Living This Way....

Chapter 23

Fran was sat at the table with Phoenix and his mum, although at the minute Phoenix and his mum were just fighting.

Fran had blocked it out to be honest, he wasn't too sure he cared enough to listen. Until he heard something along the lines of "I HATE THE STUPID PARTIES YOU THROW AND ALL THE WOMEN YOU TAKE DOWN THERE!"

Fran tried to hide the fact that what had been said had caught his ear and that he was actually listening in.

Fran also caught on the fact Phoenix was now looking at Fran whose eyes were still on the floor, to see if Fran had heard or not. Phoenix hissed a few nasty words back and the woman stormed off angrily.

"Sorry about that" Phoenix said in his nicest voice and gave a smile that seemed just wrong. "It's good.." Fran said as convincing as he could. But how could he be convincing when the guy he thought was dead for years of his life actually wasn't?

"So, I know you're mad at me but" and that's how this long conversation started..Phoenix spread some bullshit about how his family wanted him to move schools and cut contact and how he had wanted to keep contact but it was hard for a small child to do alone.

Old Fran would have believed him in a heartbeat, Fran now knew what he did and what he was capable of.

"So what do you do now?" Phoenix asks Fran after a few moments of silence "not much." Lies, I'm a cop and I could arrest you right now. "Still trying to make it as a musician so I'm not really doing any job" more lies.

"I mean, if you're free tomorrow.." Phoenix started and squinted his eyes at Fran before silently nodding to himself to prove something to

And somehow that ended with Fran being invited to one of Phoenix horrible parties where he bet on women and treated them like they were disgusting.

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                 ~With Angel and Bahbi~

They're sat on the sofa's watching whatever was on the tv. Or Angel was rather pretending to be watching, taking side glances at Bahbi who wasn't even attempting to pretend she was looking at the TV as her gaze was stuck on Angel.

"What's your size?" Bahbi asks, looking at Angel with his eyes squinted in thought, the kind look never leaving her face.

"Uhm...I used to be a size eight? But I'm not sure about now.." Angel says with a slight laugh and a small smile grazing her features.

"Oh yes that's right! Oh..that was really inconsiderate of me! I'm ever so sorry, I didn't mean any-" Bahbi starts and Angel smiles lightly and cuts her off

"It's okay. I like it being a normal thing, to talk about normal things. And it not be offensive" Angel says with a reassuring smile and shakes her head to Bahbi.

Bahbi shines her kind smile to Angel again and takes a deep breathe "let's go shopping" she says and gets up from the sofa, outstretching her hand for Angel to grab

Angel looks around the room as if Bahbi had been talking to someone else although she knew it was her

"I don't know if- I don't think that's a good idea" Angel says a frown forming on her face

"And why not? You can't stay here all the time, you said you want normality this is a good first step to that Angelica, it's your life and you have the power to make it whatever you want it to be!" Bahbi said. Angel swallowed, looked down at her not very appealing outfit and shrugged

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As Angel and Bahbi were leaving they ran into Peyton, who then decided it was her duty to go with them. So Peyton decided to tag along.

As they went shopping they had grabbed a few small things for Angel to try although Angel wasn't too sure about them.

Angel caught eyes of a few articles of clothing she really liked but had to deter her eyes from looking too much because of the expense of it, she wasn't paying for herself after all. But Peyton and Bahbi noticed how she looked at certain clothes and made a mental check of it.