Bab 4: a Bruised Ego
Inina stood with her weight shifted onto one leg, her eyes narrowed suspiciously at Delores. She could not help but wonder where he came from and what he wanted. He had just rudely interrupted her conversation with Talia, where she was in the middle of explaining what Cleo had threatened her to do. Talia had been recounting the whole story to her in detail, trying to find a way out of the mess she had found herself in because of her. But now, with Delores suddenly here, they could not continue the conversation.
She watched him awkwardly as he stared at her friend for far too long to be regarded as normal. Talia notably shifted uncomfortably under his oddly intense gaze. She could see the unease rippling across her face.
Why was Delores staring at Talia for so long?
Clearing her throat, she stepped forward to place herself between Delores and Talia. Her tone clipped, she asked him, "Can we help you with something?"
He blinked himself out of his trance as if just now realising she was there. "Oh, uhm… can I talk to you?" he stammered out.
She looked at him weirdly when she noticed how nervous he was.
She was not used to seeing this side of him. The first time he approached her, it was his confidence that enticed her and ultimately it was his pipe game which had her in his clutches.
He was not the first guy who immediately threw her out of his dorm the next morning after she had sex with him, but he was the first guy who hadn't run away after bedding her once. It felt nice, for a change, but at the same time, it was kind of scary because she was getting comfortable around him. Sometimes after they had sex, she would forget that she needed to throw her clothes back on and leave and, she would let herself fall asleep in his arms.
"Okay," she answered, folding her arms over her chest and awaiting him to speak.
Anxiously, he glanced over at Talia. She looked over at her too.
"Oh, right," Talia exclaimed when she eventually got the hint and after picking up the textbook that Delores tripped over, she clumsily shuffled away from them.
Over his shoulder, she saw Talia making funny expressions and pointing in exaggeration, basically hinting at the fact that something was going on between her and Delores. She rolled her eyes in response, shaking her head with a soft grin.
She still had not told her about Delores and she did not know why. Maybe because he was friends with her brother and Talia probably knew all there was to know about Delores from him. Perhaps it was embarrassing as well because Delores was notorious for using women as a means to an end. She did not want Talia to think of her differently.
At the end of the day, there was not anything to tell. It wasn't like she and Delores were a couple or anything like that. They were merely two adults having fun with each other. If only some people understood that, people like Cleo.
She thought about what Talia was threatened with and the anger simmering over her came back in full force. Sometimes she fucking hated Cleo. Not only was she a pussy, using her friend to get to her, but she was also the biggest cunt to have ever come out of a cunt. Why would she threaten to reveal something about Talia's mum to the entire school if she did not get Inina to back off from Delores?
Now if she were a bitch, she would cower away and hail "all powerful Cleo McCoy", but she was not. So, she decided that the next time she saw her, she was bashing her fucking shit in.
"What do you wanna talk about?" she mused once Talia was completely out of sight.
"Uh… well," he continued to stutter through his words, "you look really pretty today."
"Thank you?" She pursed her lips and a splurge of amusement sparkled within her gaze, before squinting up at him in perplex. "You look really pretty too."
He chuckled a little and still, he managed to sound nervous whilst doing so.
"Are you okay?" she asked him in concern. "You're being really weird."
"Yeah, no, I'm fine. I just… I have to tell you something and I guess I'm really… nervous to tell you because I genuinely don't know what your reaction will be or rather, I know what your possible reaction would be and I don't want to ruin what we have going right now."
"Okay," she drawled out slowly, her eyes blinking rapidly as her brain worked a minute a mile.
She tried to think of where his mind was at, but the only thing she could guess he was going to say was that he did not want them to have sex anymore. Which she was okay with. It was bound to happen at some point. She was surprised it had taken this long for him to get bored of her to be fair.
"I just want you to at least be open-minded to what I'm about to say, yeah?"
In shock, she reared back. So was he not trying to… "break up" with her? Even so, keep an open mind about what exactly?
"Uhm… if you are about to suggest we spice up our sex life with like a threesome or something, I don't think I can be open-minded to that, I can't lie. You might have to find someone else who'd be willing to do that."
"Oh, no, it's nothing like that. Trust me."
She heaved a relieved breath from her mouth. "Okay, cool. I mean, what else would I need to stay open-minded to? Oh, shit!" Her eyes widened in surprise and she leaned into him to whisper intimately, "Do you have a masochist, sadist kink or something?"
