Do I Wanna Know?

Chapter 12

"I don't understand why you need to go to this thing," Harry muttered, watching me fasten a pair of mini gold hoops in my ears.

"Because it's Claudia's birthday, Harry," I chuckled. "I'm the one who planned the surprise party, and she's my best friend."

He sighed dramatically as he pushed off from the doorframe to our bedroom. "Well, as the boss...I could just make all of you go in tonight."

I turned to give him a deadpanned look right to his face rather than looking at him through the reflection in the mirror. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, I might," he challenged with a smirk, then turned his head to tap his cheek.

Reluctantly, I crossed the room in my stilettos to kiss him there, and I thought I was in the clear. That was until he suddenly clutched both my arms and started to walk me back to the bed.

I squealed out a laugh as he picked me up and threw me up to the pillows, but I knew we wouldn't have time to do much of anything even as he started crawling up to me. He had a meeting in just under two hours, and I guess that's how long it will take for him to get there.

"Where are you going?" He asked, starting his usual trail of kisses around my whole neck.

"Perch, downtown."

"Who is all going to be there?"

"Sage, Candace, Kelly, Jessie, Lizzy, me and Claudia...obviously."

"No guys?"

"Nope. None other than who will already be there. We just reserved a big table for the seven of us."

"How are you getting there?"

My lips parted with a smile as he sucked a harder kiss just under my ear. "I'm driving."

"No," he pulled back to get off of me completely. "My meeting is downtown so I'll drive you."

"You don't have to do that," I grabbed my bag from the bedside table with my phone. "We'll probably be out later than your meeting is over, so what are you going to do while you're waiting?"

Harry tilted his head from side to side to crack his neck as he slipped his suit jacket on. "I'm expecting for the meeting to last a long time. Worst case, I wait."

As always, he didn't leave much room for an argument as he left the room, and I was expected to follow so I did.

The traffic getting down to Los Angeles from Malibu at 6:00 on a Thursday was as awful as it always was, but Harry explained that he would only be ten minutes late to his meeting as he pulled up in front of the club to drop me off.

"Thanks for the ride," I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached across the center consul to meet him for a kiss. "I'll text you when we're sort of finishing up."

"Alright," he let go of my hand with a bit of resistance. "Have a nice time."

I gave him one last kiss to the cheek while he kept his eyes forward, then hopped out of the car to head up to the rooftop. Sage texted me on our way to let me know she was already there setting up at our table. It was nothing major, just a handful of pink balloons and a birthday crown for Claudia, of course.

The rest of the girls showed up in pairs, and Claudia arrived just five minutes after we told her to be there. She thought it was just going to be me and Sage, so the only real surprise was having the rest of our friends there too.

And Claudia was certainly surprised as she stopped dead in her tracks with her jaw dropped open, leaning over slightly before she squealed and hurried over to us.