"That sounds nice. Once won a Tony last year didn't it?"
"Yeah. It was okay." As Angel coughed to cover her reaction to the lackluster review to a show that she had heard was nothing short of brilliant, Marissa's dark hazel eyes lifted past Angel's shoulder. "Hey Adam."
Angel suddenly understood why the others might not like Marissa so much. She could feel Adam tense behind her, see Jared's expression close down, and the rest of the group was suddenly humming with animosity again. It wasn't that Marissa had greeted him, it was the way she had. Flirtatious. Intimate. Completely inappropriate considering that her boyfriend's arm was still around her.
"Hi Marissa," he said evenly, and suddenly Angel felt herself being pulled back against him. His hand spread possessively over her belly and she was suddenly glad that he'd put her in a lacy black shirt rather than a corset; she liked being able to feel that very warm palm against her stomach. "Angel does some theater."
"Just community, for fun."
"Don't sell yourself short, you're a fantastic actress," he said warmly. Angel twisted her head back to grin at him and he planted a kiss on her lips. He tasted like the whiskey he'd been drinking.
Yum.
When she turned back to Jared and Marissa, she was a little surprised to see that Marissa had turned her back to them and was whispering up into Jared's ear. The big man sighed.
"I think we're gonna head out. I'll see you guys later."
As everyone said goodbye, the look that Marissa gave her was rather unfriendly. What the hell? Angel noticed that most of them directed their goodbyes to Jared, without acknowledging Marissa, although it didn't seem to bother the other woman. If she even noticed. Somehow she gave off the appearance of not even being aware of the animosity directed at her.
"So that's Truck Stop," Olivia said, waving her hand after the departing couple. "Delightful isn't she?"
"I don't understand..." Angel turned to Adam. "Did you use to date her or something?"
He choked. "Oh god no..."
"She's just the type of woman that firmly believes every man wants her," Chris said. "And that all she has to do is crook her little finger and they'll come running."
"If you look up Narcissistic Personality disorder, you'll have a good idea of her personality."
"Maybe she just needs someone to be nice to her."
Everyone groaned.
"You don't think we've all tried? Well, everyone except Olivia," Lexie said.
"You should have seen how she dismissed Hilary and Jessica," Chris said, shaking his head. "The only reason she didn't immediately snub you is because she thought you were just friends with Lexie and not actually a submissive. As soon as she realized you were actual competition for a man's attention, she was done with you."
"So she thinks all of you want her?" Angel asked, looking around the group.
"She used to think I wanted her too," Olivia said with a smirk. "I disabused her of that notion. Which is why she doesn't want Jared to be friends with me anymore. Fortunately not even he's that far gone."
Angel chewed on her lip. She couldn't imagine dating someone that her entire group of friends blatantly disliked. Somehow, even though she'd heard bits and pieces about his awful relationship, and compared it to Leigh and Michael's in her head, the reality of it was still kind of shocking. There was just something about the other woman's behavior that had seemed a little unhinged; as if she felt that social norms didn't apply to her. The look that she'd sent Angel before leaving had been filled with all sorts of dislike that Angel couldn't have possibly earned.
"Just ignore her," Adam said, wrapping his arm around Angel's waist and almost pulling her off of her stool before she shifted to accommodate for his extra weight. "We all do."
"As much as we can anyway."
The conversation circled around, mostly focusing on Marissa's various antics throughout her and Jared's relationship. Angel now realized exactly how discreet Adam had been when he'd told her about the couple. His friends had absolutely no problem talking about how Marissa had threatened to kill herself the last time Jared had tried to break up with her. Ugh. She couldn't imagine trying to force a man to be in a relationship with her like that. Why would you want a guy that you could only keep around by such extreme measures?
And yet, Jared had seemed both protective and defensive of her. Which definitely reminded Angel of Leigh, but at least she could be glad that Leigh wasn't in such a volatile situation.
