Our plane descended through the late Sunday morning smog and sunshine of Los Angeles, where we were met by a driver who took our luggage and our exhausted selves to the Bel Air Hotel in Beverly Hills.

I turned to him in the car. "The Bel Air? Are you serious?"

He shrugged. "It's where I always stay when I'm here. Why, do you prefer somewhere else? We can change if you like, anywhere you want, name it."

I shook my head. "You're missing the point."

He scooped me into the crook of his arm. "Oh, okay. So what is the point, Birdie? Hmm?"

"The point is that you don't even know how far USC is from the Bel Air. It could be two or three hours away. I mean, LA is huge." I flapped my hand down on my leg. "I don't want you to start wasting money on me from the first day. I mean, who knows how much this is going to end up costing you before all's said and done?"

"So Birdie, tell me then, how far is USC from the Bel Air?" He blinked sleepy eyes at me.

"Well, about twenty minutes, but that's beside the point, that's beside the point!" I raised my voice as he stared at me in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me? You're breaking my bollocks about wasting money when we're staying at a hotel that's twenty fucking minutes away from where you need to be?" He grabbed me and started to tickle me, going straight for my midriff, which he knew was my weak point. "You little brat! You want to yell? I'll give you a real reason to yell in a minute." He laughed as I fell off the seat and struggled to breathe.

"Teddy, stop, please, I'm going to pee," I gasped. "Please!" My stomach was cramping from laughter.

"Are you sorry?" he demanded, his face inches from mine.

"Yes! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I said quickly. "Now let me up, please."

"Okay then," he relented. He pulled me up on to the seat and into his lap, holding me close.

"That's so unfair," I remarked, running my fingers through his hair.

"Mmm, god I love when you do that," he murmured. "Get's me so hot, so fast, it's like you have some kind of drug on your fingertips." He took one of my hands and examined my fingers, kissing each one before enfolding it in his hand and holding it to him. "What's so unfair?"

"That you're so much stronger than I am," I said. "That you can just hold me down and tickle me until I wet myself, and I can't do anything about it except ask you to stop, and hope you do."

"Well, how fair is it that all you have to do is run your hand through my hair and I'm reduced to basically a walking hard-on?" he asked. "Or you can kiss my ear or touch me through my pants and I'm ready to explode like a twelve-year-old boy with his father's dirty magazines?" He nuzzled my neck. "Or all I have to do is smell a room, not even where you are, but where you've been, and your scent is enough to make me forget why I went in there in the first place?" He looked at me, and I smiled at him. "You think I'm joking, but I'm not. No one, and I mean no one, has ever, ever, had this effect on me. I don't know what it is about you. Maybe it's as simple as the fact that you said no to me, when no one ever has.

"Oh, look, we've arrived," he said, concluding his amazing words to me. I was glad no words were required of me, because I wouldn't have known what to say anyway. Wow.

As soon as we were settled in to our gorgeous suite, Teddy asked what I wanted to do.

"Well, I want to take a bath and relax today," I said. "Tomorrow I'll go and visit my mom's grave and get started on my shopping and packing and stuff, but today I think I just want to hang out and do nothing."

"Sounds good," he said, sitting down on his bed.

"Now hold on a minute, Mr. Shelley," I said, sitting next to him. "Don't think I haven't noticed your phone going crazy since we landed. I know you have billions of friends in this town, and all of them are dying to see you. You do not have to babysit me. You need to go out and do what you'd be doing if I weren't here. This is exactly the situation we're going to have to work to avoid once we're in London.

"So, why don't you call some of your friends and go out and do whatever it is you would have done if you'd come here six months ago, before you knew me?" I patted his leg.

He looked at me. "Well, what about you? You've lived in this town your whole life. You must know loads of people. Why don't you go out?" It was almost a challenge.

"Well, my closest friends are all out of town, honestly. No really," I said, as I saw the look on his face. "Ben moved to Baltimore with Jason, Caroline has moved to New York already, and my two other girlfriends are in Africa in the Peace Corps. The other people I just honestly don't feel like seeing.

"I just want a hot bath, my pjs, some food and a movie. By myself," I said to him quietly. "Is that so hard to believe?"

He pushed some of my hair behind my ear. "No," he finally said. "Sounds like a perfect way to spend an evening."

"Okay, then," I said with a smile. "Get on your phone, find some crazy friends, get out there and party until you barf.

"I'm going to take a bubble bath, I think," I said, rising. I dragged my fingers across his cheek as I walked by. "If you leave before I get out, have fun, okay?"

"Okay, Birdie, you too," he said as I went into my bathroom. "Enjoy your evening, too."

I took my time in the tub, availing myself of all of the complimentary bath salts and products provided by the hotel. I washed my hair, shaved, and just generally sloshed around and had a good time. It had been forever since I'd really had time to myself in the tub, since I hadn't been on a schedule of some sort, and I found myself wishing I'd thought to bring some wine or something in with me, or at least a book.

I finally took my pruney self out of the tub, dried off, put on my Clippers jersey, and brushed my hair. I wandered out, poured myself that glass of wine, and walked out to the balcony, which overlooked the beautiful gardens. I didn't even want to know how much this suite was costing him. And truthfully, at this point in our relationship, a two room suite was a complete extravagance, as we would have been completely and utterly comfortable sharing not only a bedroom but a bed as well.

I sat down and leaned my head back, eyes closed, letting my wet hair hang down over the back of the chair, and tried to remember the last time I was alone like this, completely alone. I honestly couldn't remember. Even when I'd been alone in bed, one of the boys had been no more than a few feet away, usually through an open door.

Speaking of the boys, I should go and get my phone from where I'd left it charging on the dresser. Much like Teddy's, it had begun buzzing as soon as we'd landed, mostly with texts and snapchats from the boys, who missed me, wanted to show me the weather in England, what they'd eaten on the plane, how much Ronan had cried saying goodbye at the airport in London, and on and on.

I set my wine glass down, retrieved my phone, and took a picture of the beautiful garden, with my feet sticking up in the foreground, the edge of the wineglass just visible at the left side.

"Missing my boys terribly," I texted, next to a sad face with a teardrop. I hit send, and put the phone down.

I settled down to watch the Bourne trilogy with a California burrito from room service and the rest of the wine.

I got completely lost in the movie so I jumped with surprise when I heard a voice. "You're still up." Teddy was hovering in the doorway, standing next to someone who was a stranger to me, a guy with curly blond hair.

I immediately pulled the blanket up a little higher. "Um, hello," I said to the stranger. "Are you okay?" I asked Teddy. I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't dressed, and I didn't want to get out of bed in front of this person I didn't know, but Teddy was acting strange; it was weird that he'd even bring a stranger up to our suite, let alone to the doorway of my room.

The curly blond spoke for the first time. "Theo here's had a little too much to drink, so I figured I'd better make sure he made it back to his room okay. He kept saying he was fine, but you never know, you know?" He wagged a finger in Teddy's face. "I got the feeling he didn't want me up here for some reason, and now I know why. He didn't want me to see you." He turned the finger in my direction. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Aileen, I'm a friend of his," I answered. "I met—"

"Landon, I told you, I'm fine," Teddy interrupted me. He obviously didn't want Landon to know anything about me, so I stopped talking. "Dude, you can go. Thanks for seeing me to my room, man, really, I'm good." He shook Landon's hand off his arm and took a step into my room, but staggered a little bit and hit the edge of a small table, knocking an unlit candle over.

"Theo, you are so not fine," said Landon with a laugh, stepping forward and grabbing Teddy by the elbow.

I sighed and got out of bed. No way to avoid it. I did not care at all for Landon's attitude, the rude and familiar way he was talking to Teddy and looking at me, and I wanted him out of here as quickly as possible. I strode over to Teddy and took him by the opposite arm, putting my arm around his waist. He leaned into me gratefully, pulling his elbow out of Landon's grasp.

"Thanks, Landon, is it?" I said with a cheery smile. "I've got this, really." I started walking him toward his bedroom. "Let's just get you out of these clothes and into bed. He'll be fine by morning." I nodded my head toward the door. "You can let yourself out, right, man? Sorry about all this, and thanks again."

But good old Landon wasn't heading toward the door; oh no, he was settling down on the sofa, and he was asking if we shouldn't all have a nightcap. Was he fucking kidding?

Teddy tightened his grip around my waist and turned around to face Landon. "Look, no offense, mate, but really, I'm knackered, could we just do this the next time I'm in town? I just need to get to bed."

Landon just smiled. "But your friend Allison isn't 'knackered' at all. How about if you get your tired self to bed and the two of us just have a little night cap?" Did he just say that? Ew.

I felt Teddy go ramrod tense. "Not going to happen, man. You need to just go, okay?"

Landon looked around, but did not stand up. This was not happening. He looked me up and down, then he looked at Teddy. "What's the fucking problem, man? It's late. I had something all lined up back at the club, which I left to make sure your sorry ass made it home safe, by the way. You've got tail right here you're not even going to use, the shape you're in, so why can't I use it? Hell, we can even share, I don't mind.

"She looks choice, too, dude, way better looking than the bitch I got waiting downtown. Way better tits, that's for sure. Lose the jersey, Allison, let's see those babies. Do you dance or anything? I got some coke, want some, honey? Just to relax a little? Theo? Want a hit? Come on, little party for three? Way more fun than what we left downtown, bro. Look at her; she's gagging for it, man. It'll be like old times." He sat there, like a disgusting lizard, looking at me, blinking in the light.

I honestly didn't know what to do. My knee jerk instinct was to kick him in the face; he was just about at the right height, and he was so drunk I figured his reflexes would be too slow to respond in time to avoid me.

I looked at Teddy, who looked as though he was going to explode. He took a step closer to Landon. "Get the fuck out. Now!"

Landon looked at him in surprise. "Are you kidding, bro? You going to let a piece of ass get in the way of a friendship that goes back as far as ours? Bros before hos, right? Come on, man." He smiled, unwilling to believe it. He made a friendly grab at me, and surprised everyone by catching a piece of my jersey. "Here we go. Let's just take this off—" and he actually got it part way off me, even from his sitting position on the couch. Teddy grabbed me around the waist, yanking me back, and I fell to the ground on my knees in front of the drunken Landon, who still didn't seem to know what was going on.

"Oh, wanna start with a little BJ action? Fine by me—" and he grabbed me by my hair, pulling my head back at a painful angle and forcing my head into his lap.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted with my very strong fingers, causing him to release my hair, and I stood up and delivered my earlier imagined kick to his face, only he was a bit lower and I connected firmly with his neck.

Teddy picked me up by my jersey and said, "Go to your room and lock the door." I nodded and took off. The last I saw of Landon was Teddy picking him up by the nape of his neck in much the same manner he had me, only much less gently, and yelling in his face.