Falling for Seven (5 page)

“Angel.”

It was Julian, and he was talking to me. “What?” I said curtly.

“You in?”

I was about to say no, but the way Julian was looking at me, like he expected me to wimp out like some silly child made me feel I had something to prove.

“Angel?”

I stood when I heard my name spoken by a voice that was only all too familiar. Everyone turned and I felt the pull of a surprised frown while my head tried to make sense of what was going on. “Jordan?”

“You know him?” It was Julian. He could have been speaking to anyone.

I smiled, the world righting itself just a little bit more. My smile spread, like an infectious disease. “He’s my boyfriend.”

BOYFRIEND?
WAS SHE FUCKIN
G
kidding me
?
She waits till he turns up before dropping any hint that the guy exists.
She’s got a boyfriend?
For some reason I’m finding the news a really hard and bitter pill to swallow.
Boyfriend?
Fuck. The guy’s just standing there, blending into the background. Angel wasn’t the best looking but he’s in another league all together. He must have a winning personality, or a huge fucking dick, because I don’t get it. It’s worse than a bad joke. I can feel Nicky laughing behind me. Doesn’t mean anything, though. Bet still stands. They can’t be serious, or she’d have mentioned him by now. I was seething and it must have showed, because kit was glaring at me.

I wasn’t hanging around for any big introductions. “Let’s play, then,” I said, and then looked at Angel. “If you’re allowed, that is.”

She made a huffing noise and shouldered past me to wrap her arms around her boyfriend’s neck. After a half-assed kiss, he held her away from him with a stupid smile on his face. “Didn’t expect to see me, huh?”

“No.” She was fucking gushing.
Gushing.
“But you are the best surprise.”

Well, there was one thing I’d learned about Angel. She was really easily pleased. Her ridiculous happiness made his grin grow twice as big.

“You don’t mind that I’m here?” he asked. Sounded like uncertainty.

“No. I love that you are here.” Angel placed her hand in his and turned to face us. “Um, we’re gonna take off,” she said. She sounded like she was asking for permission.

“Why?” Kit pounced. “Party is just getting started. Jordan—” She said his name like they were long time acquaintances. “You like to party?”

“Sure.” He was quick to let that be known.

“You up for a little spin the bottle? But I warn you now, you may need to share your girl.” Kit’s grin was truly evil. What the fuck was she doing?

Jordan looked down at Angel. Her face resembled a deer caught in headlights. He shifted on his feet, seeming to wait for her to speak first. But she didn’t, just carried on staring at him. “You wanna, babe?”

No way. Say no. But my big, ugly selfish side wanted her to play.

“Uh… do you want to?” she asked him pitifully. It was an obvious ‘no’ answer.

Jordan shrugged, but then his eyes rose up to look at Kit and I saw her raise her eyebrow in a challenge. “It might be fun,” he said.

“Oh.” Angel’s disappointment was a silent sound wave, hitting me right in the chest. How could he not see that?

Kit was happy, though. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s take this inside.”

<>

We sat in a circle in the den like a bunch of fucking ten year olds. But I knew Kit, and whatever went down in this room would not be suitable for any kids. I sat with Angel in my peripheral, and Jordan next to kit who was opposite Angel. Nicky, Rixton, Dan, Katlyn, Emma, Rocco, Drift, the redhead from last night whose name was Dionne, and some girl called Bernadette made up the rest of the circle. After the most pathetic of introductions, Kit leaned over, crawling to the middle with the empty vodka bottle, giving everyone a show of her cleavage while she was at it. It looked intentional, but if she thought I cared she was far off the mark.

She fixed her hand around the bottle neck and twisted, sending it into a spinning frenzy. I watched Angel watching the bottle with worrying eyes and sloped brows. It looked to me like dread. She didn’t want to play, any idiot could see that.

The bottle slowed to a stop, the tip pointing right at Angel. She looked at kit who was grinning. “Angel, you go first.”

I swear I could hear her swallowing. Her eyes shifted to Jordan briefly before she gave the bottle a less than enthusiastic spin. I think she was hoping it was too weak to result in any movement at all. The bottle stopped on Nicky and Angel looked terrified.

