Stronghold (Stronghold 1) (29 page)

I did
?  

"She's so helpful and
thoughtful like that, isn't she?"  Angel's mom beamed at her.  

"Mmm hmm, Adam's a great
guy and really on top of it with finding a good long-term temp job for
me."

Angel choked on her green
beans.  "Adam?"

Beside her, Leigh giggled and
Angel kicked her in the ankle.  

"Yes," Mike said,
his tone of voice completely bland and so innocent that he might as well have
screamed that he was in a trouble-making mood.  "He seems awfully
invested in making sure that I don't find myself back on your couch once I'm
off of it."

Both of Angel's parents
blinked and then their heads swung around to look at her.

Oh.  Oh he was so
dead. 

******

Knock knock knock.

"Come on, Angel, I said
I was sorry!  Let me in, it's cold out here!"

"You should have thought
of that before you threw me to the wolves!"  She glared at Leigh, who
was sprawled out on the couch in the main room, rolling with laughter.
 Mark, Sam and Q weren't much better - in fact, she'd already had to stop
Sam from attempting to let Mike in the front door.  They were all taking
far too much amusement in her pain.

"I didn't realize that
they'd take it that way!  I tried to stop them!"

"Ignorance is no
excuse!"

Mike's one little comment,
which he had made just to tease her, had sparked a half hour long intensive
interrogation of all three of them, but mostly Angel, as her parents' hopes
sprang up wildly.  Since Angel hadn't brought a guy home, or even
mentioned any of her dates to them, in over a year, she couldn't entirely blame
them for their excitement, but there was nothing to tell.  Which is why
she hadn't mentioned any of her dates to them before, because they didn't go
past the first few and she wasn't going to mention every single guy that
crossed her path to her parents. 

"Angel, seriously, I'm
cold!  I'm going to break down the door in a minute if you don't let me
in."

"Let him in, he's
big enough to do it," said Sam.  "And it is really cold out
there."

Grumbling, Angel yanked open
the door and stared at Mike with all the aggravation she could summon.  It
was a little bit hard when he really did look a bit blue around the edges and
he was holding himself and jumping up and down a bit to try and keep himself
warm. 

"Are you going to behave
from now on?"

Mike muttered something under
his breath and then glared at her.  "Yes."

She eyed him suspiciously,
pretty sure that she'd heard something about spanking her in that muttering,
but she wasn't going to ask him to clarify in front of her housemates.
 Knowing Mike, he actually would, loudly and proudly, and then that would
just open a whole new can of worms.  

Telling the guys that she was
experimenting with kink just so was not in the cards.  There were a lot of
parts of her life that she shared with her housemates but that was not one of
them. 

It was silly to feel relieved
that Angel showed up at Stronghold without Michael, but that was exactly how
Adam felt.  Silly because they could really use another tall male.
 Lexie was being a little slave-driver about how many decorations she
wanted hung from the ceiling above the bar and pretty much anywhere else that
she could find to hang things.  Mostly hearts.  Pink and red hearts.
 He was pretty sure that she'd chosen the cheesy decor with no other goal
in mind than antagonizing Patrick since Lexie was not a pink and red hearts
kind of girl, but all of them were suffering for it. 

Surprisingly Patrick seemed
to be taking the decor in stride, something which seemed to be riling Lexie up.
 He was the only one
not
 grumbling under his breath, which had
Lexie muttering and shooting him suspicious glances.  Adam wondered if
Patrick was just relieved that Lexie had only brought cheesy decorations and
not her cheesy boyfriend.  

"Angel!  Oh good,
you're here, did you bring the fabric?"  Lexie sped over to give the
other woman a hug, not even letting her strip off her coat.  Angel hugged
her back, her eyes flitting around the room, but even though he was only
standing about five feet away she didn't look him in the eye.  It wasn't
exactly dismissive, it was more like being ignored.  Either way he didn't
particularly like it.

"Yeah, but I need help
bringing it in.  There's a lot of it."

Fabric?  Dear god, what
had they gotten themselves into now?

"I'll help," he
heard himself saying, and had the satisfaction of seeing Angel look up at him
with a startled and wary expression on her face.

"Oh good, thank you
Adam!"  Lexie beamed at him before her eyes focused over his shoulder.
 "Andrew, no!  The strings are supposed to be long!"

Adam turned around to see
Andrew, scissors in hand, about to cut the strings of the hearts that Lexie had
given him to decorate the bar with. 

"They're hitting me in
the head."

"They're
supposed
 to
look like they're floating around your head, you ding dong."

"I'm not hanging them so
that I get smacked in the face every time I turn around."

