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CHAPTER EIGHT
Meeting the lunch party, Angela realized she had made a few errors. One, it wasn’t just a family event, which she would have liked to know. Two, they were both severely under dressed.
Well, going by how dolled up Chele was--she was wearing the same dress from earlier, a bubblegum pink that contrasted her darker skin tone, and she’d donned on some silvery, glittery eyeshadow and a dark lip gloss.
Angela looked down at her own black sundress. She wasn’t wearing any make up and she was wearing odd silver jewelry--a simple cross and four rings. Not something a grown woman normally wore. Her black boots had also seen much better days.
Oh well, she wasn’t as bad off as Jae. Him with a dark blue and black jacket thrown over a ratty cowboy shirt on, darker than usual jeans, and old Nikes. In comparison to the guys in polos and khaki shorts and the one guy in the suit, he looked like a hobo (which, while not unusual, wasn’t needed right now).
She clung to his arm, anyway. One guy--the one in the suit--was sort of leering at her and everyone else seemed to be ignoring that. Ignoring that and the fact both she and Jae had more or less frozen in the doorway, stunned at the scrambling of people, people moving to find their reserved seats at what was her mother’s main table. She saw Dennis, her step-dad, sitting at the head of the table, talking with two of her aunts, and then shot Jeffrey a help-me look. Since he was talking near mouth-to-mouth with Tanya, he didn’t notice.
“I’m going to go get some punch,” Jae said, sounding sort of sick.
Oh, right. He hated crowds. He didn’t have the details on everyone there; their criminal history, the story of their love life, their bank statements, and all the other stuff he managed to get, managed to find. These people were strange to him and even though she found them alien, it wasn’t the same. Most of these people were relatives; she knew them somewhat.
Jae didn’t know a thing.
Yet, looking at his face, you couldn’t tell he was upset, even slightly unnerved. His face was blank, steady as ever.
“Okay. Don’t get drunk on me, though. I’ll count that as treason,” she warned.
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” he said, mouth twitching.
“Bet you five bucks I’m on the nose,” she joked back, hoping it would make him more comfortable. All she needed was for him to go postal and ruin everything. Maybe I should have brought Ty.
But, no. Ty didn’t know how to kill monsters.
“Sure,” Jae said, even as he slipped away from her and wandered across the room. She watched him as his old sneakers moved soundlessly across the thick Oriental rug over to the buffet table, it carved with lions and other weirder-than-normal-looking animals and centered with a giant bowl of greenish punch.
“I hear you live in New York?”
Angela jumped, hands going stiff at her sides as her eyes popped wide. “Wha’?” She took in the man quickly, even while she noticed exit routes out of the corner of her eye--an old habit.
The guy standing before her was leer-guy, him with a round dark face and slicked back black hair, strands obvious from the amount of gel in it. It made Jae’s forever sweat-spiked hair look much better in comparison. He smiled toothily, a gold cap flashing, and his solid-brown-and-white eyes narrowed. “I said that I heard you live in New York.”
She swallowed. “Uh, no. I used to live in New York, but I live closer to Rockville, MD now,” she said quickly.
The guy nodded, eyes still steadily on her. She wished she was still wearing her trench coat. She didn’t particularly have curves or boobs, but it made her look completely shapeless, which was a plus when you were around creepy old rich dudes.
“Interesting. What do you do for a living?”
“Uh, I waitress currently.”
His expression wavered. “An actress by any chance? Or saving up to go back to school?”
“You could say I’m an actress on the side, sure.”
His eyes lit up at that. “Oh! Would I have seen anything you’re in?”
“It’s normally live, improv work, really, so probably not,” she said, putting on her bashful smile as she fidgeted with her hands.
“Still, that’s pretty fun,” he said. “You certainly have the look for it. Such a pretty face.”
She nodded, but backed up a little. I’m going to have to pull the SO card. She hated when other people did that. Like, they were so unsure whether or not you were coming onto them they had to bring up their husband, or wife, or whatever. It was bothersome. “Yeah, that’s probably what caught my boyfriend’s eye. Heaven knows I don’t have much more working for me.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” leer-guy said, smiling wolfishly. “But, who’s the young man whose got your heart all ensnared?”
That’s not a creepy description at all. “Jae,” she said, “he’s over there.” She pointed, gesturing pretty wildly. Jae seemed to catch on, looking up. He frowned slightly and started to walk over, two cups of punch in his hands. Good fake-boyfriend. Unless he planned to drink both.
He came up around her and handed her a cup and then settled a hand on her lower back. She tried not to do that same cat-on-the-ceiling thing.
My heart cannot take this.
“Hey. You are?” he asked.
Leer-guy held out a hand. “Ramon Flores, nice to meet you.” He gave Jae a once over, but his look was definitely more objective. “I’m sorry I was talking to your woman like that. I saw you talking to my cousin’s daughter and assumed the lovely Angela here was single.”
Angela blinked. ‘Your woman’? Gah, he’s a time-traveler from the 1950s. I hate those.
“No, we were just talking about college. She’s very smart, your niece. Not my type, though--that’s just Angela,” Jae explained tactfully, but his smile was predatory.
Jae, you can not string him up by his thumbs. I’m aware your anger-management is not peak, but you really shouldn’t take it off on the guy who could sue you to minus several million.
He reached out and shook Ramon’s hand. “Jae Riley.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Riley.” Ramon took his hand away quickly.
Crushing handshakes I can get behind, though.
Ramon’s look suddenly went cold, though, making the hairs on the back of Angela’s neck rise. She didn’t like looks like that. They usually spelled trouble for her.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I didn’t wish to invite her but your mother insisted.”
“What?” Angela asked, confused. She followed his gaze, which had veered off to the right and, actually, behind her.
A twenty-something woman with a haggard, line-ridden face was at another table, popping mints as she slipped bread into her purse.
“It’s fine,” Angela said. “My mother always wants to feed everyone and if it’s for an extended period? Fine by her.” Actually, that might be a lie. She couldn’t really remember much other than Dennis always trying to get her to eat beets.
Beets taste like dirt.
Ramon was still frowning, though.
“Is she your daughter?” Jae asked, glancing back, too.
I took note of the girl’s residual yellowy-sallow skin tone, the after effects of spray tanning perhaps, and natural blond hair, lighter but just as ashy as Jae’s. Maybe--if one of Ramon’s parents either was a blue-eyed blond, or they somehow carried both genes.
“No, my maid,” Ramon growled. “I’d better go. Nice talking to you.” He stalked off then, leaving Angela with a cold feeling. She watched as he went up to the nameless maid and started an argument, one hand on her arm.
“I don’t like him,” Angela commented.
Jae scoffed. “If you liked him, you’d be nuts.” He shrugged. “His niece is pretty awesome, though. She has freckles, too--very interesting for a person of her ethnicity.”
“It’s pretty common,” Angela said.
“How’d you know?”
“I’ve met plenty of Filopinos,” she said, shrugging.
“How can you tell they’re--?”
“Later, Jae. Jeff’s waving us over.”
***
Tanya gave Angela a happy grin. “So, you have to tell me how you two met.” It was definitely an order.
Orders to speak didn’t bode well when you had a mouth full of potato salad. Angela chewed quickly, even as Jae just sat beside her sipping punch, the jerk, and she sat up straighter. She swallowed. “Uh, well, he came in to work on paperwork and stuff to the restaurant I work at,” she said. “Kind of funny, really. The place tends to be rowdy. But, yeah. I mean, it was kind of instant. He was just so adorable sitting there, twirling a pen around on the table. I slipped him my number after his meal.”
“She’s a go-getter like that,” Jae said, smirking around his cup.
She smacked him. “Hey, you can’t complain. You’d be forever alone if you hadn’t met me.”
“Doubt it.”
“You were a stuttering mess scared of women when I first met you, idiot,” she said. “I doubt you’d have picked up a bombshell like me if I hadn’t been all in your face.”
Jae gave a thoughtful tip of the head to that.
It made her think of their real first meeting--when they’d gone after the same beast, them both covered in gore, her face scratched up and his smudged with blood. She’d also been holding an iron-tipped spear.
“Adorable,” Tanya commented.
Angela swallowed, this time just from the oddity of being put in the spotlight--and no one angry at her.
“Of course, that probably made her look a bit easy.” And there went her mother. Ruining the moment.
Jae made a snort/choke sound that worked perfectly. He looked aghast. “I didn’t think so.” He frowned. “I don’t particularly like you saying so, either,” he said, still sounding like a meek historian nerd dude, though.
Again, blew other actors out of the water.
She put a hand on his arm, “It’s fine.”
He grumbled quietly, no real words.
“So, when did you two first--?” Analise began. Jeffrey clapped a hand over her mouth. She obviously complained behind said hand, though it was all mwah, mwah, mwah.
“She was going to say something pervy,” Jeffrey said, explaining, “I just know it.”
Tanya rolled her pale-colored eyes and then leaned forward. Jae leaned back--since she was getting in his personal space.
