"Thank you, Hilary," said Adam, glaring at his friends. "At least someone at this table likes me."
"We like you, which is why we don't want to see you get involved with someone inappropriate again," Liam said. He'd been at Stronghold when Adam and Brooke had first started going so he knew why their relationship hadn't worked out. And had seen all the women Adam had dated since, which he’d ended up rejecting for one reason or another along the way. "Why are you so hooked on this Domme anyway?" Adam groaned. Like he hadn't been asking himself that same question over and over again.
"I don't know," he muttered. He seemed to be saying that a lot about Angela. "Don't worry about. We won't be coming back here again."
"I'll say," said Liam. "Sorry Rick."
"No problem," Rick said easily. "I like Stronghold better anyway. I'm starting to think about moving – not just because of the club. I've already put in a job application to some of the school districts in Maryland."
Well that news quickly turned the conversation. Everyone was glad to hear that Rick was moving closer, although Adam found himself distracted as he looked around the room, thinking about Angela. Trying to pretend like he wasn't looking around in hopes that she might come back again tonight. Not that he had any idea what he would say if she did show up.
Fortunately no one commented on his distraction and he contributed to the conversation as best he could. Apparently Rick had been butting heads recently with his school and wanted a place where he could have a more creative curriculum. Good luck with that.
Once it got late enough that he felt sure Angela wouldn't be coming he started to feel even more frustrated. The night had been a complete waste of time, for both him and his friends. Firmly he squashed down his irritation with her. It was his own damn fault for deciding to come here anyway. And for getting hung up over a Domme. Even a gorgeous, mysterious one. Besides, if he really wanted to see her again, all he had to do was go see her show.
A smile spread across his face. Now why hadn't he thought of that before? Maybe because it seemed a little stalkerish. Like that thought has stopped you so far. But he did enjoy theater at all levels. And the show wasn't that far away from where he lived.
Feeling much better about the night in general, Adam took another swig of his beer and joined back into the conversation.
******
“Five minutes to start!”
“Thank you five!” Chorused the women in the dressing room. All of them were in the various finishing stages of putting on their make-up and costumes or placing the last pins in their hair.
Leaning forward, Angel smeared her lips with pink that matched her pink capris exactly. Pink capris, yellow button down sleeveless shirt, pink high heels and a pink and yellow hairband. She giggled and tossed her hair back and forth; for this part she’d straightened it and given it a little flip at the bottom.
“We look amaaaaaaazing,” sang out Rhonda, the older woman who was playing the part of Lucy. She was decked out in bright purple skirt with blue flowers and a white button down top, with a huge straw hat that had a purple ribbon and flower on it. During rehearsals she and Angel had become pretty close, because they were the two biggest pranksters on the female side of the cast.
Angel grinned at her. “I feel like we could be a Starburst commercial.”
“With Karen over there in the green and Mrs. Malaprop in her orange and red, absolutely!” Rhonda laughed, gesturing to their other two cast-mates. Karen laughed, but Susan, who was playing Mrs. Malaprop, just rolled her eyes. Covering a cough, Angel looked at Rhonda with twinkling eyes. They had both done other shows with the County Players and so had worked with Susan before; she was a great actress but her sense of humor was rather nil. Which, funny enough, made her perfect for comedies.
Leaning over, Angel licked Rhonda’s bicep.
“Ew! Stop!”
“I was just trying to taste the rainbow!” Angel looked at her with wide, innocent hazel eyes. This time even Susan couldn’t help but smile, although it was accompanied by another eye roll, as the room filled with laughter.
“Are you decent?” Nick, their assistant director popped his head into the room without actually waiting for an answer, scanning over them quickly. “You ladies look fantastic. God I love dress rehearsals!”
“Me too!” Angel bounced towards him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and leaving a pink pair of lips on the pale skin of his cheek before heading out the door and down the hall. Even though places hadn’t been called yet she was tired of being cooped up in the dressing room.
It just wasn’t her natural state to be enclosed in small spaces, she had too much energy to burn and her spirits were too high!
Over the past couple of days she’d made the decision that she was definitely going to go to Stronghold once the show was over. Going to Chained had been scary the first time, but by the second time she had to admit that she didn’t really feel like a club was all that dangerous of a situation. She’d been able to see firsthand how many checks and safety measures Chained had in place, and it was a new club which meant that Stronghold would probably have even more due to years of trial and error.
So there was no point in going all the way back to Chained and teasing herself with Doms that she couldn’t actually try anything with because she’d lied to them. Better to just go to Stronghold and start something she could actually finish. Plus she’d talked with Mike last night and he’d reassured her that she would be just fine; he hadn’t been to Stronghold in a while, but he knew that 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.
Sure, the sexy unattached Doms that she’d met at Chained wouldn’t be at Stronghold, but there would be other sexy unattached Doms. Maybe even more than there were at Chained – she’d heard that there were usually more Doms than subs at clubs like these. Or maybe she’d just read that somewhere. Sometimes she couldn’t remember what information came from actual conversations that she’d had and what she just remembered from internet research or the books that she was constantly downloading on her e-reader.
“Places!”
“Thank you places!” she yelled out, hearing the echo as the other cast members called their own acknowledgments to the stage manager.
Since she wasn’t actually in the first scene, Angel headed down to the audience area so that she could watch. She’d have to leave before the scene finished to get into her place, but at least she’d be able to get to watch some of it.
