Chapter Seven – Angela
Chapter Seven
Angela
“Come on, Angie—I just need you to come with me tonight.”
I loved Willa Heartwood to death, but it was already that clear this would be the worst decision she’d ever talked me into.
We were in my bedroom upstairs, just a week before school was starting.
Willa was going to Luna community college to figure out what she wanted to be, whereas I was going to UNLV as an art major.
High school had made it abundantly clear that painting and drawing were the only things I was good at—but I was really, really good at them.
“You won’t even have to stay long,” she wheedled. “Just be my wing-woman. Help me get in the door.”
“Who is this guy? Have I met him?”
“No. Remember a week ago when you ditched me?”
“Because my parents wanted me to hang out with them.” Code words for: ‘You’re spending too much time with Willa again, and we don’t want her crazy to stick.’
“Well, I went to that club downtown and hung out, out back, trying to meet the band. There were these guys there and—oh my God, you should’ve seen him.
” Willa’s eyes were intent on mine. “He was beautiful. He was amazing.” Willa didn’t go boy-crazy for just anyone, so hearing her be so enthused was quite unlike her.
“And…you talked to him?” I asked.
“No. He was so pretty I didn’t have the guts. But after he rode off—on a motorcycle,” she emphasized, as though that were the important part, “this older chick came over and told me about him. Said his girlfriend had just broken up with him and where he’d be tonight.”
“And why isn’t she humping him herself, if he’s so hot?”
“Because she was with another guy there.” Willa leaned in. “I think they’re like in a gang.”
“Willa!” I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I absolutely am not. I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t important to me, Angie, but I’ve spent the entire last week thinking about him.” She threw herself across my bed, arms wide. “You would understand, if you’d been there.”
I flopped down on the bed beside her. “Probably.”
Willa and I had been best friends since elementary school In Las Vegas, where people moved in and out like a perpetual tide, this was an accomplishment.
There was nothing about me she didn’t know—what boy bands members I’d had crushes on and in what order, which boys in high school I’d liked.
She’d been the one to hand me a pad under the stall when my period had started, and had been the person I’d hung out and watched Netflix with when we skipped proms—both of them.
And I, in turn, knew everything about her.
Why she hung out at my house so much—to hide out from her angry dad—and helped her cheat on algebra in 8th grade enough to pass.
I remembered the first time she’d smoked pot and the first time she’d gotten me some.
And I’d been the one she called half an hour after she’d lost her virginity, more interested in telling me about it than in hanging out with the boy who’d done the deed.
She was the wild-one, I was straight-laced.
I kept her safe and she kept things fun.
We’d spent practically our whole lives together, joined at the hip, just like we were now on my bed.
But school was looming and we’d be going to vastly different places.
We’d been talking a big game about moving out of our parent’s houses and moving in together, but we hadn’t gotten our acts together yet.
Maybe it wouldn’t happen at all. Maybe this was the beginning of the end.
She bounced up on an elbow, her thoughts running opposite of mine. “You still haven’t answered, Ang.”
Her dark curls fanned out around her face as she grinned, hopeful I’d come along on one last adventure. And if she was there—how could I not? “Sure. Fine,” I grinned back at her.
“Yes!” She leapt off my bed and ran for my closet.
I let her dress me up in short shorts and a tank, and we raced out of the house together before my parents could see.
Then she drove us out to a strip mall in the middle of nowhere, where a dive bar faced a line of bikes.
We got out of the car, but when she started walking toward them I stopped. “This is where we’re going?”
“I know,” she said, apologizing. “I drove by earlier this week and didn’t have the guts to go in. I couldn’t be doing this without you.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this at all,” I complained.
“We just go inside, and see if he’s there. If he’s not then we wait a little bit and we leave, okay? That’s it. Nothing major.”
“Willa,” I complained.
“Please. One last time.” She wove her fingers through my own and tugged me toward the door.
That was the problem with my relationship with Willa. I had a hard time telling her no. “All right,” I said, dragging my feet as she pulled me in to the bar.
Masculinity was in the air here—there weren’t all that many other girls, just a lot of men, drinking hard, playing pool, and having heavy conversations.
The bartender—Davis, from the patch on his jacket—gave us both a wise look. “You girls don’t belong here.”
“I’ve been here before,” Willa said, a bold-faced lie.
He gave her a once-over. “Maybe, maybe not. But her?” he said, looking at me. “I’d remember.”
I hid behind my blonde hair, feeling both naked and gawky, wishing I was wearing a lot more clothes.
“Well she’s with me,” she said, looping her arm through mine. “We’re staying. And we’re both twenty-two.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “And what’re you drinking?’