Would Leigh ever do something like that?
Man she hoped not, but the fact that she could even ask herself that question made her feel a little uncomfortable thinking about her best friend.
Fortunately such negative thoughts and conversation were circumvented by the arrival of Justin, Jessica, Hilary and Liam. The only one missing was Rick, although they all talked about them and Adam told everyone that Rick was going to be in town to look for some apartments next weekend. Angel was surprised to hear that Rick was going to be staying with Adam. Not that she had a problem with it, because of course she didn't get a say in it, but should she be irked that he hadn’t mentioned Rick’s visit at all?
At what point were they in their relationship?
"Oooo good!" Lexie said, brightening. "That means Angel's free to come to our Ladies' Night!"
Adam groaned as Angel perked up. "Ladies' Night?"
"She means 'trouble waiting to happen' night," he said, pulling Angel onto his lap. She went willingly enough, pleased that his possessive display hadn't just been for Marissa earlier. "Just because Rick is staying at my place over the weekend doesn't mean that Angel won't be spending time with me."
"Yeah, but we wanted to invite her to Ladies' Night anyway," said Jessica. "We just hadn't gotten the chance to yet."
"It's on Saturday night," Lexie said brightly. "We're having it at my new place."
"You have a new place?" asked Patrick, suddenly appearing behind her. How did a man that big manage to sneak up on an entire group of people? Despite the greetings thrown his way, Patrick wasn't at all diverted from the question that Lexie hadn't answered.
And Angel had thought that Adam was Mr. Grouchy. Patrick more than beat him out from that title. The scar across his cheek looked particularly intimidating when he was glaring like that.
Intimidating to everyone except Lexie apparently. She eyed her brother's best friend with a peculiar mix of annoyance, resignation and sexual frustration. "Yes, I have a new place, I wasn't going to live at my parents for the rest of my life."
Patrick ignored the obvious sarcasm in her tone. "Where?"
"None of your business."
"Well we can't help you move in without knowing where."
"I don't think I asked you to."
"Lexie," he said, his tone threatening. Angel glanced around the circle at all the fascinated watchers to the drama. Did they all see what she saw; a young woman with an infatuation and a man who was fighting his own attraction? Or did they just see Lexie as Patrick's little sister, the way he was trying to treat her? Most of them looked either thoughtful or highly entertained, so it was up in the air.
"It's BYOC - bring your own chair -" Lexie said, turning her back on the big Dom entirely. Unperturbed, she ignored the growling noise he made behind her. Justin's cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh and Olivia wasn't doing a damn thing to hide her amusement. "I don't have any furniture yet other than my TV."
"Good. A night in sounds perfect," Patrick said. "Every time you go out you wreak havoc."
Tilting her chin up, Lexie willfully ignored him as she kept her gaze on Angel. "I'll text you the details."
Chapter 25
Strolling into Liam's dojo, Adam was almost surprised how relaxed he felt. Life was good. Fantastic even. He greeted Justin and Chris who were already there and stretching out, waiting for Liam to finish whatever he was doing in the office. Sitting down on the mat beside them he started going through his own warm-up stretches, although he felt a lot less tense than he norma
lly did.
"So how's Angel?" Chris asked, when Adam settled down into horse stance once he was done warming up.
"She's good." A little smile stretched across Adam's face, which was what inevitably happened any time he thought about Angel. They'd had a great weekend together and then yesterday he'd gone to her parents' house for dinner, which had been both enlightening and entertaining. Just as she'd promised, her father had slowly opened up during the evening, although he still hadn't talked very much in comparison to her mother. Then again, as far as Adam could tell, not too many people talked very much in comparison to Mrs. Jones. Certainly not him.
"Got you whipped already, huh?" Justin teased him. "I don't think I've ever seen you smile at just the mention of a woman."
"Angel's special," Adam said, perfectly willing to admit it. More and more special to him every day.