"Come on," Adam
said, taking Angel by the elbow and turning her around.  She looked cute
in a squashy purple jacket, matching earmuffs over her ears and a pair of jeans
that looked like they'd been broken-in to the point of comfortable perfection.
 It was so unlike the outfits that he'd seen her wear to the clubs, but it
fit her personality in a completely different way.  Soft.  Warm.
 Touchable.  "You brought fabric?"

She gave him a little
smile that could best be described as nervous as they walked back out into the
February chill.  "Yeah, Lexie said she wanted some fabric to hang
from the doors that people could walk through."

Adam sighed.  "Of
course she did.  Where'd you get fabric from?"

"I do a lot of sewing
and I have a bunch of reds and pinks that I thought might work.  Since
we're just hanging it from stuff I figured I can always just wash it and make
it into something later."

"That's nice of you.
 You're making a corset for her too, right?"

"I help where I can.
 And I like Lexie."

"Oh wow..."
 Adam was struck a little speechless when Angel's trunk popped open and he
got a good look at her idea of suitable fabrics for doorway hangings.
 He'd been expecting pretty utilitarian pinks and reds, the kind of bright
colors that he associated with elementary school Valentine's Day parties and
which Lexie was currently decorating the club with.

Instead the trunk was filled
with swathes of deep burgundy, dusky rose, and other hues that he didn't have
names for.  They looked rich and inviting.  In fact, they kind of
reminded him of the decorations in the Arabian Fantasy private room on the
second floor of Stronghold.  He had a sudden vision of entertaining Angel
in that room, with her in one of the many harem girl outfits that were
available, and suddenly he felt all too hot inside his skin, no matter the
temperature of the air around him.  

"Think she'll like
them?" 

"I think Patrick will,
which is more to the point.  Where did you get all these?  You can't
tell me you just have all this fabric laying around the house."

"Oh, I tend to pick up
fabric all the time when I see it on sale, even if I don't have something in mind
for it yet.  I know I’ll use it eventually.  Here."

Automatically Adam held out
his arms to accept the bundle of variegated reds and pinks that she thrust at
him.  Soft, velvety, silky... a myriad of sensations rubbed across his
bare hands, which he buried in the fabric to protect them from the wind now
that he wasn't using his pockets to do that.  

Bossy little thing when she
wasn't in a scene, he thought with some amusement.  She hadn't hesitated
before loading him down with fabric.  Or maybe it wasn't bossiness, but
just the confidence that she could give him a task and he would carry it out.
 

"So you didn't already
have plans for tonight?" he asked as she held a much smaller bundle of
fabric than his in one arm while closing her trunk.  "Lexie said she
asked you kind of last minute."

Angel gave him a little look,
as if wondering whether or not the question was somehow loaded.  It
wasn't, he was just grasping at straws on how to talk with a woman that he'd
already been intimate with but that he wanted to get to know on a different
level.  "No.  Originally I was planning to just hang out and do
a bit of reading, but I can do that later."

"What are you
reading?"

"I'm re-reading Anne
McCaffrey's Pern series."

"That's the
dragon-riders one, right?"

The blink of surprise that he
got in return made him grin at her.  

"Yeah, have you read
it?"

"I tried to a long time
ago, when I was still in high school.  I couldn't really get into
it."

"Oh, you should try it
again!  It's so good, it's one of my favorites," Angel said, her
entire face brightening and the small hint of wariness that she'd been looking
at him with lifting completely.  "The newer ones, by her son, aren't
as good as the originals, but I still like some of them, and hers are
fantastic."

"That's kind of how I
feel about the Dune series."

"I love Dune!"
 Now she was looking at him with something like disbelieving awe.  He
grinned.  That was pretty much the usual reaction when someone found out his
reading preferences.

"What, didn't think I'd
be a sci-fi book nerd?"

"Well you have to admit,
you don't really fit the image," she said teasingly.  Strangely
enough, he rather liked being teased by her.  Although he didn't like that
when they got to the door of the club that she had to open it for him rather than
the other way around, but his hands were fuller than hers.  "Who are
your favorite authors?"

The conversation continued as
Lexie assigned them the task of hanging the fabric on the doorways, which Adam
was happy to accept.  For one it got him out of climbing up and down the
ladders to hang stuff on the ceiling of the main floor, and for two it meant
more time alone with Angel without him having to arrange it.  He manfully
ignored the little wink that Andrew gave him as they headed upstairs.

Angel read more of the newer
sci-fi / fantasy series while he had mostly read the older classics, although
there was a fair amount of crossover between them.  She'd never read any
of his favorite newer authors, Robin Hobb, and he hadn't read a lot of what
she'd read, mostly because she'd read a great deal more than he had, period.

