AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Stronghold.
There was no point in going all the way back to Chained and teasing herself with Doms whom she couldn’t try anything with because she’d lied to them. Better to go to Stronghold and start something she could finish. Plus, she’d talked with Mike last night and he’d reassured her that she would be fine; he hadn’t been to Stronghold in a while, but he knew the owner was well known for looking out for people who were new to the scene, especially unattached subs. Too bad Mike was in California or she’d be making him take her to the club.
Grabbing her purse, Angel opened up her phone, she always checked her calls and texts before heading out to her car. She was usually the last one out of the dressing room because she preferred to take off her make-up at rehearsal rather than driving home with it. Getting pulled over for speeding while in full stage make-up had only happened to her once, but that had been enough. Nothing as embarrassing as talking to a police officer when you had giant freckles drawn on your face.
Checking her missed calls, she frowned when she saw she had one from Michael. Leigh’s Michael, not her Mike. Michael hadn’t called her since before he and Leigh had “separated.” A little wave of panic went through her as she hit the call button—had something happened to Leigh?
“Hello, this is Michael.”
At the standard greeting Angel rolled her eyes. It was his cell phone number, he knew who was calling him, but he pretended he didn’t know as if that was somehow more polite than acknowledging the Caller ID. Still, her panic subsided. He would have never answered the phone that way if there was something wrong. “Hey, it’s Angel. You called?”
“Hey Angel,” he said as she left the dressing room and waved down the hallway at some of the crew members before heading toward the parking lot. “I ah... was hoping to ask you for a favor.”
“You can always ask,” she retorted cheerfully. It was her standard answer because far too many people had realized over the years she was a sucker for helping people out. She used to say “whatever you need” and then Leigh had pointed out people were taking advantage of her and had told her to stop being such a doormat. Which was funny, considering how often Leigh played the doormat for Michael.
“I want to take Leigh away for our anniversary in a couple of weeks and I was hoping you could help me surprise her with it... I found a B&B with all sorts of activities and spa treatments and I’d appreciate it if you could look over the choices I’ve picked out and let me know if you think I made the right ones. You two like the same things and I think I’ve done a good job but I’d like a second opinion.” Angel raised her eyebrows, Michael sounded almost hesitant, as if he was nervous about his decisions. “And I wanted to surprise her with it so I was hoping you could come over and pack for her the Friday we’re going to leave, maybe if you have time in between classes or something.”
“Wow... Michael that’s so sweet!” She grinned. Good, this was exactly what Leigh needed from him! And he was sounding more like the Michael she’d first met, less like the jerk he’d been the weekend before. “Of course, I’ll help out! And I can come and pack for her on Friday, I don’t have any classes scheduled for Fridays right now. Usually I spend them sewing, but I can put it aside for an hour to pack a bag for her.”
“Thank you,” he said, sounding truly relieved. “I’ll email you the link to the B&B along with the list of activities and spa treatments I picked out so you can look that over.”
“That works, do you still have my email address?”
“Still angeleyes?”
“Yep, that’s me.”
“Great, thank you so much Angel.”
“Not a problem,” she said enthusiastically. “Anything to help you and Leigh have a great weekend together.”
“I appreciate it.” Something about his tone of voice and the high level of gratitude in it said that he knew she wasn’t his biggest fan and he really did appreciate her putting aside her own judgment of him in order to help him out.
What he didn’t get was that Angel would do almost anything to make Leigh happy.
Angel
Walking in the front door of the house, Angel was greeted by pure mayhem. The main room of the house was always chaotic, especially in the evenings, because that’s where the television, gaming systems and computers were, but tonight was particularly bad. Her roommates Q, Mark, and Sam were all pretty insular, but they had a wide group of friends from World of Warcraft and other online games.
Someone must have forgotten to tell her they’d be having a bit of a convention at the house. There were several more computers than usual, along with several more guys in various states of dress hunkered down around them, barking out orders, insults, and suggestions into their headsets, and chugging Red Bulls.
“Oh, dear God...” Angel muttered as she took in the scene.
Quickly she looked around for Q, who tended to take the lead when it came to organizing events—he was also head of the Guild the guys were all involved with in the game. He was also the easiest to find because he was the biggest at about six feet tall. With dark brown skin and enough lean muscles that most people looked at him and thought “jock” rather than “gamer.” His real name was Quinton, but she was the only one who ever called him that; Sam and Mark only attempted it at their own peril.
“Quinton...” she said, standing with her hands on her hips as she glared around the room at them.
“Uh oh... mommy’s home,” murmured Sam, not even taking his eyes off the screen. His real name was Sampson, but he looked more like a Sam. Unlike Q, he was basically the epitome of the gamer stereotype: skinny, geeky white kid with glasses. Even though he was twenty-five, he was still basically a kid. He worked at the Apple store, was constantly bringing home various electronics to take apart and play with, and was thoroughly convinced that one day (possibly soon) robots were going to become too intelligent and end up battling humankind for supremacy. The worst part was, the longer she talked to him and the more she learned about technology, the more some of his theories started to make sense.
“Uh... hey… SHIT! Hey Angel.” Q didn’t take his eyes off his computer screen either. “Uh...”
“Did you forget to tell me something?” she prompted. The three guys whose names she didn’t know were now eyeing her warily as if they recognized the dangerous tone of voice and weren’t sure if they should run from the room now or wait and watch the fireworks.
Mark, the last of her roommates, started to come into the room from their kitchen, took one look at her standing in fighting stance with her hands on her hips and flipped right back around and back into the kitchen. Avoidance at its best.
Her lips quirked.
“Sorry Ang,” Sam said, giving her a rueful shrug.
