The Perfection of Love (2 page)

“Hi, I’m Mitchell.”

“I’m Dana”.  I continued with getting drinks for myself and the girls and Mitchell continued to stare. Weirdo.

“How about a dance later?” Mitchell enquired, focusing only on me and looking straight into my eyes as if he was going to abstract the absolute truth out of whatever came out of my mouth next.

“I can’t dance.” Lie. “Sorry.” Double lie.  “Maybe when I learn we can have a go.”  Pants just disintegrated with that falsehood.  “Laters.”  Before he could respond I grabbed the drinks and made a hasty exit back to Saz and Mills. 

We spent the whole night dancing and by the end of the party we were the last ones to leave with our shoes in our hands ready to either try and bum a lift or find our own way home as Lana definitely could not be found.  On the way out we spotted Joe, Mills’ older brother.  Joe and Mills grew up with foster parents.  I think that’s why we got on so well.  We knew what it was like to not have our real parents around.  The difference being that Joe and Mills didn’t know their dad and their mum was a drug addict.  Mills bounded over to him and gave him one of her hugs that everyone craved.  She used both arms to pull you into her and who squeezed you so tight that you didn’t need her to tell you that she loved you.  You just felt it.  Mills and Joe were really close despite him being a couple of years older than her.

“Hey Joe, what are you still doing here?  To be honest I didn’t think you were coming in the first place.” Mills released him from her hug while giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

Joe was five foot eleven and showing no signs of slowing down in growth.  He played for the school rugby team and was their star player but he was so down to earth you’d never guess he had half of Morne Valley girls and their mothers waving their knickers with their telephone numbers sewn in at him.

“Mitchell is visiting remember.  He overheard about the party and wanted to come.  I’m just waiting for him to grab his stuff so we can get going.”  I vaguely remember Mills saying her cousin had come to stay with them for a little while.

“Hey Joe, I’m ready to go now.” A very familiar voice came from behind me.

Ohhhhh, fuck me with a wooden spoon and call me a sailor.  Joe’s cousin had to be Mitchell didn’t it.  For the second time tonight I turned around to find Mitchell standing very close to me, looking at me with curiosity and even more amusement.  I’d planned to get out of this party without seeing him again.  Guess lady luck was on holiday at the moment.

“Hi Dana.  The amusement was all in his voice.  I wanted to slap him silly.  I was well and truly cornered.

“Hi Mitchell.”

Joe, Saz and Mills were looking between us no doubt trying to figure out how I knew their visiting cousin already.

Joe was the first one to ask, “You’ve met?”

“Yeah, I asked Dana to dance but unfortunately she said she couldn’t.  I would have offered to show her but she ran off before I got a chance to make the suggestion.”  Again, his gaze never left mine.  Not even when Saz and Mills scoffed at what he’d just said.  It was at this point I was heavily praying to God that Saz did me a favor and kept her trap shut.  I was quickly reminded that Lady Luck was on her fucking holidays and Saz was about to launch me up shit creek without a paddle.

“Dana is a fucking amazing dancer.  So good in fact I bet she could make you come in your pants within sixty seconds like a prepubescent tweeny”.

Everyone including Mitchell turned abruptly to look at Saz who had the most self satisfied grin on her face.  She’d truly outdone herself with the crudest comment that had ever passed a females lips.

“What?” She asked with fake innocence.  “It’s true.”

Mitchell laughed.  I had to secretly admit his laugh was sexy.  It was silky smooth and alluded to a deep sense of humor.

“Well now that I have this information, how about a date Dana? You know so we can put your friend’s statement to the test.” He winked.

The fucker actually winked at me.  I was still blushing like a tomato at Saz’s comment and couldn’t find a response to his question to my detriment because Saz, who was clearly on a roll, took it upon herself to answer for me.

“She’d love to.  She hasn’t been on a date in ages and you’re cute.  She’s available tomorrow, seven pm would be good.  You can pick her up from my house and go to Barry’s Bar.  Here’s her number.”

Saz was going to get it.  She was going to get it big time.  Joe and Mills could barely contain their sniggering at my expense.

“That’s perfect.  How about I drop you guys home?  Unless you’ve already got a lift.”  Saz and Mills looked at me with pleading eyes.  I sighed and resigned myself to enjoying the views while I took my cruise on shit creek.

“That’d be really nice. Thank you.”

Mitchell’s shit-eating grin told me what I already knew.  He’d won this battle and tomorrow we’d be going on a date whether I wanted to or not.

Mitchell dropped us off at Saz’s house and left with Joe after reminding me that he’d be on time for our date tomorrow.  Mills said bye to her brother and told him she’d be home in the morning.  As soon as the door shut Saz dragged Mills and I upstairs to her room, shut the door and let out the longest quietest squeak ever.  I’m assuming that this was because her mum was sleeping and she wasn’t going for comical effect.

“EEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP! I want details bitch and I want them now.”

I rolled my eyes at Saz and continued to make my bed up for the night “There aren’t any details.  I bumped into Mitchell. He asked me to dance. I said no and then we bumped into each other again and you thought it was a good idea to pimp my ass out.”

“And what a beautiful ass it is.” Mills chipped in.

“Can it you, Silent Betty!” I scowled at Mills, “You’re usually my back up against Saz’s antics and all you did was stand there with Joe and laugh.  His ass is mine on Monday as well, so you can text him and let him know right now he’s dead meat.”

