48 Hours | JB

00 HOURS

Chapter 1

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"Next!"

My attention was turned on as the receptionist yelled out for people to get moving. I saw the queue I was currently standing in, taking a few steps closer to the goal. Checking in.

The hotel seemed nice, it was a pretty large and tall building with beautiful lightning inside of it. Crystal glass was hanging from the roof and the interior was all dressed in rose gold, marble and white. It was my perfect cup of tea.

Dubai, in general, seemed like a dream place. We had only been here for a couple of hours, with the plane just landing but I was already beginning to feel like home. Nothing was more exciting than exploring new cities together with your best friends. We had all been counting down the days to reach this one and now that we were here, it felt like a dream come true. I had never been so hysterically hyped up for a trip before.

I was ready for the shopping, definitely.

"Next!"

It was about three people in front of me and I sighed, knowing it would take more time before we could finally get going and explore both the hotel and the rest of the city. We had been looking for all the right places and shopping centres to go to ever since we booked the trip.

"I heard Justin Bieber is going to be here," Leah, which was one of my closest friends, suddenly whispered after a moment of silence. I turned around with a suspicious raise of a brow, asking why she would think that, "He's performing at some festival here in Dubai and people were mentioning this hotel. Wouldn't that be cool? If he turned up here?"

"Yeah," I shrugged, "That'd be cool."

"Wait, like, the Justin Bieber?" My other friend Ellie gasped, reacting kinda late from the conversation but I only laughed as she begun to use her hand as a fan. Leah nodded with a giggle, which made Ellie take a few steps closer to us before she whispered, "You guys, I can feel my legs separating!"

"Ellie!"

"Oh my God," I burst out laughing, already having images popping up in my head that I didn't necessarily want.

Ellie was the most spontaneous and daring of us. She gave the word "blunt" a whole new meaning. I was actually impressed by how bold and fearless she was in situations. Sometimes, I wish I had her strength and courage to do and say whatever I wanted but it was more than enough to have one of them in our group. Plus, she always made me and Leah do things we didn't necessarily think was a great idea so her influence of boldness was already enough. We would be arrested every single day if we had another Ellie in our group.

Leah was more like the mother of the group. She always took care of us and made sure that everything went smoothly. She's the one who saved us whenever Ellie made us mess up. I had never met anyone that is so smart in her mouth and with her words, Leah took the prize for that.

I think I was somewhere in the middle of the two.

"Sierra, did you unplug the straightener before we left your apartment?" Leah interrupted my thoughts and it also made me realise we had almost reached the receptionist now. One more person was in front of us.

It took me a couple of seconds to process her question and I immediately turned to Ellie, "You did that, right? I told you to."

"Oops?" Her shoulders rose slightly as a pink blush came over her guilty face. At the same time that she genuinely looked embarrassed, it also seemed as if she didn't care. If I knew her right, she actually didn't.