The Hollywood Princess

[3] chapter three
— the close call

song = volcano by U2

"This is torture." I gritted out in a combination of both agonised boredom and also a hint of anger; concluding in one of my extremely bad tantrums.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I stared at Harry who was seated on the booth across from me. Apparently coffee shops were the hottest new trend recently and as much as I enjoyed me a good ol' caramel frappé every now and again, staring at the awful view in front of me was enough to put me off of the delicious iced heaven for a long time.

"You couldn't possibly make it any more clear that you don't want to be here, Payton." Harry sighed and gave me a stressed look which I bluntly ignored, taking a sip of my drink as I proceeded to throw him the stink-eye.

He fidgeted in his cushioned seat, completely troubled on how to get out of the sticky situation. "Well this has been fun," I muttered sarcastically, yanking my bag up from the floor to get up from my seat.

"Payton," he stopped my action, "don't."

Rolling my eyes, I slumped back into my chair as I tugged at the collar of my jacket and pushed my sunglasses farther up the bridge of my nose. I whined. Since I was forced to be around Harry in public, I decided that I'd rather not be noticed — even if that did mean wearing sunglasses inside a public coffee shops. I'd be surprised if people didn't send odd stares.

You can't blame me though, if I removed my disguise people would recognise me and the next thing I'd know, the only thing I'd be able to see would be camera flashes and a hectic crowd.

I sighed. I didn't understand why I was there, why I was on a date with someone who shared more than mutual irritation towards me, and as Harry held eye contact with me from over the table, I realised that there must be something behind it. "Why am I here, Harry?"

He toyed with a few of the drink brochures that laid in front of us after one of the baristas had handed them to us. I was a hairline away from ripping them out of his grasp and shoving them down his throat, he was so incredibly annoying that I almost couldn't bare it.

"Hey, how about we get some brownies?" He asked, his eyes sparkling as he browsed through the small dessert menu. My mouth watered at the sight of the hot fudge dripping down a stack of gorgeous, chocolate...

I shook myself out of my distracted daze and glared at him, swiping the menu from his grasp, slamming it down on the table. I sent him a bitter sweet smile as he stared at his lap, disappointed.

He was trying to pull the cotton over my eyes and that meant there was obviously something to hide. "I'm not an idiot, Harry," he rose his eyebrows, amused, and I had to stop myself from growling at him. "Why am I here?"

"Can I not have a moment to enjoy your lovely company?" His voice was calm yet taunting as he sat back, flaunting that he knew something that I did not.

As a celebrity, I should of course be used to people giving me their undivided attention but the one problem was that, instead, they were staring as if I'd grown a second head. The menu made contact with Harry's forehead and he sat dumbfounded as I knocked my chair back with an obnoxious, loud scraping sound against the floor.

With the attention of more than half, if not all, of the coffee shop, I bit my lip in order to stop myself from yelling at them to return to their boring mundane lives and stormed out with the door slamming behind me.

I grumbled profanities under my breath and stomped in a random direction, as long as I was as far away from Harry as I could, I didn't care. My hand searched blindly around my bag for my phone as I pushed through the busy street — the sooner I could get my phone, the sooner I could call someone to pick me up and the sooner someone could pick me up, the sooner I could go home and take my anger out of Sargent Carrot again.

I escaped the large crowd and found myself into a clearer area. I pulled out my phone and proceeded to type away, unaware I was walking into the path of traffic. I began to raise the mobile higher in order to get more signal but before it was even at the third bar, it flew out of my hand and landed onto the road.

Falling back with a frightened scream, I watched horrified as the giant wheel of the truck smashed the phone to smithereens. I let out a pained cry and pathetically reached out for the crushed metal that was once my baby iPhone. I was at loss, coming to terms with the fact that my flappy bird score was probably forever lost almost tore me apart.

A stranger scrambled up from next to me, breathing heavily. "Jesus, I've never ran so fast in my life, are you okay?" He held his hand out for mine, pulling me into his chest as he helped me up from the floor.

I took in a deep, shaky breath and blinked rapidly. Unable to find my voice, my mouth opened and closed much like a goldfish would before I finally spoke, "My phone..."

He scoffed, "Yeah and I was worried that was going to be you if I hadn't have been any quicker. I can't beleive it, everyone just watched you stroll into the road, no one even did anything!" His eyes had softened as he took in the traumatised state I was in, "Are you hurt? I'm sorry I sort of, uh, tackled you back there."

"You saved me?" My question sounded, oddly enough, more like a statement as I took in the apperance of my saviour. He had deep brown eyes, big enough to make him appear almost innocent, and strong features like his sharp jaw bone that I was slightly frightened to touch unless it cut me. The muscles in his arms tightened slightly around my figure and I was sure I was not far from swooning like the damsel in distress I was.

"Well, as irritating as you are, he wasn't just gonna' leave you to die." I spun around, out of the strangers arms, and stared into Harry's eyes. He seemed to apear worried but he also still managed to smirk as he watched me stare him down.

"Shut up, Harry. I don't see you being my saviour any time soon." I hissed at him, pushing him slightly by the shoulder.

Ignoring the pained look that wavered across his features, I turned my back on him and looked back at my hero who'd had been pacienly observing us as we knocked heads.

"Thank you so much, by the way."

Brown-eyes sent a sincere smile and his cheeks tinged with a rosy hue, "As long as you're okay."

Hearing Harry make a noise of distaste, the heal of my foot slammed down on the top of his shoe and ground it down until I heard him release a pained yelp. I smirked to myself and gave my attention back to the stranger. "I'm Payton,"

His eyes widened in recognition, "Liam."

"Well Liam, perhaps we should do this again; minus the whole taste of death scenario, of course." I smiled him and passed him a little white card that my mother had convenienly forced me to carry in bulk incase of potential business opportunities — before I had found them a waste of space but now they were seeming extremely useful and promising for future references.

Eyeing the numbers printed in black and white, Liam opened his mouth only to interrupted, "So on that note, it's about time we should get going home." Harry clamped his large hand around my shoulder, steering me away from Liam. I said farewell with a small wave before I'd been dragged to far that he was swallowed by crowd and disappeared within the hustle and bustle.

I frowned at Harry, l don't know why he was acting so dismissive with Liam but for whatever reason it was extremely rude and irritating at the same time.

He has serious issues.

Notes

This went so off track...