"No, Inina." He burst out laughing and she pretended to be disappointed at this revelation. "No, I wanted to tell you that… I like you."
"Okay," she let an amused, almost bemused smile tug onto her lips. "I like you too."
"No, I mean, I have feelings for you."
"Oh," his declaration hadn't quite hit her.
He swallowed nervously. "Yeah, so I… I just wanted you to know that if we're gonna still have sex with each other that ninety nine percent of the time, probably means more than just sex to me."
Wait, he… likes her?
What?
* * *
She hissed in pain, flinching away from his hand when he pressed the pack of cold peas on her jaw. He gave her an apologetic look and used much gentler force, but the pain still ignited like a burning heat even though the peas were cold. When she winced every time he pressed the peas onto her jaw, his eyes softened and he watched her worriedly. That was probably the only thing that separated their Persian features. Harry had blackberry dark eyes.
She smiled at him reassuringly. It was only a bruise on the cheek. She had gotten far worse bruises. It had been a while though.
"How the hell did you get this bruise?" he asked her. She opened her mouth to lie to him, but he interrupted me and added, "And don't give me some bullshit about you walking into a door or something. That's not gonna work."
She rolled her eyes upwards and took the iced pack out of his hand, throwing it onto the dining table which was situated in front of the sofa.
She was not going to use the I walked into a door excuse; she was leaning more towards it's a huge arse spot excuse. She removed her head from his lap and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it behind her ear. She rested her head on the sofa and watched the telly on the wall as the two professional fighters danced around each other, hoping he would not continue to probe her about what happened. It was… difficult to explain without exposing Talia's personal information.
"Well?" he demanded, staring at her expectantly. "Start talking, Gummy."
"Why do you insist on calling me that?" she mused, hoping that the change of topic would make him forget about his interrogation.
"What, Gummy?" he questioned.
She nodded, having a hard time trying to hide the smile of satisfaction inching onto her lips. Her plan was at least working.
"Well, you're ferocious like a bear, but also adorably innocent at the same time."
"Really?"
"No," he answered in a banal and her face dropped in irritation at being played like a fiddle. He grinned in humour. "Now, stop evading my question."
She sighed and turned towards him, placing her hands in her lap. "Okay, fine," she resigned, "but you can't tell anyone about this. Not even my mum and dad."
"I don't know if this will come as a surprise to you, Inina," he ended his statement with, "but I don't keep contact with your mum and dad. I actually have parents of my own who I speak to on the regular… believe it or not."
"Yeah, you're such a mama's boy."
"And rightfully so," he responded, looking unoffended by her statement. "I love my mum. Do you have any idea how much effort it took to push this big ass head out?"
"Bro, what?" She blinked in confusion and before he could open his mouth and explain himself, she decided to move past it and explain to him her bruise instead, "Okay, so there is this boy—"
The groan he released interrupted her mid-sentence.
She gave him an annoyed glance, which made him raise his hands in surrender.
"I know I should be ecstatic that you're interested in someone other than Marshall, but can't you talk to Tamil—"
"Talia," she corrected him with a bemused frown. "Her name is Talia. She works with you at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. How do you not know her name?"
He shrugged unknowingly.
"Besides, you're the one who asked."
"I don't want to know anymore."
"Well, tough. I wanna tell you now," she replied with the sides of her lips tugging up mirthfully when she realised how uncomfortable this was making him.
He rolled his eyes at her amusement and just as she was about to tell him, he stuck his fingers into his ears and glanced away stubbornly. She released a short chortle and pulled his hands away from his ears.
"Harry, listen, man."
"Argh. Fine."
"Okay, so there's this boy at uni who I met at a random party I went to once. Long story short, I got drunk and I might have had sex with him that night. Okay, not might have, I definitely slept with him. Uhm… then he threw me out of his dorm the following morning."
"Do you want me to mess him up for you?" he asked her, wearing an earnest look on his face.
"Would you do it if I said yes?" she mused instead.
He shook his head. "Of course not. I'd get someone else to mess him up for me. Like Gabe. This way, I don't get my hands bruised and I don't end up in jail for assaulting some kid." Out of curiosity, he asked, "Wait, how old is this guy?"
"I don't know. Same age as you are probably."
