Sold #2 - A Desperate Love

Chapter 16

Darcy didn't feel comfortable being left with the girls that consisted of the wives and girlfriends of Michael's closest friends. The second he left her to go into the kitchen, to once more defend their relationship to someone that he considered he should never have to speak to, they gave her a quick look of curiosity before continuing the conversation that her arrival had interrupted. It was as though she didn't exist as they started all over again, beginning mid conversation and almost mid sentence as, who she recalled to be Mika, tossed her long black hair over her shoulder, flashing the random blonde highlighted extensions as if to show off. "And so I told her to mid her own business. If I'd wanted her opinion I would have asked for it. I don't need her telling me what to do." She sighed, examining her nails in a manner that Darcy found all too amusing. They were trying to act as though they were better than her just because they were older, or thought they were because they looked it and yet, she could see why Michael insisted that she had more manners than she knew she had, because they were nothing but the same high school girls that she saw in movies and passing the boarding house every week day. There was nothing individual about them, nothing that said they were more mature or even that they were better than her.

"But in all fairness Mika, you cheated on your boyfriend. She was right to tell you it wasn't right." Nara reminded her of what she'd done, as though she could forget falling madly in love with the hockey player who had just joined her university in just two days, before sleeping with his best friend not a week after they had started dating. And it was no ordinary dating, everything Mika did, she insisted it had to be hot and heavy and Jonathan, the hockey player had been only too happy to help her achieve that. But what bothered Nara, wasn't the way she continued to go on about how it hadn't been her fault and that his best friend was just too cute for his own good, it was the way that Michael's new girlfriend suddenly felt excluded from their company. She looked a little dejected, moving over to the dining table that was already set out for dinner to pull a seat out from under the table and move it over to the lamp to her right by a few inches. And it didn't seem fair when she set a small bag down at her feet and lifted out a book, going straight ahead to begin reading it as though she had no other choice as to how to spend the evening. In all fairness though, Darcy didn't mind. It was a much better use of her time than standing about talking about how disrespectful Mika was of herself and how it seemed that she was willing to sleep with anyone who came up with the most interesting offer, whether or not she was in a relationship.

She knew that she didn't have much experience of relationships or of men but she didn't want to. Michael was more than enough for her and she was happy with him, but she just didn't understand how anyone was able to betray the kind of trust that came with their relationship, to sleep with someone else, just because they felt like it or because someone was 'cute.' No matter how cute any guy was, he would never compare to Michael, she knew that and she knew that she was insane to think that every other person on the planet agreed with her, but she could believe that they had respect and trust and faith in the person they were in a relationship with. It just wouldn't be right if they didn't.

Nevertheless, she hoped Michael wasn't having too hard a time with his friends as she returned to her book and tried to find out what was happening with the plot. She would rather have been in the kitchen with her fiancé but at least she knew that she could cheer him up later with his birthday present and knew that he would love what she had bought him, although he seemed excited enough at the very prospect of getting a surprise gift from her. And although it was a surprise, in a sense, there was a much bigger one waiting back at the hotel for him, as the second part of his birthday present and she knew he would love it so much more than anything else she could have given him. For that reason, she didn't mind having to suffer a little loneliness without him, a knowing smile creeping onto her lips as she tried to focus on her book, knowing instinctively that no matter what anyone said that night, what they did or implied about their relationship, none of it would matter once they were alone again. Together in their hotel room, snuggled up under the warmth of the covers and able to share those sweet kisses he gave her and talk about anything that his mind wanted to talk about. Because when they were together, there were no boundaries, there were no rules and no-one to be obeyed or feared. It was just them...Michael and Darcy and their love.