“Angel,” said kit, looking far too pleased about this, “Get Nicky hard.”

What?

“But you have to do it here, so we can all see that it really happened.”

“No,” Angel said automatically. “I can’t do that.”

Kit looked at Jordan, who for once was wearing an uncomfortable expression. Oh, so he did have boundaries? That was big of him. “It’s fine,” he said.

Kit smirked, but Katlyn was holding in a massive scowl. Her eyes and mouth were pinched so tight they could have been sewn together. Nicky, on the other hand, looked fucking ecstatic. There wasn’t a chance he was objecting to Angel getting him off for us all to see—his coach’s daughter, in front of her boyfriend. He would wear this opportunity like a gold medal, boasting about it every chance he got. The game had only just started and already there was massive tension.

“Back out and you’re out of the game and out of the party.” Kit crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t be such an angel,
Angel
.”

My alcohol haze lifted when everyone apart from me, Jordan, and Katlyn started to chant her name like she was a local legend.

“
Angel! Angel! Angel!
”

Emma, who was sitting next to her, handed her a cup full of alcohol. Angel hesitated and then drank the whole thing. She was finding courage at the bottom of that cup and it made me want to punch Jordan’s face in. She was going to do it and he was too pussy to stop her.

Fuck. I couldn’t stand it, and nothing had happened yet. Nicky would never let me live this down. My bet and he was on delivering.

Angel stretched up onto her knees, never once looking at Jordan, and crawled across the floor, winding up in Nicky’s lap. She smiled at him apologetically, in spite of his shit-eating grin.

I didn’t have the stomach to watch, so I slanted a look at Jordan instead. He was a shade whiter, his green eyes darker in torment. It didn’t suit him seeing his girl in someone else’s arms, and I was glad he had to sit and watch this. He fucking deserved it. He should never have agreed to it. That was his girl, for fuck’s sake. And my pride—that had been shot to shit now. Thanks, Jordan, you giant fucking cocksucker.

“Hi,” I heard Nicky say beside me.

“Hi.” Angel’s voice was shaky. Nicky mistook it for want.

“Relax,” he whispered. I saw his hand snake round her waist out the corner of my eye, and my stomach knotted into a tight fist.

“Fuck, I’m hard just watching this,” Dan shouted like a fucking idiot. He wouldn’t be lying, either. Dan was down for anything. He was the team freak.

The next thing, Angel and Nicky were kissing. When the fuck did that happen? Jordan’s mouth opened, hopefully in shock. He must have expected her to freak at the last minute and hurry back to her spot. Turns out, he didn’t know his girl that well.

Angel’s hands went around Nicky’s neck and his slipped under her T-shirt. I couldn’t believe Jordan was just letting this happen. Then Nicky lifted her T-shirt from her head and flung it to the side. They were still kissing, Angel’s hair a shield around both of them, but the snap of her bra had my nostrils flaring. Jordan looked like he wanted to be sick. He looked angry, too. He had a fucking nerve.

“Okay guys.” I heard Kit’s voice. “We get it.”

But they didn’t stop. Nicky’s fingers were all over Angel’s skin, touching her in places that made me want to break his hands. And then I heard his whisper from behind her curtain of hair. “Can I fuck you?”

I jumped up, Angel’s T-shirt already clutched in my fingers, and yanked her free from Nicky. “You’re leaving,” I said, hoisting her up with one arm and marching her out of the room.
Marching her out the room? Who the hell was I?
She was flushed from too much alcohol and everyone behind us groaned out loud, shouting obscenities at us. I ignored them all and pushed Angel into the bathroom, snatching off her bra that was hanging loose from her arms and dropped it into the bath-tub. She threw her arms up, covering her exposed breasts.

“Oh, you won’t let me see you, but you let Nicky almost fuck you in front of everyone.” I threw her T-shirt at her and she somehow managed to grip it in her fingers.

“I never!” She haphazardly pulled the shirt over her head, stumbling all over the place and bashed her hip against the bathroom sink. “Ouch.”

