"Yes, sir," I answer the call. I have started to get worried why he hadn't called me in more than 25 minutes. Shocking.

"Aurora, how are you doing?" My father's alert tone vibrates through the speaker attentively.

"I'm fine," I sigh. "You don't have to check on me every so often the whole night, you know; it's still pretty early."

"We discussed this, Aurora. You are not staying late over there and I have to check to see if you're doing illega-"

"It's still seven! Prom ends at like dawn! I'll be home before eleven, that's what we agreed on, okay?" I'm being gestural with my hands out of frustration so I pull them into my hair and close my hands. "I'm not doing anything illegal, it's a high school prom, for God's sake."

"You think you're young? No, your age and your generation has done much worse stuff than the whole of my own g-"

"Uh, dad, seriously? Let me live for a- half a night! God."

"You get your friend to drop you off before eleven, Aurora, you hear me? I will be calling you until then still, do not ignore a call or I will come an-"

"Yes, sir." I cut him off.

"Don't drink anything but water, is that clear?"

I press hard on my teeth but eventually breathe out, "Yes, sir."

"Good. I'll call you," My father says and hangs up. Rolling my eyes yet again, I flip my phone off and put it back inside the shoe. As I'm standing up, I hear whistling and laughing coming nearer from where the stage was and I quickly compose myself.

I won't let my father's strictness ruin my night. If only he knew I was now hanging out with a rock band member with lots of tattoos, whose clothes I have somehow ended up wearing.

"Damn, that was fucking great, boys!" The first boy that comes into sight praises before he turns around and catches me standing there like a doofus. I feel uncomfortable as his blue eyes scan my outfit -not my body, nope, totally not my body. "Oh, hey, pretty thing."

Thankfully, Harry is who I see next and my little awkward episode doesn't last long. I finally find my voice and grin at him.

"That was epic! You guys rocked it out there!" I say and four stricken faces stare back at me. I'm finding it hard which pair of eyes to look at but I'm not complaining.

"Thanks, love," Harry winks at me, tossing me a grin, eventually giving a response and breaking the ice.

"Who's your bird, Har?" The blonde one nudges his head in my direction as they all spread in the room to put their stuff together, all a little sweaty but energized.

"I'm obviously a human being -not a bird, and I also happen to exist in the same space and can hear you, so, hi. I'm Aurora."

Now they laugh. Harry chuckles at me fondly as he zips up his guitar case.

"Well, Aurora.." Blue Eyes starts, "is a very underrated name for a feisty thing like you, ain't it?"

"That's Elijah, excuse him, he's no gentleman," Harry introduces him and laughs, myself cracking an amused smile when Elijah flips him off. Harry points at the other two, "And that's Carlos."

"Buenas tardes, señorita," Carlos smiles friendly at me and I giggle, raising my eyebrows in surprise.

"He's Spanish. He said, good evening, lady... I think." Harry shrugs and I laugh lightly.

"Wow. Good evening to you, too!"

"And that's Sam," he points to the blonde one.

"My pleasure, Aurora," Sam bows extravagantly with a posh accent, glancing at Carlos playfully and grinning at me.

"Pleasure's all mine!"

"We're from all over the world," Harry directs to me as everyone minds their business and the boys start chattering away excitedly at their performance.

"I can see that," I chuckle. "How did you come together?"

"Streets," Elijah joins in. "Literally, the four of us were your typical artists standing in a local flea market, each playing their own instrument with their own little crowd. And boom, we synced together and gathered a much larger crowd."

"That's so cool," I said. "Did you try to sign for a record or something? I mean, with that song I've seen you rip out there, you could easily score some attention in the industry right now."

Elijah smirked at me with a chuckle. "Sure, could you hook us up?"

"Knock it off, man." Sam grumbled as Harry glared at Elijah, Carlos shaking his head and tsk-ing at the scene.

Harry turned to me with softer eyes. "Wanna get out of here?"

Before I even got the chance to nod, I was taken by my hand and pulled outside gently. When we got outside, Harry freed my hand and pulled his own through his hair.

"Are you alright?" I spoke quietly. Elijah seemed to have said something that pissed the other three off and it was obvious on Harry's face.

"Yeah," he breathed out.

"No, really," I put my hand on his arm without thinking, in a way of offering comfort, but I notice Harry acknowledge the gesture with a small smile.

He shook his head. "It's fine. Elijah just stepped on a nerve."

I nodded in understanding, but not quite, smiling when Harry decided to elaborate further, seeming comfortable with sharing.

"We, the band, have a history in the industry. We'd almost once gotten close to releasing an official album, but it never did. Elijah's people -the heads of the recording company- said they didn't feel fucking confident about our music anymore. That's after we recorded the whole damned thing." He scoffed angrily. "And they didn't even give us the demos back, said we had to pay for it with more money than we all had."

"That's bullshit," I exclaimed naturally, and that seemed to calm him somehow.

"Yeah, and since that day we've never really trusted anyone to work with us but us, you know?"

I nodded.

"But we're fine performing little gigs like this every now and then," Harry smiled, shrugging. "Best thing is, I get to meet pretty girls like you."

I coughed subtly, raising my eyebrows. "That escalated very quickly, you know."

"Did it?" Harry smirked.

"You're being really flirty," I pointed out, making Harry chuckle. "That's not very good for me."

He laughed, then casually -casually- bent a bit to plant a single kiss on my cheek. "You're really fucking cute when you blush."

I looked up at him and blinked my wide eyes at him like a little kid, not knowing how to reply to that.

"It's like," He continued, "someone took red paint and smeared it all over your cheeks and nose."

He said it while flicking my nose, with which hand I grabbed, narrowing my eyes.

"Okay, the smearing thing is getting a little out of hand," I raised a single eyebrow playfully, him smirking. "First the sunset, now red paint, what are y-"

"Maybe because you look like a pretty canvas drained of color," He said it so abruptly, even he looked stricken. Like he just realized it, like he just had an epiphany.

"Poets," I clicked my tongue. "Metaphorical and shit."

Harry chuckled and finally looked away, breaking the moment and giving me a moment to breathe.

"You think I'm a freak, huh?" Harry asks me, genuinely wondering, it seems.

"A cute freak,"

"Cute!" He exclaims, shaking his head in disgust. "Come on, say something poetic."

I laughed once. "No way in hell."

"Aurora, you are going to say something poetic. Not about me, but about nature maybe?" Harry suggests and I raise my eyebrows at him. "What, you look like an artistic little secret!"

I shook my head at him slowly, an idea sparking in my brain. "You wanna see my art? Come on, then."

"Oh, God," Harry jokes as he lets me take his hand and show him back inside this dreaded school. "I so hope you meant that sexually."

My cheeks flame but I know he's joking so I smack his chest. "Behave!"