"I read kinda fast.
 Although not as fast as Leigh.  She’s a speed-reader like you wouldn’t
believe."

"I read kinda slow and I
don't have a lot of time for it."

"That's too bad,"
she said sympathetically, holding up a swatch of glimmering dusky pink fabric
for him to nail into place.  They were putting two pieces of fabric on
either side of the doorways, so that people could part them to walk through.
 "I read as much as possible.  My parents didn't really
encourage television when we were younger and they refused to buy us video game
consoles, so it was either play with my brothers or read."

"And you chose to read?"

"I chose both, but a lot
of the time reading was preferable.  Big brothers are mean."

He chuckled, although a small
pang hit him in his chest as he thought about his own big brother.
 "What'd they do?"

"What didn't they
do?"  Angel rolled her eyes.  "Whenever we played any kind
of good guys vs. bad guys game, I was always the damsel in distress."

Adam raised an eyebrow.
 "Think maybe that's why you like being tied up?"

"Ew, no!"
 Angel said laughing, trying to shove him and then throwing up her hands
in frustration when her tiny push barely moved him.  He couldn't help but
grin at her obvious annoyance with that.  "I hated it when they tied
me up.  Although..."  She got the most wickedly mischievous
expression on her face as she giggled.  "There was one time when we
were playing Pirates and my brother Captain -"

"Your brother's name is
Captain?"

"Yeah, my parents chose
uncommon names for all of us.  Anyway, Captain was the pirate and he
kidnapped me and tied me to the 'mast' of his ship - which was this big tree in
our front yard - and then he and Percy were running around sword fighting and
doing all the fun stuff.  While they were doing that I managed to get
myself free, make the rope he'd used into a lasso, and I ended up being the one
to ‘get’ the pirate that time."  The triumphant smile on her face
said that her brothers hadn't seen that one coming. 

"And was Percy thankful
for the help?"

"Alas... no.  So I
tied him up along with Captain and left them there.  I told them that
if
I
 could get out of being tied up then they could too."

Laughing with Angel made Adam
feel as though tension was just melting off of him.  He couldn't remember
the last time that he'd felt this relaxed.  Or that he'd enjoyed himself
this much.  It occurred to him that even though they'd chatted and talked
while she'd been at Stronghold, their conversations had always been somewhat
constrained.  Maybe it had been because there were other people around or
because they just hadn't known each other well enough yet, but they'd never
really shared any personal stories like this.  He'd liked talking to her but
this... this was something more. 

Wasn't it?

"What about you?"
Angel asked.  "Any siblings?"

It was amazing how fast his
eyes could change, from the warm blue of a clear sky in summer to the crystal
ice of winter in just moments.  He forced a smile, but Angel could tell
that it was definitely forced because it didn't come anywhere near his eyes.

"An older brother.
 He's dead."

"Oh... I'm sorry."
 She felt absolutely wretched for bringing it up and she didn't really
know what to say to make it better.  They'd been getting along so
well
 dammit.
 She'd been surprised when he'd first offered to help and even more so
when he'd been pleased that they'd been paired together for work, but it had
made her happy too.  

Seeing another side of Master
Adam had just made her like him even more.  Although he was dressed the
same as always, in a white button down shirt and a pair of dark jeans, he'd
seemed more relaxed all around.  They'd been having an actual conversation
for once, instead of just making small talk.  And he hadn't seemed angry
or grouchy one bit, until just now.

"It was a long time
ago," he said slowly, avoiding her eyes.  "His name was
Brian."

Angel bit her lip and then
decided to ask the question anyway.  Better now than to wonder about it
and end up bringing it up later, right?  "How did he die?... You
don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No, it's okay."
 But those solid blocks of ice that were avoiding direct eye contact with
her said otherwise.  She wanted to hug him so hard, but everything about
his body language said not to come any closer, not to touch.  "It was
a drug overdose when he was in high school."

There was a long moment of
silence between them.  Any pretense of work had stopped and they just
stood in the quiet hallway, facing each other.  Tension was in every line
of his body and his eyes seemed to be looking inward at something she couldn’t
see.  Empathy surged. 

"I had a friend who
committed suicide in high school," she said softly.  "I think
the worst part about it, for me, wasn't her death.  It was wondering why I
hadn't been able to prevent it.  Why I hadn't seen the road she was on and
why I hadn't been able to do anything to stop it."

Finally,
finally
, he
met her eyes again.  The ice was still there, but it seemed like maybe it
had thawed a bit.  Angel just looked back at him, her face calm even
though the emotions roiling her in chest were not.  She didn't talk about
Hannah often.  Ever, really.  It was too painful.  But he'd just
shared an integral part of himself and she couldn't not respond.  Couldn't
not to try reach out.