“Go get your
boyfriend
to take you home.”

“Don’t say boyfriend like that. And I’m asking Marcus to assign us new partners.”

Her voice came out high-pitched and lacking any conviction thanks to the vodka. She was too wasted to be taken seriously. She was first out of the bathroom, stomping down the cramped hallway, elbowing anyone that dared get in her way. She kept on walking, right out the front door, and I followed her. It was hard not to notice her nipples peak at the cold air and the absence of her bra.

I yanked her into a stationary position before she bolted. “Good,” I said. “If you don’t, I will.”

She snapped her arm free. “I don’t get you!”

“Yeah? I don’t get you either. Don’t let guys you don’t know put their fucking hands all over you. Pass the memo onto your boyfriend while you’re at it.”

“It was your stupid game. He didn’t want to go along with it. You forced him.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. I wiped my hand over my mouth and then I was pinning Angel to the side of Kit’s house, my palms on the brick at either side of her head. Both our chests rose and fell with heavy breaths, and she felt tiny underneath my body that was acting as a barricade. “You’re too good for them.”

“Define
them
.”

“Jordan—what just happened in there. You’re better than this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do or what I am. I’m big enough to make my own decisions.” She ducked from under my arm, quicker than my reflex to grab for her, and she started to move backwards.

“This isn’t over,” I shouted after her.

She spun around, her hair whipping across her face. She swiped at the wild strands. “Guess what? It never even started.”

Jordan flung the door open behind me, strolling leisurely down the stairs. “What’s going on?” he said, not moving remotely quick enough to fix the mess he had created.

“Just take her home,” I snapped. I had to hand it to him, he looked contrite. “She’s drunk.”

<>

I stayed outside and texted Kristina to say I’d be home in an hour. Walking home would sober me up, and I needed to get my shit together. It wasn’t one of my better ideas, but I couldn’t stay here and driving wasn’t an option. Angel and Jordan had vanished into the distance and it didn’t take long for kit to come out, wondering why I’d ditched the party.

“That was intense,” she said, fitting into a small space on the steps next to me.

“It was fucking weird,” I corrected her. “He just handed her over like it was nothing.”

“It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”

“That’s different.”

“Uh-huh.” Kit leaned on her knees, sighing up into the sky.

“Listen, I gotta jet. You got something for me before I go?” I always put my foot in my mouth with Kit, and her grim smile was not something I wanted to see when I closed my eyes tonight. I hooked my arm around her neck and pulled her close, playfully, until she cracked and smiled. I bent down and grazed my lips over hers. Her mouth opened up for me and I settled in-between her lips. I broke the kiss easily, but Kit’s fingers lingered on mine, a gentle squeeze pulling me back. But that shit wasn’t going to work tonight.

“              C’ya at the game.” I loosened my hand from hers and shoved them deep into the belly of my pockets, hunching my shoulders against the chilly night. The temperature was cool and I sped up into a jog to get home quicker, seeing as I had thought it was a good idea to leave my jacket at home.

The television glowed in the dark living room when I got home, and Kristina lay with her back to it, her hands cupped under her head, snoring softly. Affection still gnawed at my gut when I saw her like this. It was easy to imagine that we were the same Julian and Kristina as two years ago. The two of us against the whole world. But that had collapsed, with only a year of fucking the same girl under my belt. At the time, I was stupid enough to think I was in love, and when I found out she’d slept with someone else, the walls of my perfect relationship crumbled right before my eyes. I’d bypassed all of kit’s advances before then, but as soon as Kristina and I split, kit was fair game.

Even though I never dreamed I’d see the day, I couldn’t stay mad at Kristina forever, and soon enough we were working on getting back together. Let’s just say it didn’t work out and now she’s eight weeks pregnant with the guy’s baby she fucked me over again for. He’s locked up, serving a five year sentence for assault, so I’d say she picked wrong. But it still wasn’t enough to hate her. We just weren’t supposed to happen.

I didn’t want to wake her, but I couldn’t leave her on the firm, cold leather all night. I gently shook her shoulder until she stirred from my touch.