Perfect

HARRY
“Where are we going?” Jamie asks as we walk through the hallway.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” I say, because I don’t think I can actually explain what she’s about to witness.
“If Louis hasn’t fucked it up,” Liam says. He looks like he’s in a mood, but I don’t even know why. Asking isn’t going to help me because Liam is hardly the sharing kind, neither of us are I suppose, except for maybe Niall, but it’s just that I’ve got other things to worry about at the moment.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Niall says.
“Stop being such a wuss,” I say.
“So you’re a wuss if you don’t have shit and sperm for brains?” Niall shoots back. “You know this plan is dumb, don’t you? Anyone who goes along with it is just as dumb! No offense, Jamie.”
“Niall,” I say. “The plan is not dumb.”
“Why?” Niall asks. “Because you said so?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Shut up, you two,” Liam intervenes.
When we finally get to Alex’s room, we knock.
No one answers.
A couple passes by and looks at us strangely, and Niall smiles at them. But they’re still looking at us suspiciously.
I don’t blame them.
Our rag tag team of misfits doesn’t exactly fit in. I have a hangover, Jamie has been crying and has a hangover and Liam looks drunk. The only possible non-messed up person is Niall, but he probably looks suspicious simply on account of being with us. Before the spying couple can call security the door opens and we all rush inside.
I’m about to close the door when I catch Jamie just standing at the threshold, not stepping in. “Jamie,” I say. “Come inside.”
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea…”
“We talked about this,” I say. “We have a plan, don’t we?”
She nods.
“So please,” I say. “Just trust me.”
She looks up at me.
I think she’s still trying to re-learn the word ‘trust’ and I can’t blame her. But soon, she’s stepped over the threshold and beyond, and I close the door and relax just a little. Everything, is riding on her being strong enough to do this the way we planned.
She gingerly walks next to me and we see Alex bound and gagged in a chair, right next to the bed the minute we go in. His face is bruised and bleeding and so are Louis’s knuckles which he is shaking now.
“Hey,” Niall goes to Louis and drags him away from Alex. “What the hell are you doing?”
“He won’t talk!” Louis snaps.
I leave Jamie’s side and walk over to Alex. I remove the gag and Alex spews some incoherent words and spittle at me. “Please,” he says, looking at me. “You got to let me go.”
“I will,” I say, crouching in front of him and taking out the switchblade I always carry around. I place it right against Alex’s crotch. “Now, here’s the thing O’Keefe. You don’t know me. And my friend tells me you won’t say anything, so I have no choice. You either talk, or we end this now. I will use this knife to take out your balls and leave you to bleed out here. Is that understood? The cops are never going to know it was me, because this isn’t my first rodeo.”
“No…please,” Alex cowers.
“Tell us what we want to know,” I say, pressing the blade harder into his sac. “And we’ll let you go. It’s a simple trade, Alex! She’s not even going to press charges against you if you tell us who made you do it.”
“No one did,” Alex says. “It was all me.”
But the minute I press the knife harder, he squeals. “Okay okay please stop!” he yells. “I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you everything I know just please stop!’
I knew it.
All of this couldn’t have been a coincidence, I was right!
I kind of feel like celebrating but I have to focus on keeping a straight face if I’m going to look menacing. “I’m listening,” I say, getting up.
He exhales a heavy breath, and then begins. “Look,” he says. “I was scared. Or I would have never done such a thing. They threatened to kill me if I didn’t comply, I had no choice.” He looks directly at Jamie. “Jamie, you know me. I’m a jerk, but I’m not capable of something like this, you know that, don’t you?”
“Hey,” Louis says, shaking his fist at Alex. “You don’t talk directly to her, okay? Don’t even look directly at her, capiche?”
“We need a name, Alex.” Liam finally speaks up. “And we’d appreciate if you could move this along. We don’t have all day.”
“So?” I turn to Alex. “Squeal.”
“I met this guy at the bar downstairs,” Alex says at last. “I don’t even know him, man. The first time I saw him, was two days ago. He was older…like…I don’t know…in his late forties? He wore a nice suit but looked like he was a commoner.”
“Commoner?” Liam says. “What’re you the Prince of fucking Wales?”
“Liam,” Louis says. “This isn’t the time to be worrying about his political incorrectness.”
“Whatever,” Liam says.
“This guy,” I ask. “Did he give you a name?”
“He did…” Alex says. “But fuck I can’t fucking remember it! It was just one name…”
“Harlow?” I say. “Was that the name he gave you?”
Alex stares at me. “How…how did you…”
“Did he say why?” I ask. “Why he was drugging us both?”
“No,” Alex says. “I swear to God, that’s all I know!”
“How’d Jamie get into my room?” I ask one more question that’s been on my mind.
Alex’s eyes are downcast. “Because,” he says. “That guy…Harlow…he had keys to your room. He gave them to me. Told me all I had to do was to take Jamie to your room instead of mine and well…set it up for you two to…”
I can’t even look at Jamie right now. I can only imagine what she must be going through. We should be doing a lot worse to this bastard, but what does that say about us? “Let him go,” I say and turn to Jamie and give her a hug. She starts crying again, just as I expected and I let her. “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll figure this out, Jamie. I’m right here.”
When Louis is done cutting off the ties, Alex walks up to Jamie and me, rubbing his wrists. “Jamie,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s go guys,” Louis says, grabbing Mia’s hand and I grab Jamie’s, and we all leave the room after Liam gives Alex one final warning about not telling anyone.
Everyone starts walking right across the hall to our room, and I excuse myself.
“You guys go ahead,” I say. “There’s something we need to do.”
No one says anything but I can see Liam isn’t taking this well. He heads into the room without a word and so do the others but I catch Mia’s arm before she goes in. “I kind of need your help with this,” I say. She smiles and gestures to Louis, who winks at her and Niall closes the door, leaving the three of us in the empty hallway.
“So what’s this about?” Mia asks.
“I kind of…need to make Natalie jealous,” I confess. “And we can’t do that without your help.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Well,” I place my hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Maybe you could…you know…give her a makeover or something?”
Mia bursts out laughing. “Harry,” she says. “This isn’t the eighties and I’m not Molly Ringwald. No one does outcast-to-pretty-princess makeovers anymore, that’s just…wrong on so many levels dude.”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” I say. “But point taken.”
“Look,” Mia gives Jamie a once-over. “Maybe I can loan her some clothes and some makeup.”
“Yeah,” I say, enthusiastically. “Look, she’s beautiful. There’s no denying that. But we need to make her…pop.”
“You mean loan her a slutty dress?”
“Something like that.”
“So, what am I dressing her for?” Mia asks.
I look at Jamie. “A party,” I say. “A totally exclusive, ten-thousand dollar entrance fee sort of party.”
“Can I go?”
“No.”
“Why not!” Mia says. “I’ll ditch Louis if you want!”
“Mia,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Fine,” Mia says. “Let’s just go to my room. We’ll take it from there.”
She starts walking.
“Mia,” I say, following her. “I owe you.”
“Oh yeah,” she says, but she’s smiling.
My hands are shaking.
I’ve never been this excited to do something. Okay, so that’s probably not true, but this is one of those moments that you don’t know whether you’re excited or simply having a heart attack. It’s a shame I’ve never had a heart attack to know the difference.
“You guys are taking forever!” Mia says, and I don’t know how she’s gotten that far ahead of us, she must have been running.
I take one glance at Jamie. “Are you alright?”
She nods.
I guess that’s as close to a response that I’m going to get from her so I say nothing and take her word for it.

Notes