Chapter Seven

I felt like a total fail. I had fallen on the dancefloor with Gemma, and then lost her in the crowd. 'Reasons why Dan's a fail (yay)' sung in my head. I shook my head and wandered through the crowd. I saw Phil with Claire, holding hands again. I walked over and joined the conversation they were having with a few other people. I hung around with them for a while and was able to put Gemma out of my mind for a while.

I looked at my phone. It was almost eleven. I went to find Phil, who had walked away a while ago. A little while before he left, Claire had left. That's probably why he left. Anyway, we had a panel to present in the morning. Not that early in the morning, but early enough that we should probably get back to our room. I checked the couches, the tables, glanced over the dance floor, and finally headed for the bar. Once I got there, I found Claire and Gemma leaning together and talking. Phil was standing a little ways away talking to somebody about them making some videos together. I considered walking over to Gemma, but quickly decided to talk to Phil instead.

"Phil! Sorry to interrupt. We have a panel in the morning. We should probably go."

"Oh right! Talk to you later! Bye!" He called to the person he was talking to and walked with me to the stairway which led to the elevator. We waved at a few people on the way out and discussed a few different collab ideas we could do on the way to our room. By the time we got back to the room it was shortly after 11:30. We flopped on the beds. We chatted for a little while about all kinds of things, like what we were going to have for breakfast and what we might say on the panel tomorrow. We kept talking until about midnight, maybe a little later. Then we heard voices coming from the next room. The room directly above our heads while we were laying on the beds.

We both sat up straight and looked at each other. They were talking quite loudly, and we both knew who they were. We had a silent debate about whether or not we should listen, but we didn't really have much of a choice.

"So how many numbers did you get?" Gemma's voice echoed through the wall. It was crystalline and clear. Beautiful.

"Not nearly as many as you did. How did you even manage to get 16 guys to give you their numbers?" Claire's voice came a little more quietly.

"I had some free time. How many did you even get?"

"Three. But one of them was the cute bouncer, that has to count for two points."

"The bald guy?"

"Yes, he happened to have no hair. He also happened to be hot as hell." Phil and I looked at each other, a little confused as to what was going on.

"Okay, okay. The bouncer dude gets you two points." Gemma laughed. "The 16 numbers I got gave me 16 points. The three you got gave you four points. I feel like we have a clear winner here."

"Okay okay fine you win." Claire sighed. "How did you even come up with this game to begin with? What kind of person thinks 'Let's see how many numbers we can get and see who can get more' is a good kind of game?" Now I understood.

"You're just sad because you lost."

"It's not like I had much of a chance to try."

"Oh right! You and Phil were holding hands the whole time. How was that?" Phil got really red and I tried to hold back laughter.

"It was really..." Claire trailed off for a moment. Phil's eyes widened and he looked towards the wall, suddenly scared. "Okay I have given up on not swearing in this sentence." Claire continued. Gemma laughed. "It was fucking amazing. Like Jesus Christ, my god, bloody hell, fuck." Phil looked relieved.

"I lost a bet for that, so I hope you feel pleased." It was my turn for my face to get red.

"Wait, what?" Claire sounded hurt.

"Yeah. I bet five bucks that you and Phil wouldn't stop holding hands for longer than five minutes. I lost by ten seconds."

"Who the hell took that bet? Jesus Gemma. Do not ever do that again."

"Dan. And you have to admit, I had a good chance of winning." Phil glared at me.

"What?" I whispered. "She bet me, and I didn't think it would harm anything." Phil shook his head. The voices on the other side of the wall quieted.

"How many drinks did you even have?" Claire whispered.

"Like, three." Gemma whispered back.

"Come on, you know Lucy is going to come knocking on our door early in the morning again."

"Excuse me, but I saw you gulping down liquor like it was ambrosia."

"Okay, first of all, ambrosia does not actually exist. Second of all, I can hold my liquor. You however, cannot. You get drunk from three glasses of wine."

"That was one time and I had nothing to eat. If it was wine, it takes five or six glasses."

"And you really felt the need to clarify that."

"Yes!"

"You are not helping your case here."

"Fine fine." Gemma agreed then suddenly made an oof sound. "You did not!" I looked at Phil confused. He shrugged at me. There was a squeal from the other side of the wall. Then there was a heavy thud and a muffled scream. Maniacal laughter came next. I jumped off my bed. Luckily both Phil and I were still dressed. We hadn't gotten changed before we flopped on the bed.

"Are we gonna check?" I asked Phil.

"We can't not. What if something happened?" he answered.

"What would have happened?" I asked back. He shrugged. I was already headed for the door. I walked the short distance to their door. Phil grabbed the keycard on the way out and held it above his head for a moment. I was grateful. I knocked on the door. There was a muffled shriek and then the door swung open.

Claire stood in the doorway in a pair of pajama shorts that just barely covered her ass, and a black tank top. Gemma stood a little ways behind her in a tight nightgown that looked really silky. We stood there for a minute, not saying anything.

"Soooo, hi?" Claire said after another minute.

"Hey." Phil replied. We stood around for another minute. Claire raised her eyebrows.

"Okay, seriously, why are you guys here?" Gemma walked over so she stood beside Claire.

"We heard some screams." I said quietly.

"You were listening to us?" Gemma asked. Claire whispered something in her ear, then walked into the room. Gemma closed the door a bit and stood in the door frame to block our view.

"Well, we were sitting quietly and your voices just kinda came through the wall. We couldn't help it." Phil shrugged. Gemma's face went a little red.

"Well, that was a little impolite, but I could see why that happened." Gemma nodded.

"Why were there screams? Is everything okay?" I asked again, very worried.

"We were having a pillow fight." Gemma's face went a shade more red. "There was a stealth attack dealt to me. I am incredibly insulted that you thought that we couldn't handle ourselves." Gemma frowned, her face getting even more red. I swear something was wrong. "Claire, do you have anything to say to them?" Gemma glanced backwards, still blocking our view of the room.

"Yes, I do, actually." Claire's voice came from closer than I was expecting.

"Okay." Gemma said as she stepped around the door, almost closing it before Claire came back. Claire opened the door and one of her hands stayed on the side inside the room, like she was holding it.

"Hi." Claire smiled prettily, then threw open the door, pulling her hand out from behind it in the process. In her hand was a pillow. She jumped into the hallway and started to smack us with the pillow. Peals of laughter erupted from inside the room. I covered my head as Claire rained down on us with the pillow. Then she jumped back inside the room, laughing. "Take that." She had a huge grin on her face, but started to bite her lip. "Have a great night!" She called. Then Gemma reached out from behind her and started closing the door.

"Sleep tight!" Gemma called before slamming the door. Their laughter came through the door, although slightly muffled.

I looked at Phil. He shrugged. We headed back to our room. He unlocked the door and went inside, I followed. We changed into our pajamas and crawled into bed. There was only another day and a half of vidcon. What would happen next?