He'd always considered himself a pretty decisive person, but he hadn't realized how much so until he'd started dating Angel. When Justin and Chris had first started dating Jessica and then Liam had gotten involved with Hilary, he'd refrained from commenting on how fast their relationships had moved, in his opinion. Adam was of the opinion that there were always surprises in a relationship and it was best to get to know everything about your partner before becoming as involved as his friends had.
Now he wondered they had felt the same inevitable rightness to their relationships as he did right now with Angel. A more negative part of him wondered if that's what his parents had felt - and look how that backfired on them. But so far his friends' relationships seemed to be going well, no major surprises or revelations from Hilary or Jessica. Could he have that with Angel?
Although he didn't tell her, he was already thinking in a very long-term kind of way. Wanting her at his house every weekend. Every night, really, but he'd take weekends for now. Wanting her to meet his parents. Wanting to impress hers. Wanting promises, assurances for a future.
And it shocked him that he wanted all of those things now. What had happened to his careful planning? His control over his emotions until he could be sure that there weren't any more unpleasant surprises coming his way? Sometimes he wondered if he'd uncovered all of them. Angel was refreshingly blunt and honest, now that they were past that first big lie, so he didn't think she was hiding anything from him, but what other things - like male housemates - did she not consider relevant?
When she was around, these thoughts didn't even occur to him. When she wasn't, they would trickle through his head; insidious little doubts that gnawed at him. He was self-aware enough to know that those doubts didn't have to do with her though, they had to do with his mom. Once, a long time ago, he'd asked his mom why she'd just up and left the way she had. Her answer had been about what he'd expected; she just hadn't felt like she could talk to his father about what was wrong. Which was a combination of the fact that his dad was a strong personality and his mom was pretty passive aggressive. Angel wasn't his mom and he knew that intellectually, but the insecurity and the worries still plagued him.
He nearly fell over from horse stance when he figured out why.
Holy hell. When had that happened? Dumbass. He should have realized it when he first started thinking about whether or not he might have a real future with her. Sure, that was just something that was smart to think about at his age anyway, the possibility of a future, but it was more than that.
"Yeah he's got it bad," Chris said, snickering. He glanced over at Justin, sharing one of their knowing little looks that had a wealth of conversation packed into it. "Remember when we first looked like that?"
"So how serious are we talking?" Justin asked. "Cuz Jessica and Hilary like her a lot. So do Lexie and Olivia. You'd better do right by her or they're going to be in a snit."
Adam chuckled at the threat. "You've been spending too much time with Hilary. A snit?"
Justin just shrugged. "It's descriptive."
"Well if you're going to be gossiping like a bunch of old ladies at least you're in horse stance while you do it," Liam said as he walked into the room. He cast amused looks over all three of them. "What are we talking about?"
"Adam and Angel."
"Ah. Rick's jealous as hell of you by the way - not because he's jealous over Angel," Liam added hastily. "Just jealous."
"Yeah I know, he mentioned it last time I talked to him. But once he moves and he settles he'll have better luck finding someone. The way the submissives all jump to play with him at the club, it's not like he's going to have any trouble finding willing prospects." Adam frowned, remembering. "They're getting ballsier too; I had more than one of them coming to me at the party last week."
"You're not the only one," Liam said, looking amused. "Although Andrew didn't seem that cut up about it."
"It just felt wrong," said Adam grumpily.
"Well, you can work it out here. Shake out your muscles and we can start forms."
After putting his friends through a grueling workout, Liam suggested that they all go for a beer. Sending a text to Angel that he was going to be late in calling her, Adam was surprised at how disappointed he felt when she told him that she was going to bed early and she'd talk to him tomorrow. They'd seen each other yesterday after all, even if most of the evening had been spent with her parents. And he was going to talk to her tomorrow. See her if he had his way.
