That will get you killed. We need a smart plan to take them out."

"Okay princess, since you have such brilliant ideas, why don't you tell us the game plan."

We got into a glaring match. Elliot looked back and forth between us before he made me face him.

"Amira, come on."

"Okay, fine. If I know them, they're going to tag team on each of us one by one. So our plan should be to have one person out in the open and the other two come from behind and take them out." I explained.

"Great," Elliot said, "but who should be out bait?"

"Joshua." I said.

"Hell no, you'll be bait princess."

"I would but they aren't going to go after me first, it's going to be you and you know that too. So stop whining and get into position."

He glared at me some more before swearing and stalking off. I rolled my eyes at his behaviour and motioned for Elliot to follow me.

We hid behind objects and moved quietly ahead. Joshua was playing his part of checking every available area for signs of them. I caught Lucas moving quietly towards him and pointed it out to Elliot.

Elliot nodded and moved in on Lucas while I watched out for him and Joshua. He caught Lucas by surprise and quickly shot him with the laser gun.

Lucas groaned and fell back onto the ground. Elliot quickly ran back to me.

"Great job!"

He smiled and focused his attention back to Joshua. I caught his eye and mouthed him to hide when I saw Johnathan about to shoot him. From my position, I quickly stood up and shot him.

"Aw man!" He shouted when I hit him.

Elliot high-fived me and we resumed watching Joshua. Only Ron was left but something told me, it wouldn't be easy getting him. We waited for over 15 minutes but there was no sign of him.

Eventually, Joshua got up and started snooping around looking for him. Elliot and I also switched our location.

He was hiding really good and it shocked us when he hit Joshua from out of no where.

He got Elliot in the moment of surprise. I quickly jumped for cover behind a pillar before he got me too.

Great, now it was one and one. I slid down the pillar and moved along the floor. I squeezed in between a space in the stairs and waited. Soon I heard him walk down the stairs. I pushed myself back against the wall further.

Ron moved from side to side before hiding near the pillar I was at before. I didn't have a good shot so I waited until he moved again.

Just like I thought, he moved closer to Elliot and shot him a few extra times.

"Dude, I'm already out!" Elliot shouted.

I used that moment to come out and run over quickly to the pillar. Ron quickly moved to the other side and scanned for any signs of me. A noise caught his attention and he turned his attention to the far end of the room.

I used that as my moment of opportunity to run across and hide behind a pillar directly behind him. He slowly moved out and into the open going towards the noise. He was looking around for signs of me. A loud bang caused him to point his gun directly ahead.

I got out and moved behind him.

"Game," I said as he spun around and hit him, "over."

*******************************
After whining from the guys about losing laser tag, we all headed over to paintball. I changed into the pair of clothes I had packed as I didn't want my current outfit to get ruined.

The paintball game lasted through most of the afternoon. In the end, we lost because we got shot with more paintballs than anyone else so the score was tied.

"Man we got you good!" Lucas shouted.

"Oh please, Amira took you all out in laser tag single handily." Elliot retorted back.

They got into a small argument which I broke up by saying how stupid they were being.

"Alright my idiots, I'm hungry and we haven't had lunch even. It's time for dinner though so where are we going?" Johnathan said.

I suggested we go to the beach bonfire party and there would be tons of free food there.

As soon as they heard free food, they took off running to the car. I smiled and followed after them.

"Where'd you hear about this party?" Ron asked as he drove.

"I heard some university students talking about it while we were waiting to play paintball and it sounded like fun. There will be a giant bonfire, DJ, food and of course, alcohol." I said.

We arrived at the beach and saw that it was packed. University students filled the entire beach. They were all dressed in swimsuits and holding bottles of beer.

"Aww, wish we thought to bring swimsuits." Johnathan whined.

"We have extra in the trunk. Sorry Amira, we don't have any for you though."

"That's okay Elliot, I don't want to go swimming anyways."

Ron, Johnathan and Lucas grabbed some swimming shorts before heading off to change.

"You can go too Elliot, I'm fine on my own." I told him.

"Are you sure? I can just hang out with you." He offered.

I smiled a little and pushed him towards the beach. "Go, I know you want to swim."

He hesitated a little before saying he'll catch up with me later on. Joshua was still near the car, looking over the beach party. I ignored him and walked over to the bonfire. I grabbed one of the empty chairs and warmed myself by the fire.

A while later a guy came over and offered me a drink. I declined but he was being persistent.

"I said no thank you. Are you dense or what?" I snapped.

He was about to respond back when Joshua came and sat beside me. He handed me a beer bottle and glared at the guy.

The guy lowered his hand and walked off looking frustrated.

"I didn't need your help you know. I was fine on my own."

"It's not wrong to accept help from other people princess," he said as he took a sip of drink.

"It's not, but only when the person asks for it."

"You really are something else princess." He smiled and good a swing of his drink.

I handed Joshua back the drink and got up from my chair. I walked over to a quiet area on the beach and sat down. I didn't want to deal with his ever changing mood swings. I stared at the giant moon in the sky and was mesmerised by its reflection in the ocean water.

Elena would have loved this if she was here.

Although she was a more Netflix and chill kind of person, if there was party then she would jump at the chance to go. She was such an outgoing person and always pushed me to try things I never wanted to. I wonder what she would say if she could see me now.

Probably tell me I'm being stupid for pushing people away. I sighed and traced her name in the sand.

Joshua came after a few minutes and sat down next to me. He didn't say anything and I remained quiet too. Slowly, all the guys came over and sat down.

We all watched the oceans waves crash against the beach. Suddenly fireworks lit the sky. We all sat quietly watching the firework show. The university students were cheering in the background but I think we all tuned it out.

We stayed and watched until it turned to morning. When it had fully risen and day had broken, we got up and started heading

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