Page 50 of House of Bass

An hour later, they arrived there after struggling to find a place to park, the path it took to get to the viewpoint wasn’t far. The sun had already set not too long ago and Harley could see and hear the chatter of people as they neared.

Annabel carried a thick mat and blanket while Harley held the camera she got on a trip to Covent Garden with her.

There were more students here than Harley had expected. This was probably a much bigger outcome than they themselves thought possible, at least five hundred people. They had to weave through everyone to get to where all four of Annabel’s friends stood; Daniel, Devon and MJ were talking as Arden kept looking about until he spotted them both, relief on his face. As well as a smile.

Harley turned to Annabel to see she had a similar expression on her but was shyly pretending not to. And she couldn’t help but suspect there was even more going on here than she had been privy to.

“Any longer and we would have had to send out a search team,” Arden voiced as she and Annabel came into view. “And here I assumed you were the responsible one, Harleen.”

At the same time they both growled out, “Oh bore off, I’m thirty minutes earlier than I said I'd be here.” and “Don’t fucking call me Harleen.”

“Vous êtes sûres que vous n'êtes pas jumelles?” MJ pondered at the startlingly similar expressions on their faces. Is it possible the two of you are twins, instead?

A question clearly meant for Annabel but Harley answered without thinking. “Definitely not.”

MJ gasped, “You understand me?”

“I didn’t know you spoke French?” Annabel asked her. Harley spent a lot of time with her head in books instead of her phone growing up so she spent a lot of it learning languages. She could speak six, other than English, and French was one of them.

“You never asked.” She shrugged as they both finished their set up to the left of Arden and MJ.

“Shocking news: Girl speaks more than one language. So do the rest of us,” Devon piped in.

“I have never heard a positive sentence uttered from you,” Harley countered.

“The sight of you has me leaving positivity at the door.” A taunting saccharine smile appeared and Harley couldn’t help but note that she currently looked like a beautiful version of the Joker.

“Ignore her, she’s especially high-strung because we made her skip practice for this,” MJ told her, and pointed to Annabel, “She’s like that one in this regard. Obsessive. I always tell them it’s not healthy. Better to live life freely than whatever the fuck they’ve got going on.”

Harley couldn’t get a read on MJ. She always had a smile on her face and seemed to be a good friend to Annabel but there was a niggling feeling that made her resistant to being around her. It wasn’t like Devon who just bluntly said what she thought, she was open and clear. Despite the petty arguments, she actually liked her. MJ felt false. But perhaps she was overthinking it, that the concept of someone being so jovial all the time was new to her.

Arden cleared his throat to interrupt, “It’s time.”

He held a large megaphone in hand and began to speak into it. “Everyone, there’s a telescope carefully placed at multiple sections of the area. Stay in your section and with the telescope you’re given, you can all see the same damn thing. They’re expensive, if you break it you will fucking buy two of it.”

Harley wanted to ask how he got voted president of the student union considering how rude he was, but remembered it was his school after all. He continued laying out instructions when she finally saw her reason for coming. Scarlett was a bit further down talking to Anika, well rather Anika was talking and Scarlett was nodding along but she had a smile on her face. She hadn’t realised they knew each other.

“Would it be okay if I leave you for a second?” Harley asked Annabel who was practically bouncing to get a clearer view of the comet through the telescope. The group did rock, paper, scissors to see who would go first and Daniel won.

“Where are you going?”

“I saw a friend from class and wanted to say hi.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously but her excitement must have overshadowed her usual intrusive instincts, “Alright, but be quick.”

Annabel started hassling Daniel which was when Harley walked the path to Scarlett. Anika noticed her first as Scarlett’s back was to her.

“Harley!” Anika waved her over, “We were just talking about you.”

“Trying to decide whether or not to be scared,” she remarked.

“Scarlett was telling me that you were the expert on all things and I was wondering if that included comets?” She turned to Scarlett, who shrugged in admittance.

“A little.”

“Perfect, you can be our guide for the night.”

“I would but I came with them,” Harley said. They both looked in the direction she pointed, where Annabel was currently piggybacking on Daniel. “I saw you both and just thought to say hi.”

“Oh my god, Daniel is here. Does this mean I can finally get that introduction? You know what, I’ll do it myself. Do my boobs look okay? Never mind, of course they do. Bye!” She rushed all of that out in under a minute, and left before she could blink.