******
Hanging up the last of her costume pieces, Angel sighed. Her face felt raw from scrubbing – stage-make up was always harder to remove than regular make-up, but it was important to get it all off or she’d have acne like none other.
“Can you believe we open in just one more day?” asked Karen softly, sounding rather awed.
The college sophomore had just started doing theater outside of school, this was her first community theater show and she acted almost as if it was professional. Which Angel could understand, it wasn’t the same as doing it through school that was for sure. For one, a lot more personal work and time on the part of the actors went into community theater shows – they’d all helped to build the sets, pick out and sew the costumes, paint, load-in… all things that were taken care of by the crew students during school shows.
“Open in one more day and then it’s just two weekends before it’s all over,” she said with a sigh.
Opening weekend always made her feel a little melancholy, because after the months of work and rehearsals and memorization and soul-searching, it was the beginning of the end.
“But they’re going to be great weekends.”
“They’re going to be amazing weekends,” Angel replied, grinning as she forced her spirits back up. There was no point in wallowing, especially since the actual shows hadn’t even started yet. And she did love doing the actual shows, although unlike s
ome actors she loved the rehearsal process just as much as she loved the performances.
"I'll see you tomorrow!" Karen gave her a quick hug and a wave before heading out the door.
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 actually 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 really 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 towards the parking lot. "I ah... was hoping to ask you for a favor."
"Well you can always ask," she retorted cheerfully. It was her standard answer because far too many people had realized over the years that she was a sucker for helping people out. She used to say "whatever you need" before she started realizing that people were taking advantage of that. Well, actually, Leigh had pointed out that people were taking advantage of that 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 that you could help me surprise her with it... I found a B&B that has 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 that 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 that she'd first met, less like the jerk he'd been the weekend before. "Of course I'll help out! And I can definitely 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 definitely put that 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 that 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 at all a problem," she said enthusiastically. "Anything to help you and Leigh have a great weekend together."
"I really appreciate it." Something about his tone of voice and the high level of gratitude in it said that he knew that she wasn't his biggest fan and that he really did appreciate her putting aside her own judgment of him in order to help him out.
What he didn't get is that Angel would do just about anything to make one of her best friends happy. Especially Leigh, who was more like a sister to her than she was a friend.
******
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.
Apparently someone had forgotten to tell her that 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 on 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 that the guys were all involved with in the game. Fortunately he was also the easiest to find because he was the biggest at about six feet tall, dark black 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, the guys 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 definitely 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 that 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.
"Yeah, sorry," Q echoed although it was obvious that he wasn't giving her his full attention. "We kinda uh... decided to continue the LAN party from this weekend... here… I forgot to let you know…"
With a sigh, Angel kicked off her shoes and nodded a greeting at their company. No point in yelling at the guys now, they wouldn't be able to pay attention to her anyway. Maybe later, although probably not. They weren't bad guys or bad housemates, even if they were a little forgetful sometimes.
It was definitely a good thing she didn't have the standard office job though, or she'd be a lot angrier. She knew from experience that the guys were going to be up all night, chances were they'd called out from work tomorrow already, and that they wouldn't mean to be loud, but they wouldn't be quiet exactly. Which was why she had the room furthest away from the main room.
Her bedroom was her refuge. Unlike the guys she didn't spread out all over the house, although her sewing machine was down in the main room. Normally she enjoyed being surrounded by the guys while she worked on her latest project or order, but not when they were doing a LAN party. Then they were way too involved in their game to be able to talk with her at all and they didn't want the TV on because it was too distracting. At least she had some stuff that needed to be stitched by hand that she could work on tomorrow, she had a corset that she needed to finish and ship out by Monday.
Sitting down at her desk, she flipped on her lap top so that she could go through her nightly routine. She had three e
mail addresses, one for personal emails, one for women who took her self-defense classes to reach her, and one for her Etsy store. It was just easier to keep it all separated so that she didn't lose track of things.
Unsurprisingly Michael had already sent her the email. A little smile played on her lips as she scanned through it. Couples massage, body wrap, mani-pedi, horseback riding, and a wine tasting. It was going to be cold, but Leigh loved horseback riding even though she'd never had lessons, so she'd appreciate the gesture. It looked like a good combination of things that both Leigh and Michael enjoyed, but it was obvious that Michael had put a lot of thought into pampering Leigh with the spa treatments.
Lucky girl.
Angel sighed. Sure Michael could be an ass, but she could still be envious of the way he took care of Leigh when it came to things like this. He might suck at the small stuff and the day to day stuff, but what girl wouldn't like celebrating her anniversary with a guy who planned out a romantic weekend? And the B&B was gorgeous. Just looking at the website and the description of the restaurant there - where she was sure Michael and Leigh would eat at for at least one dinner - she was feeling jealous.
Typing out a quick email to Michael telling him that he'd done a great job and that Leigh was going to love it, Angel decided it was time to do a little something for herself.
She clicked on the button she'd created on her Favorites bar that took her straight to the Stronghold website. Their membership was more exclusive and so their application process was more involved than Chained's. If she filled out an application now then hopefully she'd be accepted as a member by the time The Rivals closed. Then Closing Weekend might not be so depressing, since she'd have something to look forward to the next weekend.
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