Harry sighed, shaking his head in disapproval, but he did not say anything regarding her answer. What was wrong with Delores being a year older than her? It was probably not even a year. He was perhaps a couple of months older than her.
"Anyway, Cleo is like obsessed with him or something, so she's pissed that I slept with him even though we had sex like weeks after they broke up. Now, she's picking on Talia because she knows that if she tried that shit with me, I would be throwing hands. Long story short, Talia told me that Cleo threatened to reveal some personal shit about her family and so, I paid her a visit. Hence, bruise on my cheek."
"Does she look worse?"
"Oh," she snorted. "So much worse."
He clicked his tongue in irritation and leaned back into the sofa, folding his arms.
She smirked in amusement but quickly grabbed her phone from the table when it started to ring. This way Harry didn't get the chance to answer it before her and say some dumb shit to the person on the other end of the line. One time he pretended that they were having sex and told the person on the other line he was bothering them as a prank. Turned out the person was Fisk and when she met up with her trainer the following day, it was hard to miss the disturbed look on his face.
"Yo," she murmured into the device.
Harry took the pack of peas and pressed them against her jaw again. She contained a hiss of pain and hit the packet of frozen peas out of his hand, causing them to fall onto the table.
Sorry, he mouthed.
"Oh my days, Inina, did you hear?" Talia shrieked from the other end of her phone and she winced at her loudness.
"Hear what? With you always screaming down my ear, I ended up losing my hearing."
"Very funny," she replied with sarcasm dripping from her tone. "Did you hear about tonight's party?"
"What party?" she mused, disinterestedly.
Harry though looked more interested than she was as he began to smirk.
"The party that Brandy is throwing?" she answered, her voice rising with every word she added. "You know Brandy? Brandy Moore?"
"No, I did not hear anything about the party the girl who's friends with the girl who hates us is throwing. What about it?" Even though her voice sounded very curious, she was hardly interested in anything to do with Brandy and parties.
"It's tonight at nine p.m. till whenever you drop basically."
"Really? It's Thursday. Who throws a party on a Thursday?" She put the phone on speaker on the table and decided to focus her attention on the television.
The fighter in the ring kicked the other fighter in the face, causing her to fall to the ground. It made her wonder if she would ever make it into professional MMA later in her life. With her winning streak, it was only a matter of time before she got picked up by an agency, Fisk reminded her during their sparring sessions. Whenever he said that it pushed her to train even harder. Maybe that was why he said that to her. To light a fire under her arse.
"Besides, they only invite people who are as well-known as they are, people they want to either fuck or fuck with for their amusement. Last I checked, we fit neither of those categories. Unless you have suddenly conformed overnight into a girl they want to sleep with… or the stupid cunt who wants to get made fun of."
"No," Talia snapped in annoyance, causing a smile of amusement to tug onto her lips. It was funny to get on her nerves. "Every single person is invited," Talia informed her patiently and immediately Inina's head snapped toward the phone in shock.
Everyone? As in… anybody can go?
No, she must have heard wrong. The well-known students at their university, Brandy included, did not just invite anyone to their parties. They handpicked their candidates carefully and honestly, anyone should have felt very special to even be invited. Unless you were the stupid kid who was going there as entertainment.
Nicholas, Talia's brother, was a fuckboy and when he invited people to his parties, it was mostly girls he had previously banged and the boys in his close circle. I'm sorry to say that I've never fucked him to get invited to one of his parties. Finneas, well he was the follower of his sister in a way. When she snapped her fingers, he sat there with his tongue lolling to the side like a freaking dog at her beck and call.
Cleo was a rich snob who wouldn't even give her a first glance when it came to inviting her to her parties. She hated her too much too. Before she had no idea why. After today, she found out from her friend who surprisingly heard it from Brandy that Cleo had too much sand in her pussy all because she slept with her ex.
She couldn't help but roll her eyes. She did not even like Delores like that. It was a one-time thing… it was supposed to be a one-time thing. Especially after he told her to leave the following morning.
Brandy was friends with Cleo. They were very close to each other. Cleo had apparently spread so many heinous rumours about her to her. So, Brandy even considering Inina in her mind as someone to invite to her parties was something unlikely to happen.
Not that she would want to go to their parties anyway. She and Harry had been to so many in the past two years that the scene had just gotten too boring for her taste.