“Beer?” I hazarded.
“Whiskey,” Willa said, more sure of herself.
Davis worked the taps and handed us glasses bubbling with carbonation. “Diet Coke.”
I looked to Willa, in case she’d gotten a better fake ID and was willing to push things. Instead though, she pulled out a ten and handed it over. “Thanks.” He took it and didn’t offer any change.
It was completely unlike Willa to let such rudeness slide. “You must really like this guy,” I said, as we slunk off to the bar’s far side.
“Trust me. He’s worth it,” she said, taking a sip from her glass.
“What if he’s not here today? Maybe he has better things to do.”
“I saw his bike out front,” she said, giving me a sly wink.
A door pushed open from the back to pass a beer through and I could hear the sounds of laughter, men and more women’s voices, and scent barbecued meat and cigars from a patio outside.
“And what if he’s back there?” I wondered.
“Let’s go see,” she said, hopping off her stool.
I looked around the bar again, at the worrisomely huge guys keeping an eye on us. “Willa, no,” I said, and meant it.
She opened her mouth to argue then came to her senses with a nod. “You’re right.” She got back on her barstool. “Let’s just wait. If he comes in, it was meant to be.”
“Yeah.” I sipped on my Coke, wondering if I should hope to see him or not. Willa kept her eyes on the door, while I kept my eyes on her. I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t want to practically be her. Being with her was the next best thing.
Just then the door swung open behind her, framing him in daylight.
He was Nordic, clearly, maybe Scandinavian.
His shoulders were almost as wide as the doorway and he was at least 6’4”.
And with his long hair and leather jacket, he looked like he’d come off the cover of a romance novel, the dirty kind we’d hid from our moms when we were fifteen.
I felt my heart stop and an inconvenient throb from between my thighs.
Willa turned to face me as he went down the hall. “That was him. You see what I mean now?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. But—I looked down the hall he’d walked down—to the bathrooms. We didn’t have much time. “What’s your amazing plan?”
She held up a hand and counted fingers down. As I heard a distant door squeak open, over the country on the jukebox, she reached one, and leaned in. “This,” she whispered, her dark curls brushing my cheek, right before she kissed me.
I had only kissed three boys. Once in fifth grade, behind the jungle-gym, a bad idea all around.
The second in seventh, at the bus-stop, on his last day at school before moving, the culmination of a year-long crush.
And the third in tenth grade, outside the science hall, after which he’d written me a note explaining that he was in love with someone else.
So my track record wasn’t great, but I could’ve tried harder.
There were boys who liked me, and I liked them—but I’d always been scared of what I’d do next.
My mom always wanted me to be good, without ever quite defining what that was.
All I ever knew was that if I ever let myself be with a boy, after the books I’d read and dreams I’d had, good was the precise opposite of what I’d be.
Every time I thought too long about what I really wanted, it felt like a tornado was chewing me up inside.
It made me worried that if I let even one part of what I hoped for out—how desperately wanted to get f-u-c-k-e-d, even though I’d never even let a boy hold me before—all of my lusts and urges and hopes would tear out, all at once, and destroy the countryside.
It seemed safer to keep that part of me tightly corked, like a genie in a bottle, where it couldn’t hurt anyone—least of all me.
But then Willa was kissing me—and none of my books or dreams could’ve prepared me for that.
Her lips were soft and it felt natural to tilt my head to fit hers completely. Her tongue asked my lips for entrance, and I let it in, slowly opening up to this new experience. And then her hands were in my hair and I was leaning forward, using my tongue back and….
“Well what do we have here?” said a sonorous voice from beside us. Willa pulled back, staring at me, breathing hard—the same way I was breathing too. Then she looked up at him.
“We’re just friends. Close friends,” she said, and her hand slid up on my thigh. “I came here once before—I know Nikki—she said this was a fun place.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah,” he said. “I know Nikki too.”
Willa dared a smile. “So, maybe we can go back to the real party with you?”
He looked from one to the other of us again and it was like his gaze was hot, making anywhere it touched me flush.
I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Sure,” he said, and Willa was off her barstool in a heartbeat, her hand finding mine to drag off on our next stage of this adventure.
“Unless you two wanted to party with me, alone.”
I dared to look up and saw him staring directly at me. Challenging me. If we went with him, I knew we wouldn’t be able to turn back. But I also knew I wouldn’t have to worry about frightening him with how secretly hungry I was, either.
“Ang?” Willa asked softly. I looked to her and saw her nod, then I was nodding too.
A wicked smile crept across his face. “Follow me,” he said, and took us around the bar.