11
Angelo
“O
h my goodness, that’s the second bottle finished.” I laughed much too loudly, probably disturbing all the other people trying to have a nice quiet meal here. “What are you doing to me?”
Faye snorted because she was laughing so hard which only made my laughter that much more desperate. I couldn’t even recall what had started us chuckling, but I couldn’t stop now. This had so far been the funniest night of my whole damn life. Me and Faye shared something really special.
“I think we should go somewhere else before we have another one, don’t you?” Faye glanced around, seemingly more self aware than me. “We’ll be kicked out soon from here.”
I liked the idea of moving on anyway and taking this night somewhere else so I agreed with ease. Whatever Faye wanted, I would give her. “Yep, sounds good to me. Where do you want to go?”
“We could go to a bar around here somewhere, or maybe to the student bar.”
In that moment, I felt like Faye was giving me a choice. Either we continue spending some more intense one on one time together, which was a tantalizing but very dangerous idea, or we head back to where we knew everyone and we could mingle and be safe. It was a real head versus heart situation. I wrestled with it for a moment, but really there was only one sensible choice.
“Maybe we should head back to the student bar, that way we can see what’s going on.”
The decision felt wrong in the pit of my chest, but it was sensible. Me and Faye would be separated soon and that time apart would be the test to see if I actually liked her or if it was just a passing phase. The last thing I wanted to do was act in a way that was damaging.
“Okay sure.” I thought I spotted a flicker of sadness in her gaze, but it went away rapidly. Maybe I imagined it because I was pretty drunk. “Yeah that sounds fun. Let’s do that.”
We rose from our chairs and Faye headed to the bathroom while I settled the check. There was something about the whole incident that felt very much like a date and weirdly I kind of wished that it was. Faye was beautiful, I would be a lucky son of a bitch to date her, but she liked someone else.
One day, unless he truly was the idiot that my sister suggested he was, I would have to watch Faye with Kevin and if I still felt this way it would kill me. If I wasn’t so drunk, maybe I could’ve done something about that, but in that moment all I could do was keep back.
“Come on.” Faye slid her arm through mine and tugged me towards the door. “Let’s go.”
A tension filled the cab as we made the way back to campus, and it was one that made me yearn for more booze. I needed to dull all of this inside of me, it was actually getting a bit painful.
“Angelo.” As Faye turned to look at me with intense eyes I couldn’t help but wonder what she was going to say. There was a dumb, small part of me that made my heart skip a desperate beat. “Do you realize that your phone has been ringing for ages now? Can you not hear it?”
“Oh.” Obviously that wasn’t going to be some desperate declaration of love. I was an idiot for even thinking it. “Right of course.” I grabbed it out my pocket and hit the answer button. “Hey, Dimitri. What’s going on, buddy?” I didn’t like speaking to him, because it was too much like reality.
“Angelo, where are you? Why aren’t you out with the rest of us?”
“I…” I glanced towards Faye, not wanting to tell him the truth. “I’m on my way.”
“Good, good, because I need to talk to you.” He sounded a little tipsy but not as wasted as I felt. “Your YouTube videos have been a hit. I mean, a real hit. I want you to do more.”
I sat up straighter in my seat feeling strange all over. “What are you on about, Dimitri?”
“I mean, I want to get Faye to stick to you for a couple more weeks if that’s okay with you. I know you weren’t keen in the beginning but you’ve done amazingly. What do you think to that?”
I jumped at the opportunity, imagining how awesome it would be to spend more time with Faye. I’d been non stop worrying about how it was going to be to give her up, and while I would still have to do that eventually, at least it wasn’t right now. I could adjust first.
“Yeah, I mean I love that idea. That sounds awesome, mate, thank you. And erm, I’ll see you in a bit, Dimitri, I won’t be long until I’m there and we can talk about it properly.”
I mentally fist pumped as I hung up the phone, glee circling through me.
“What was that?” Faye immediately asked me. “It sounded good.”
It wasn’t until I turned to see her that I realized just how much this might affect her. She was supposed to be working with Kevin next which was something that she wanted badly. Now I needed to break the bad news to her, I didn’t think she would take it in the same way I did.
“My erm, my YouTube content has been really positive and Dimitri wants us to continue working together for a while. A couple of weeks actually.”
I bit down on my bottom lip as I waited for her to react, but she didn’t. At least not in a bad way. Maybe it was the booze, but Faye actually looked happy about the idea.
“Okay cool, that sounds good. We’ll have to jazz it up a bit though, do some fun stuff.”
I wasn’t sure why, but that made us both burst into peels of laughter once more, the fun was immediately back between us, and it remained there the entire time until we got to the student bar. In fact the only reason it stopped was because the moment we stepped into the throes of other people, Kevin pounced on the pair of us, seemingly foaming at the mouth about the decision.
“Alright there, pretty boy,” he snarled at me. “I hear you’ve been brown nosing Dimitri until he’s given you a couple more weeks being the star of the fucking YouTube channel?”
“Oh whatever.” I pushed past him, getting closer to Faye. She was giving us a look like she didn’t totally know what was going on. “Give it a rest, Kevin, Dimitri does what he wants.”
Kevin gripped onto my shoulder tightly, fixing me in place. I had the horrible sinking feeling that this was about to turn into a fight which was the last thing I wanted on what had been such an amazing night so far. I yanked my arm away, needing to put this to bed.
“Kevin, I’m not talking to you about this tonight, okay? We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
I clung onto Faye and headed towards the bar with a sickly feeling cascading through my body. Maybe this was the perfect time for me to warn Faye against the idiot, but I didn’t. The words got stuck in my throat because I knew that they revealed my jealousy. I didn’t want Faye to know how I felt about her, I didn’t want her to reject me. It would be far too embarrassing.
“What was that about?” she asked me quietly, leaning protectively into my shoulder. It surprised me that she might be sticking up for me not Kevin. “Is everything alright?”
I paused for a second, still keeping myself silent. It just didn’t feel right. “Nah, all is good. Just team stuff. It can get a bit like that from time to time. Nothing to worry about.”
Faye didn’t look like she totally believed him, but she let it go anyway. I guess she felt the same way that I did, that she didn’t want to ruin this night just like I didn’t, so we swept our feelings under the table and we carried on. I got us drinks and we headed towards the dance floor.
But the magic was ruined, and I knew it. Coming to the student bar, following the thoughts in my head was the wrong choice. We could have quite easily been spending some more awesome one on one time together, getting to know each other, hanging out, just being us.
Urgh, I’m an idiot. As I scanned my eyes across the room I could see Kevin looking at Faye as if he wanted to devour her. He was acting like he felt attracted to her, which drove me nuts. I couldn’t stand to see it, not at a moment where I was so churned up.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I whispered to Faye, who turned away from the friend that she was talking to nod at me a little distractedly. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
But I didn’t head to the bathroom at all, I snuck out towards the door to go home. I’d drunk far too much to handle all of this, I needed to get away from the situation before it turned into something that was too much for me to see. I’d gotten myself into a mess, I hadn’t listened to my very wise sister and now I was stuck. I definitely had feelings for Faye and now things had gone too far for me to turn back. I’d lost her, she had slipped through my fingers, I simply couldn’t believe it.
As I collapsed onto the bed in my room, I tugged my cell phone out of my pocket to call Maddie. Even though it was fairly late, I needed to speak to her, I needed her wise words. She was the only one who could help me right now… but I didn’t get that far. Instead I found myself staring at an email I must have gotten a few hours before but I hadn’t seen, confirming that at least one football team was interested in seeing me for a trial!
“Oh thank God!” I muttered to myself as my heart rose again. All the bad feeling zapped from my body rapidly. “At least this night hasn’t all been bad! At least something good has come from it!”
That was where I needed to focus anyway, all this messing about in a love triangle that I wasn’t even involved in really was pointless. It wouldn’t be long until all of this was a distant memory. I would hopefully be playing for this team, Kevin would be gone somewhere else, and Faye would still be here for another year finishing up her education.
I turned onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, smiling all over again. I wasn’t going to reply to the email, not while I’d been drinking, but I now had something to look forward to in the morning. Maybe I would even make my next video all about that, to remind the world that I wasn’t just a big fish in a small pond anymore, I was about to jump into the ocean with my eyes wide open.
As I closed my eyes to get some sleep, Faye kept cropping up into my thoughts, but I continually pushed her away. She was an obsession because I hadn’t slept with her, that was probably it. I just wanted what I couldn’t have, that was all. Well her and Kevin would get together tonight with me out of the picture and there wasn’t anything that I could do about it at all. At least that would put me off, that was the one good thing that could come from it.