And then there was Delores Tyndall.
Weirdly, he did invite her to his parties. Every single time he was throwing one he approached her and started acting very weird, smiling nervously and gulping as he asked her to attend his party. She always rejected his invitation because she always assumed that he was joking. It had become something like an inside joke between them. Well, at least, she thought it was an inside joke. After Delores admitted to having feelings for her this afternoon, she was kind of pondering everything he had ever done and said to her.
"Hello? Inina?"
She snapped out of her train of thought when Talia called for her attention. She looked over at Harry who was no longer focusing on her conversation, but the fight. He wasn't a big fan of university parties, and neither was she. They both usually went to parties where all the hardcore stuff happened. The parties which had it all. Hardcore drugs. Hardcore drinks. Hardcore money.
"Are you sure everyone is invited?" she had to ask, but she was sure Talia would have double checked—even triple checked especially because it concerned Brandy. "What if it was just a joke? I mean, I don't want you to go there and for them to turn you back."
"Why would Brandy joke about something like this?" she mused in irritation and she could imagine her glaring at nothing in particular. "It's a huge thing. It's all over her social media. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, you name it all."
"Brandy has Facebook?" she questioned in disbelief.
"Is that all you got from my monologue?"
"No, I also picked on the fact that you're a little cyber stalker," she pointed out.
"That doesn't matter," Talia snapped.
She rolled her eyes at her.
"All you have to know is that Brandy is throwing a party and everyone is invited. Besides, she invited me herself, because it's her twenty-first birthday and all. Nicholas is going too so I don't think it's a prank."
"Okay…" she drawled out and blinked in bemusement.
"Okay? That's all you've got to say?" Talia enquired, her voice rising with every word. "Okay?"
"What do you want me to say?" She grabbed the peas from the table along with her phone and jumped off the sofa, journeying to the kitchen. "Besides, unlike you, I was not personally invited so it would just be kind of weird if I randomly showed up, no?"
"Uhm… no. You can be like… my plus one or something," Talia stuttered desperately.
"No," she replied dismissively shaking her head. She shut the freezer after putting the peas inside and leaned against it with an arm crossed over her chest. "I'm not going to Brandy's house. Cleo is probably gonna be there and she already makes our lives a living hell during class. I would rather avoid her outside of that."
"Are you being serious right now?" Talia shrieked in surprise.
What did she expect? For her to agree to this? If the universe was deciding to hand her a Cleo-free day on a silver platter, she would snatch it very quickly.
"Yes."
"You're actually gonna make me go there all by myself?"
"Look, Talia, I'm all for your… strange infatuation with Brandy, but please don't involve me in your ploys to get a straight girl to notice you."
"We don't know if she's straight. She could be bi."
Talia was clearly being very hopeful. She had never seen Brandy with a girl before.
"Also, it's pronounced crush. As in I have a crush on Brandy. Not a strange infatuation."
"It's just weird that you like her. I mean, she's your nemesis' best friend. My nemesis' best friend. If this were an anime, I'd feel utterly betrayed by your choice in… well, your crush."
"But—"
"I'm not going, Talia." She ended the conversation firmly with, "End of discussion."
A sigh of defeat travelled through the phone. This was where Talia knew not to argue any further. Whenever she said she was not doing something, she literally meant that she was not going to do it. She was too stubborn to deviate from something when her mind had already been made, there was no swaying her decision. Talia would have to physically be forced to go to that party, fighting tooth and nail.
"Fine, but I'm going to be there," Talia said and she didn't miss her saddened tone.
"Well, have fun," she responded, "And I mean that. You need the break."
"It won't be that fun without you."
She could already hear the pout in Talia's tone and she immediately knew that this bitch was trying to guilt-trip her into going to the party with her. She cooed in amusement, "I know. I'm just adorable."
Talia sighed a second time. In exasperation, she whispered, "You're too good."
"You're not guilt-tripping me into this one." She smirked slightly, moving away from the fridge and jumping onto the counter. "See you Friday. I have to do something real quick."
She hung up after they said their goodbyes and then answered the call she was receiving from her trainer, Fisk.
"Fisk?"
"I know I didn't tell you earlier, but you have a fight scheduled with Konan. It's in five nights." Huh? "I need you at the gym in an hour for some light sparring, yeah?"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone