"Well, he used to be my neighbor," she mumbled as she reminisced, avoiding Paul's gaze. "He wasn't always rough like that, he used to be really sweet. He'd always come over and we'd listen to Elvis." Emmi smiled briefly.
"Anyway, he started hanging around with some boys from his school one day, and his behavior changed. They influenced him to start beating up kids, and..."
Emmi slowly looked up to Paul with a contrite expression.
Paul arched his eyebrows and took a step closer to Emmi, gently taking both her hands.
"What did he do?" he barely spoke.
Shirli's eyes darted between the both of them, and slowly headed towards John who was loitering on the wall.
"I thought you were going to console her?" John challenged.
Instead of answering, she sighed and leant against the wall, standing shoulder to shoulder with John. He didn't have a problem with that.
Paul was rubbing Emmi's hands slowly with his thumbs as he gave all of his attention to Emmi.
"...he arrived at my front door one night, and he was obviously told to come over by his friends. He grabbed my arms and started pulling me, but I kicked him hard in the stomach before he could do anything else. I haven't seen him ever since, until tonight."
Paul didn't know if he felt proud, empathetic, or both. Either way, he brought Emmi to his chest and hugged her. Emmi closed her eyes and smiled as she hid her face in his leather jacket.
"Better now?" John hollered.
Shirli elbowed his side and shushed him.
George and Anne were sitting on the ground beside the standing John and Shirli, and muffled out their laughter.
Shirli caught the right moment to approach Paul and Emmi once again, when they both parted from one another.
"Well, I'm glad you finally told us about this, but may I suggest we leave back to the house? Standing in front of the entrance to a lousy club probably isn't the best idea." Shirli suggested, adding a comforting smile.
"Okay." Emmi agreed. Paul took her hand and led her down the sidewalk, the rest following.
"Let's say we drown out this miserable evening with a drinking game back at our place?" John jokingly said, breaking the silence.
"Let's go for it." Shirli replied with a straight face.
"Wait, what?" John was taken aback.
"Well, we won't get carried away.Who knows, I might get to know you better" Shirli stated, a grin spreading across her face.
"Oh."
"I mean it's not like there's much else to do." Shirli smirked
"Yay, beer." George shyly chanted.
"So, what? Are we going to have some sort of party at our house then?" Emmi inquired, looking up at Paul.
"Not exactly." Paul daftly replied. "Instead of beer, the both of us could share some fancy wine."
Emmi giggled.
--
(I'm guessing that the Beatles liked alcohol around this time, I think
)