Chapter Three
"Phil? Phil?" I called. The meet and greet was pretty much over. There was still a huge crowd, but no one was coming up to us anymore, so we took a short break. Somehow in this madness I had lost Phil. I was such a wonderful best friend. I started to turn as I walked, sometimes walking backwards so that I could look around for Phil. I started to turn again when I smacked into something, or someone. I stumbled but regained my balance.
"Oh god, I am so sorry." The voice came from behind me so I turned to look. A beautiful girl with dark skin and dark brown hair was mumbling her apologies. She was wearing black jeans and a light blue sweater, that had gotten bunched up in the crash of bodies.
"It's okay, I was looking for my friend Phil, I wasn't paying attention, it's my fault."
"No, no, it's mine. I was looking for my friends, and I guess I forgot where they were standing, and I don't really do well in crowds, and I am sort of having a panic attack" The girl took a deep breath. "You just learned a lot about me in thirty seconds." She took another deep breath. She didn't even seem to know who I was. It was nice.
"Are you okay?" She inhaled again.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Just slowly dying and I have no idea where I am."
"Who are you here to see?" I asked, trying to keep her calm.
"No one actually. My friend won some trip and brought me and like three other people along, even though I don't know anything about youtube, and it gets really awkward 'cause I have no idea what I am doing. I'm sorry, I ramble when I'm nervous." She took another deep breath.
"What do you friends look like, I'll try and help find them." For some reason I felt some need to protect the girl.
"Well, one of them is just about my height and has reddish hair-" She stopped mid explanation. "You don't have to help. I don't want to inconvenience anyone by asking for help. What does your friend Phil look like? I can try and help."
"Phil is about 6'2, black hair, blue eyes, pale skin."
"Okay! I promise I will not go on tumblr once until he is found." She was about to turn away, but then she came back. "If I do find him, who am I supposed to tell him was looking for him? Just the big fucking giant?" I laughed.
"No, my name is Dan." She smiled.
"My name's Claire, or Claira, or Clara, depending on the way you pronounce it. Sorry I'm rambling." She gave a small smile, took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. Which was kind of hard considering I am 6'3. "I will do my very best to find your friend. Have a wonderful day." Then she turned and vanished into the crowd. I smiled and continued my search for Phil.
I wandered around the crowd, occasionally asking people along the way if they has seen Phil. No one really had, although one person said they saw a tall black haired guy headed back towards our booth area. So I wandered off in that direction, looking for Phil. When I was almost there, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see who it was.
"Hey! A girl told me you were looking for me." Phil smiled at me and I hugged him.
"Awww" Someone called from behind me. Phil and I pulled away from each other. I turned to look at whoever Phil was staring at, who I assumed was the one who had said something. "I knew phan was a thing!" She squealed. A couple of her friends were jumping up and down and squealing too.
"Slow your roll down Lucy." A red-headed girl shoved past the other people so she stood next to the girl with the brown hair who had something about phan. "They can be whatever they want to be. So shut it and go make yourself a cup of tea. Realitea."
Woah, that girl was sassy. She stood just about 5'7 and was only slightly shorter than the girl I had met earlier. Didn't she say she had a redheaded friend? Before I knew what was happening, there was a mob. I didn't get a chance to ask the redhead if she knew Claire, and I don't know if I could find her again. Phil and I made our way back to meet and greet area. People swarmed. Our break was over.
"Come on Phil! Hold the elevator!" I yelled. Phil was a few steps behind me as we hurried. There had been a girl following us all day, and no offence meant to her, but we really wanted her to not see where our room was. A small hand darted in front of the elevator doors, holding them open. We skidded inside, and I actually ran into the wall. "Close the doors, please." I lowered my voice. The person, who I realized was a girl as I focused on my surroundings, seemed to sense the urgency and clicked the close doors button repeatedly. Once the doors were closed, she turned to look at us.
"Hey! You found each other!" She held her arms out in a gesture of some sort and gave us a huge smile. I finally recognized her as Claire.
"Hey!" Phil gave her a huge smile too and wrapped her in a hug. "I never got to hear your name, but thank you!"
"No problem! At least someone found their friend today." She smiled at me.
"Oh, you never found your friend?" I was actually deeply concerned for her. She seemed too nice to be lost in a place she had never heard of before.
"Yeah, but that's okay. She's probably in the room dancing or something." She shrugged. Phil and I looked at each other, then looked at her. Confused as to why she would be dancing in a hotel room. Claire looked at us for a minute. "Oh right! She's a dancer. You don't know. Sorry."
"Oh okay." I nodded along. I didn't realize the elevator was moving. "Oh could you hit floor seven please?"
"It's already pushed. That's my floor." She smiled a kind of "please say you won't stalk me" smile. I smiled back. She slapped her hand against her head. "I almost forgot," She turned to Phil. "Hi, my name is Claira." She smiled then glanced at the panel that said what floor we were on. As she did so, the elevator stopped. Not because it was on our floor, but because the power went out. That's what I assumed anyway. Everything went dark and the elevator lurched, causing Claire to stumble and fall into Phil, who crashed into me. Everyone ended up on the floor in a heap.
Claire was mostly on top of Phil, her chest against his neck. But at the sideways angle she was at, her hips were halfway on top of me. This is when I realized that she had some really noticeable curves. Like REALLY noticeable. Her ass looked amazing in those jeans. She squirmed a bit, mumbling an apology. Phil mumbled something back. Probably along the lines of "It's okay. Don't worry about it.".
"I don't think I can get up without elbowing or kneeing one of you." She collapsed against Phil, who was still leaning on me. This was a truly awkward situation. She shifted so she had a hand on the ground beside Phil, and propped herself up a bit.
"Okay, what if we lift you up a little bit first, so then you can stand up?" I asked. Phil turned his head to me and nodded. His face was flushed.
"That would probably work." Claire nodded. Phil put his hands on her stomach/hip area, I couldn't really tell. I grabbed her thighs.
"Count of three." I counted and down and then pushed upwards. Claire pushed with her one hand as well. Then she shuffled spun her legs around underneath her and stood up. She did this in a matter of seconds. It was very impressive. Then she offered Phil and I each a hand. We took it and each pulled ourselves up.
"Sorry about that." Claira half frowned, her lips pulled to the side.
"It's okay." Phil smiled at her, his face still red. My face was probably red too. Actually, so was Claire's. Phil reached for the phone to call for help, but as soon as he did, the elevator restarted.
"Seriously?" Claira looked at the ceiling. "You choose now to restart? When we didn't need help? How fucking kind of you." She looked at Phil and I. "Sorry. I sort of have the mouth of a trucker. I swear a lot."
"I can tell." I sort of laughed as the elevator dinged on our floor. Jesus Christ that took a while. Claire looked out and then took a careful step.
"Is everything okay?"
"Uhhmm, yeah. I don't know if any of my friends are here, that's all. I don't know whether my panic attack is over either. So I'll just go now." She nodded at us and walked down the hallway. We followed.
"We have to go this way too!" Phil called after her. She turned around and waited for us to catch up, taking deep breaths.
"Cool, which room is yours?" She asked. Phil and I exchanged glances.
"Room 720" Phil finally said.
"Seriously? I have room 718. You are right next to me." She smiled at us then stopped walking. She pulled a key card out of her pocket and headed to the closest door, which I realized was her room. I hadn't been paying attention.
"Do you want us to stick around? In case your friends aren't here? We can help if you are having a panic attack." The words came out of my mouth, but I didn't recognize them. There was that irrational need to protect a girl I barely even know.
"That would actually be great. Thank you very much." She gave me a smile, then flushed red and turned back to the door. It clicked and she swung it open. She gestured for us to follow her as she stepped inside.
We followed her into the small lounge part of the room. The problem was, all the sofas had been moved around to clear a huge space in the middle. In that space a redheaded girl danced in a crop top and leggings, her eyes closed.
"She always does this." Claire sighed.
"Sorry?" Phil asked.
"She's a hip hop and ballet dancer. She always dances on vacation. And we can't stop her until the song changes." She frowned. "Sorry" No one said anything. We just watched her dance and swing her hips. Suddenly she stopped dancing and took a breath. Before she could start her next dance Claire called out to her. "GEMMA! GEMMA!" The redhead spun around and ripped the earbuds out of her ears.
"Jesus fucking Christ! Claire, where did you go? We were looking for you! Lucy threatened to tie me up if I didn't stay in this room!" Whilst the girl was yelling, she walked over and hugged her friend. "I was so scared." Claire pulled away after a moment.
"You weren't supposed to dance. Vacation, remember?" Claire poked Gemma in the arm.
"Seriously? That's what you have to say? What the hell happened to you?" The other girl replied.
"Short form? I had multiple panic attacks. Then the elevator broke down. I also made some friends." Claire smiled at her friend, then smiled at us. The girl finally realized we were there.
"Who are they?" She asked quietly.
"Guys, this is Gemma. Gemma, this is Dan," Claire gestured to me, "And this is Phil." She smiled proudly.
"Hey, don't I know you?" Gemma looked at us questioningly. "Like, aren't you guys youtubers. I'm pretty sure you are. Lucy was fangirling pretty hard over you." Claire looked so confused.
"Wait, they're famous? I didn't know." She turned to us. "Good for you!" She smiled. Gemma whacked her on the arm.
"Of course you didn't know. You barely use the internet. The only thing you use is google. And occasionally tumblr. That's it. You are a book person. Because otherwise you would recognize them as AmazingPhil and danisnotonfire." Gemma looked at us and smiled. Claire looked at us very confused.
"Hi?" Phil and I chorused.
"Who are you?" Claire asked.