Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (49 page)

"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."

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 normally 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.  

So far as Adam knew, so far he hadn't done
anything to piss Angel off or upset her.  It was completely smooth
sailing.  Which was almost a ridiculous thing to worry about, but he
didn't remember his parents' fighting much either.  Because his mother
would just shove down all of her emotions until they came out in
passive-aggressive little snippets that his dad didn't notice, right up until
the day she left.  

Angel hadn't said anything to him about the
way he'd treated her when she'd first come to Stronghold and he'd realized who
she was.  In fact, she'd pretty much just taken everything that he'd
dished out.  Sure, he'd searched her out and apologized, but she hadn't
insisted on it and she'd forgiven him immediately.

Had she not been that bothered by it?
 Or was she just not the type to hold a grudge once she'd received an
apology?

Or had she just sat on her emotions, the way
his mother always had, rather than standing up for herself?

The various scenarios whirled
around his head, eventually dragging him down into an uneasy sleep where his
dreams were filled with running through the fog, a glass slipper in his hand,
trying to find Angel, knowing that she was nearby but refusing to answer when
he yelled her name.  Needless to say, it was not a restful night.

******

"And tonight's gonna be a
GOOD GOOD niiiiight!"  Angel bounced as she parked the car in front
of the apartment building.

She could understand why Lexie
hadn't wanted to share the address with Patrick or any of her other
"sentinels."  It wasn't a terrible neighborhood, but it wasn't
the best either.  Definitely not the kind of place that Angel would feel
comfortable going running at night in.  Not that running at night was
particularly safe in the first place, but it was true that it was safer in some
neighborhoods than others.