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“No worries,” Angel reassured her breezily. “Trust me, this is a casual kind of thing. None of Adam’s parties have a real start time. Olivia and Andrew have been here for hours. Come on, let me give you the tour.”
Rick’s hand on the small of Maria’s back propelled her forward down the hall after Angel. Adam’s house was gorgeous, all the rooms impeccably neat, except for one room that looked like a study converted into a sewing room for Angel’s projects. Adam, Patrick, and Jessica were in the kitchen, snacking on the food laid out on the counter. It looked delicious, but Maria was so not hungry yet, although she and Rick each picked up a drink while they were there.
After that, Angel led the way downstairs to Adam’s basement, and the obvious social center of the house. There was more food, as well as a huge television and a ton of video games.
“Hey guys. We’re having a tournament, want in?” Chris asked, grinning as he glanced up from looking at the screen. He, Lexie, Liam, and Hilary were all sitting on the floor with controllers in their hands and were focused on whatever they were playing. Olivia, Jared, and Andrew were sitting on the huge sectional couch with them, along with three guys Maria didn’t know.
Looking at the television, Maria blinked in surprise. “Is that Mario Kart?”
“Yeah, the version for the Wii,” Andrew said, trying to distract Chris by putting his foot up near the other man’s face and slowly bringing it closer. “It’s the only game Jessica and Hilary will play.”
“It’s the only game I’m not entirely terrible at,” said Hilary cheerfully. “Oh no, no, no!” Her words belied her first statement as she wailed. “I hate Rainbow Road.”
“Everybody hates Rainbow Road, honey-girl,” her fiancé said, his voice filled with false sympathy. Hilary leaned over and knocked into him with her shoulder, sending the Yoshi on the screen careening off the edge of the road. “Hey!”
“Oops,” she said, smirking at him. Everyone laughed, except for Chris and Lexie, they were too focused on their own characters.
“So you guys want in?” Chris asked again, focused on the screen. Going by the quadrant he seemed to be looking at, Maria guessed he was Donkey Kong, which meant Lexie was playing as Mario. Hilary was Princess Peach of course.
“Not me, thanks.”
“I’m in,” said Rick behind her. “Unless Sam’s playing.”
“I’ve been disallowed,” said the skinniest of the three guys on the couch. He was dressed kind of nerdy fashionable, with skinny jeans, a striped green and orange shirt that was only a little loose on him, and thick glasses. “I’m just here to offer impartial judgments, when needed, and occasional advice.”
“Maria, these are my housemates, Sam, Q, and Mark,” Angel said cheerfully, pointing to each of them in turn. Ah, that explained it. Maria had heard about the three of them, from both Rick and Angel, and she knew Adam was still frustrated about the fact that, technically, Angel didn’t actually live with him. Going by what Maria had seen around the house, Angel had basically moved in, but the fact that she still had a room with her old housemates was a bit of a bone of contention between the couple.
“Are Leigh and Mike coming?” she asked. She’d only seen Leigh one more time since meeting her, and last week Angel had come in with a tall, dark and handsome friend named Mike. If she wasn’t already involved with Rick, Maria might have been drooling over him. Then again, that was true of all of Rick’s friends, but he was the only one who she really had a spark with. Still, they were all fantastic eye candy individually, and en masse the whole picture was pulse-pounding.
“Nah, Leigh’s got date night with her boyfriend and Mike’s in a show right now. I’m gonna head back upstairs to check on my man. Anyone need anything?”
There was a chorus of no’s, so Angel just waved her hand and headed back upstairs. Maria and Rick made their way over to the couch to squeeze in between Olivia and Jared. The Domme was talking with Angel’s housemates, making Maria bite her lip in amusement when she remembered Olivia referring to them as Angel’s harem. And talking about making them her own. As if she could read Maria’s thoughts, Olivia gave her an amused look before turning back to the conversation.
“So how was meeting the family?” Andrew asked, leaning forward so he could see Rick and Maria, despite Jared’s hulking form between them.
“I thought it went pretty well,” Maria said with a laugh. “He made it out alive.” Andrew and Jared both chuckled. Andrew slapped Rick a high five.
It didn’t take too long until everyone was gathered down in the basement. As soon as Hilary was done playing, Maria did the girl thing and demanded to see the ring. The center diamond was gorgeous, a one carat princess cut with two smaller emerald cut diamonds on each side, set in an intricate, delicate gold band.
“Wow,” Maria said, impressed. The ring looked exactly like the kind of thing Hilary should be wearing. “He did a good job.”
“I cheated,” Liam said, his eyes dancing as he kissed Hilary’s temple. “Jessica helped me pick it out.”
“Don’t listen to him.” Hilary patted his chest with her free hand. Her soft brown eyes glowed with happiness as she looked up at her fiancé. The tenderness in his eyes as he gazed back at her was heart-warming. “He picked it out, Jessica just approved it.”
The two of them were so obviously happy together, it made Maria’s heart ache. She wondered if Rick would ever look at her like that. Sometimes she felt like she got a little hint of it from him. Yeah, they’d only known each other for about a month and a half, but at her age she wasn’t going to be dating someone unless she could see a future with them and she knew he felt the same way. Even if they hadn’t really talked explicitly about it, since they hadn’t been together long, they’d both expressed that much.
Angel put on some dance music and all the girls except Olivia ended up on that side of the basement, dancing in between their turns playing Mario Kart. The final battle came down to Mark, Q, Angel, and Patrick. The girls stopped dancing to watch, Jessica insisted, and Maria soon found out why.
Her sides ached from laughing so hard. Angel was the meanest, loudest video game player she’d ever seen. The smack talk was epic. Adam sat behind her on the couch, occasionally putting his hand over her mouth whenever he thought she was becoming too offensive. Which, once or twice when Angel was particularly frustrated, led to him getting bitten.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” he growled, but he didn’t interrupt her game to punish her. It was kind of sweet in a threatening, scary way.
“Dammit, I thought Asians were supposed to be terrible drivers,” Patrick cursed as Angel shoved his Luigi right into some hot lava, overtaking him. “Princess Daisy is supposed to fucking suck.”
“Suck it up, buttercup. I’m only half-Asian and the white half’s driving,” Angel said, laughing as she zoomed around another corner, using a mushroom to get her closer to Q, who was driving Mario. “Take that you mangy bastard.”
“She refuses to play anything but the girl characters, so she’s had a lot of practice,” Sam said, rolling his eyes at Angel’s idiosyncrasies. Maria had the feeling Sam used whatever character he thought was the best, regardless of gender.