“I noticed several guys asked you to dance Mills and one by one you shot them down.  Some of them were pedigree material.”  Saz occasionally needled Mills to actually entertain the notion of having a boyfriend but we always got the same reaction.  Mills was blushing and averted both of our looks.  We knew she was a virgin.  There’s no way she wouldn’t tell both of us if she had had sex.  Mills was tall at five foot ten, with auburn hair that she always kept perfect coiffed in whatever style she put in.  She was curvy in a man’s sexual fantasy kind of way.  Next to her I felt like the dwarf from Lord of The Rings beside a super model.  She was humble about her looks even though she was aware of them and had the kindest heart of anyone I knew.  I decided I wasn’t going to give her any hassle about whether she was interested in anyone.  She yawned and all three of us got ready for bed.  While I settled myself on the futon I felt butterflies in my stomach every time I thought about my date tomorrow with Mitchell.  It was possible that I hadn’t given him a chance tonight but in my defense I was having a girls night out and I genuinely wasn’t looking for a date. Yeah, piss poor defense but I’m sticking with it so there.

CHAPTER TWO

I couldn’t believe I was putting in so much effort into my date with Mitchell.  After getting home in the late afternoon, I made my way to the bathroom and began my beautifying routine.  My face was washed, exfoliated, cleansed and toned.  I even put on a
face mask while I tackled my body hair.  As soon as I’m able to afford it I am paying a beautician to deal with my werewolf genes.  Shaving takes absolutely ages but again in my defense, during the winter the layer of hair/fur provides an excellent way of keeping warm.

Once I’d finished in the bathroom I made my way to my room that I shared with Lana.  Tara needed her own room because she was always studying and Lana was a distraction and Mara….no one wanted to share with Mara.  If she heard you breathe then you could guarantee you were pissing her off.

Lana was sat on her bed doing work, which was a shock in itself.  Lana had excellent taste in all things related to fashion and make-up, so it made sense to ask her what to wear for tonight.  She had a knack of winding me up something rotten but all in all she was a good sister and would revel in dressing me up like the Barbie’s she used to own.

“Lana?”

“Whaddup?”

“I’ve got a date tonight and I don’t know what to wear.”

Lana’s head snapped up and she shut her laptop almost immediately. Yes.  Nice Lana was on board for this.

“Details.  I can’t put together a good outfit if I don’t know details.”

I explained last night to Lana and added that secretly I wanted Mitchell to find me attractive tonight even though I was pretty certain that I didn’t even want to go on this date with him.  Lana quickly stubbed out that notion.

“Dana you don’t ever do anything you don’t want to and the same in reverse.  If you want to do something you’ll do it.  Clearly there’s something about this guy that attracts you to him and you want him to notice you or you would have told Saz to shut the fuck up last night and still told Mitchell you’re not interested.”

I fucking hate when she’s right.  I sometimes wondered if in her spare time Lana took the time to study us as closely as possible without us noticing so that she could use the information to her advantage at a later date.  Then I would remember she generally had the attention span of a goldfish and if the topic wasn’t based solely on the world of fashion then she wasn’t that much interested.  Lana picked out my best pair of black jeans and pulled out her favourite strappy pink top and black jacket to go with it.  She applied some basic make-up for me, a little eye-liner and some clear lip gloss.  I brushed my hair and was ready to go.

“I’ll give you a lift to Saz’s.  I’m meeting Karl later anyway and it’s on my way there.

“Thanks Lana.”

“No worries.  Make sure your phone is charged and call me if you need to escape.” She smirked.  Lana and her friends always had an escape plan for dates which ranged from them randomly dropping in on the dates physically to timed phone calls so they could pretend there was an emergency and make their excuses.  Judging by the scum I’d seen Lana and her friends occasionally date, I’d say those escape plans were well and truly needed.

I looked in the mirror on our way out and smiled at Lana.  She was real good at dressing people up.  She played to your strengths and highlighted them.  I was certain she could make even Susan Boyle look like a Greek goddess if she put her mind to it.

“Yeah. I’m that good.  Now get in the car before we’re both late.”

Lana dropped me off at Saz’s and left for Karl’s.  Saz opened the door and absolutely beamed when she saw me.  I took that as approval and walked inside.  It was 6:30 and I had 30 minutes before Mitchell was due, not that I was clock watching or anything.

“Soooooooo…are you nervous?”

“A little.  Happy now?  I don’t want him to turn up and think I looked better in a poor lighted room or something like that.  I don’t think there’s much more of an insult than being rejected by the guy you didn’t even want to go out with anyway.”

“Babe, if I swung that way I would totally think about doing you.  You look perfect.  You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks.  It’s just that I know nothing about it him and I hate walking into situations blind.”

There was a knock at the door.  Saz secretly peeped out of her curtains to see if it was Mitchell.  Saz had told Mitchell to pick me up from her house because her mum wouldn’t be home to ask any questions.  More importantly although Ma and Pops were not against my sisters and I dating, I didn’t really want an inquisition over a date with someone I had no intention of seeing again after tonight.  If Mitchell had picked me up from my house there would have been questions for me about him.  Which would have been bad because all I knew about him was that his name was Mitchell and he was Joe’s cousin.  The fact that he was Joe’s cousin would have bought him some points because Ma and Pops loved Joe to pieces but not many.  In addition Mitchell would have been dragged into the house to be asked several questions surrounding his intentions towards me and again, I didn’t know the answer to that question either.