Did she feel this constant need for his company? While he liked that she was pretty independent, he couldn't help but feel a little put out that she took his absence so easily. Which was just insane, because if she was clingy then he definitely wouldn't have liked that either. Well. Maybe just a little bit clingy every once in a while would be nice.
It occurred to Adam, when he sat down with Liam, Justin and Chris at the nearby bar that the conversational topics among his friends had shifted rather drastically. Even more so now that the three guys apparently felt he could be included on the relationship talk. Not that they didn't bring up sports or work or their friends or their usual inside jokes, but the talk about women was a lot more specific and a lot more serious. Especially for Chris and Justin.
"So we just aren't really sure what to do," Chris said a little glumly, rounding up his explanation to Adam of the current struggle he and Justin were having with their relationship.
"Have you talked to Jessica about it at all?"
"No."
"Don't you think maybe you should?"
"Thank you! Back up!" Liam said, tipping the mouth of his beer bottle accusingly at Chris and Justin. "I've been telling them that for days."
Justin glared at him. "We want to work it out between ourselves, find a solution that we can present to her."
"She'd probably appreciate being able to help with the problem," Adam pointed out. "Isn't the whole point of a relationship being able to work through things together? Don't you think she's going to be pissed when she realizes that she's been left out of some important decisions?"
The pair looked at each other, a little uneasily. Adam didn't envy them. This whole relationship business was hard enough when he was just half of a couple and trying to find his way. Being part of a permanent threesome added a whole new set of issues, and it seemed like every time the trio worked through one, another one would pop up in their way.
"Besides," he added, "you've only been with her for what... nine months? Not even a year? Don't you think it's a little bit early to be talking about this anyway?"
"Not really," Chris said with a shrug. "We've been talking about it with each other for about two months now, trying to figure out a solution that won't leave either of us feeling left out. It's not like we're going to ask her the second we figure things out."
"We just want to figure them out before we asked her," Justin finished.
"Hell, I'll probably end up asking Hilary to marry me before these two idiots figure out an equable scenario," Liam said with a snort. "I told 'em to just flip a coin."
"You're already thinking along those lines too?" Adam asked, surprised.
Liam and Hilary had been together even less time than Jessica, Justin and Chris. Although, granted, their relationship dynamics were a lot easier in general.
Liam grinned at him. "Probably for longer than you've realized. I've known since... hell, probably from almost the beginning that I wasn't going to let her go. Ever. And in Hilary's world, that means marriage. Not that I have a problem with that, I want it all official and locked down too. We're just working out some of the kinks now that I've finally convinced her to move in with me."
"Some of the kinks?" Chris waggled his eyebrows lasciviously, making all of them groan at the pun.
"You know what I mean," Liam said. "Bickering over how to put the dishes in the dishwasher, what we're going to watch on television every night, when we need our own space... that kind of thing. I think we might have to move to a new apartment though, I think she feels a little bit like an interloper in my place even though I made room for her." For someone who was describing the little issues in his relationship, Liam sounded almost smugly content.
Trying to picture Angel living in his house, Adam had to admit that he liked the idea. Not just because it would mean she wasn't living with other men, he didn't fool himself into thinking that her friendships would end just because she was with him, but just because he liked the idea of having her there. All the time.
"Ah ha!" He blinked and looked up to see Justin pointing at him and grinning. "I know that look! See? You haven't known Angel for that long, but you can't help thinking along the same lines, right?"
Shrugging, Adam shifted, feeling a bit exposed and uncomfortable. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to jump right into things. I'd rather take it slow."
"Oh, I'm not asking Hilary to marry me anytime soon. But that doesn't mean it's not on my mind."
******
Later, home in his own bed, Adam realized that Liam wasn't the only one thinking about marriage. If he and Angel continued down the road they were on now, he could definitely see him thinking about it in the future. Sure, there were little things to work through first. Not the least of which was his own issues when it came to marriage and worrying about unhappy revelations.
Stronghold (Stronghold 1) Page 40