Okay, he is a little scared of the ladies. She tried to hide a smirk.
“So, with all this wedding talk you must feel pressured?”
Jae’s eyes went twice as big as normal. He reminded her in that instant of this one cat she’d seen in a book that talked about the horrors of fireworks--one of which was how terrified they made animals. It looked pretty real. “Um, no? We’re, uh, sort of happy how we are, actually.”
“But speaking of the wedding,” Angela cut in, “how are things going, Chele?”
Michele obviously brightened then, almost beaming. She’d looked a little rundown, Angela had noticed. Her blackish hair had started to lose its shine and so had her darker eyes.
“Well, we’ve decided on a caterer,” she said, sounding pleased. She glanced sideways at Lucas. “It’s so great that he’s a part of this.”
That’s because he’s a control-freak, sister. Angela tried very, very hard not to glare at Lucas. She--didn’t hate him, per se. Yet, she reminded her of both her real dad--cyborg businessman bot--and her step-dad, Dennis.
She wasn’t pleased. Especially since he was so young and they were old, weary to the world. He just seemed cynical and controlling and loud-mouthed without reason, him with his greased hair and pink polo shirts that matched his skin tone, fine, but--everything he wore just made him look like a sleazy jerk. Because he was a jerk and a lot of other words she’d been trained by her step-mother not to use.
Obviously little girls shouldn’t cuss like military men.
As Michele and the others kept up a conversation about weddings--Jae included. She had no idea why he knew anything about weddings (maybe he’d decided to research them--knowing him, that was a pretty good guess). She decided to excuse herself.
She slipped away into the kitchen, needing to take a breather. She hadn’t been noticed too much by the aunts, grandparents, family friends, and other possible dealers-of-scorn, but just knowing they were there, what they might say, it made her sweat, her heart hammer in her chest.
She wiped the sweat off her lip carefully, shivering a little in the colder air of the kitchen, and killed up her punch cup with water--water that ended looking slightly lime-colored, little bits of Kool-Aid powder floating on top.
Ew.
She shrugged to herself and turned, about to raise the cup to her mouth, only to see the blond maid right behind her.
“Oh!” She fell back against the fridge, shoulder blades knocking against stainless steel and black plastic.
“Sorry,” the maid said, pale brown eyes wide as she stared at her. “I was just going to refill my cup.”
“It’s okay,” Angela said, even though she shivered as she moved away from the cold of the fridge. The blond maid stepped into her place, a fake-crystal cup in hand.
“So, you’re with Mr. Flores?”
The woman seemed to barely refrain from rolling her eyes. “Yes and I probably will be until my baby’s dad gets into frickin’ gear,” she said. A shudder seemed to roll through her. “But I’m sure our court system will insure he pays me sooner or later. It’s his fault, anyway. Not that I’d give up my Bea for anything.”
Angela had to refrain from raising her eyebrows then. Don’t wave your dirty laundry around. She could hear the voice in her head.
It would make sense she didn’t have many female friends. Dishing and gossiping were never her favorite pastimes.
Yet, she asked, “Bea?”
“Yeah,” the blond maid said, a small smile gracing her face--making her pretty. “It’s short for Beatrice. Like Beatrice Potter.”
“Oh,” Angela said, nodding sagely like she got it--which she didn’t. It probably had something to do with fairy tales, something sort of outlawed in her house. One, because her father wasn’t a fan of magic (he’d get a kick out of how many witches and warlocks she’d busted). Two because they were sexist--and her dad could be sexist, but he had to pretend not to be. For the clients.
The only fairy takes she’d read were written by the Brothers Grimm.
“Yep,” the lady said.
“So, who’re you?” Angela asked finally, leaning up against the counter.
“Sammy,” the girl said.
“Bad choice of a nickname,” Angela commented.
Sammy gave her an odd look. “It’s my Christian name.”
“Ohhh, even worse. That’s the name of a smexy club, isn’t it?”
And Sammy threw back her head and laughed. “Gah, you’re horrible!”
“I’ve been told.”
Sammy smirked. “Well, I’d better be getting back. Tell Mr. Flores that, yes, I will have his floors polished by the time he’s home and he’s a horrible man for making the just-pregnant girl get down on her hands and knees,” she said, completely deadpan. Then she donned a surprised look. “Wait, maybe don’t say the last part.”
“Will do--and edit correctly,” Angela said, nodding before finally taking a zip of her drink.
Sammy brushed her bangs from her face before smiling brilliant. “Thanks!”
Angela watched her bolt for a second, and then looked back at the loud dining room. Ugh. Back into the pit of lions, then.
