The Beauty in Between: Too Close (A Beautiful Series Novella) (13 page)

“I do like it.
I love it,” she said smiling. Something about the way she said it
though, made me wonder which one of us she was trying to
convince.

Dinner went by
ok. I just did my best to make conversation with Trina. Christopher
joined in occasionally, so he at least pretended to be human, but I
could tell he didn’t really want me there. I helped Trina clear the
table while Christopher went and sat in the lounge room.

“Listen, I’m
going to head off home,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder toward
the door. Trina’s face fell a little as her mouth formed an ‘o’ but
I could see Christopher was eager for me to leave.

“Are you sure
you don’t want to stay for dessert?” she asked.

“Oh no, I
bought that for you. You have it later or something. Thanks for
dinner Chris, it was really nice,” I said, noting the twitch in
Christopher’s jaw when I shortened his name. I know I shouldn’t
have been goading him, but the guy’s a bit of a jerk.

I moved over to
Trina to give her a kiss goodbye. “No, I’ll walk you down,” she
said. Linking arms with me and walking quietly to my car. As I got
to the driver’s door, she sighed. “You really don’t like him do
you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry
Trina, but no, I don’t.”

“He’s not
always like that though.”

“I’m pretty
sure you wouldn’t be with him if he was Trina.” I leaned in and
kissed her cheek, before hugging her tightly. “I’ll see you at uni
ok?”

“Sure,” she
said, standing back as I got in my car.

“Go back
inside, I’ll wait until you’re through the door,” I told her.

She nodded and
ran back into the apartment building, waving at me before she
stepped inside.

A couple of
weeks later, we were studying for an exam, and Trina suggested we
study at her place. I had planned to leave before Christopher got
home, but we were so busy that I forgot to check the read out on my
phone.

He was pretty
pissed off when he arrived home and saw me there, but I tried to
act normal and excuse myself soon after he arrived without looking
like I was fleeing from the sight of him.

About ten
minutes after he’d arrived, he came and sat at the table with us,
swigging on a bottle of beer he’d gone and fetched for himself from
the fridge.

“Couldn’t you
have studied at the library or something?” he said, looking over
all the books and papers we had spread out on the table.

“What’s wrong
with studying here?” Trina asked. He simply shrugged in
response.

I stood up and
started gathering my things. “Don’t worry, I’ll go,” I said, trying
to keep my calm while I packed everything into my backpack.

“No David. This
is my place too. Christopher, why are you being so rude?”

“I don’t want
him here,” he said plainly.

I huffed out my
breath. “Listen mate. I don’t know what your problem with me is,
but you’re going to have to deal with it. Trina and I have been
friends since primary school, I’m not going away just because you
say so.”

He rose up from
his seat so he was towering above me. “My problem is that you go
around, fucking a different girl every week and then come sniffing
around mine. Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re doing.
You’re just lying in wait until the moment she has a lapse in
judgment and fucks you – then you’ll dump her too. She’s not yours
David. She’s mine.”

“Dude, you are
seven kinds of fucked up right now. You’re acting like I’m some
kind of predator or something. If you think Katrina’s choice of
friends is that poor, then I’d hate to think what the truth behind
your intentions really are.”

“Don’t question
my intentions,” he spat.

“I don’t need
to. I already know. You think she’s some kind of prize that you’ve
won. I see the way you talk to her. The way you order her around.
She’s not going to just roll over and let you take over her life.
She’s too smart for that.”

“Get out of my
house.”

“You can’t kick
me out when I was already fucking leaving.”

“Maybe not, but
I can tell you to never come back. I don’t want you in my house,
and I don’t want you around my woman.”

“That’s
enough!” Katrina yelled. “Stop talking about me like I’m not even
in the room. David is my friend Christopher, and this is my house
too. If I want him here, he can be here.”

“He doesn’t
come back, and that’s final!”

“Fuck you. I
don’t even want to come back,” I said and stormed out of the room.
I could hear yelling and carrying on going on behind me as I took
off down the stairs, seriously annoyed that someone who claimed to
love Katrina could disregard her friends so easily.

I put in a call
to Monica and drove straight over to her house, hoping to lose
myself between her legs for the night.

Monica lived in
a share house about five minutes away from Trina’s apartment.

“Monica, your
fuck buddy’s here!” her housemate Erica called out over her
shoulder the moment she opened the door to me.

“Well, hello
yourself,” I smiled.

“Hey, you know
I love you Dave. I just like to tell it how it is,” she
laughed.

“Yes you do.” I
stepped inside just as Monica came bounding down the hallway and
jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist.

“Needed a bit
of a pick me up after the dinner huh?” she asked, grinning at
me.

“You don’t know
the half of it,” I said, walking us into her room and kicking the
door closed behind us.

The moment we
were on our own, she crashed her mouth into mine with a hunger that
she always displayed in the bedroom, then broke away, grabbing at
my shirt and leaning back, forcing me to drop her on the bed.

She sat on the
edge and grinned at me, reaching out and pulling me closer by the
waist of my pants.

Undoing the
button and zip, she reached inside, rubbing at me to wake me up
before she freed me.

“That’s more
like it,” she purred. “Let’s see if we can take your mind off
things.”

As her mouth
closed around me, I closed my eyes, focusing on the wet warmth of
her tongue as it danced along my shaft. I shut my mind off from
what happened at Trina’s place and threaded my fingers into
Monica’s hair as she worked her head back and fourth.

The sound of
Trina’s ringtone, sliced through the room and jolted me out of my
spiral toward ecstasy.

“Ignore it,”
Monica purred, running her tongue around my tip, causing my eyes to
roll back in my head.

The phone
stopped singing momentarily, only to start up again seconds
later.

“Monica,” I
groaned pulling back from her and tucking myself away. “I’m sorry.
She obviously needs me.”

“What about my
needs David? I need you inside me. Why can’t she wait?”

“I’m sorry,” I
repeated, grabbing my phone from my back pocket and leaving the
room to answer it.

“David!”
Trina’s voice called out the moment I connected the call.

“What’s up?” I
asked, heading out the front door and back to my car.

“Come and get
me David. I need to get out of here. Please come and get me.”

“Alright, I’ll
be there soon.” We disconnected, and I turned back toward the house
as I heard my name called.

“Are you
seriously taking off on me?” Monica asked me.

“I’m sorry. She
needs me.”

“You’re fucked
up Dave. You’ve still got a fucking hard on from
my
mouth,
and you're running off to help another girl.” I shifted on my feet
uncomfortably as she continued to berate me. “You know what? I
thought I could do this, but I can’t. I thought I was ok being the
girl you screwed around with, but I’m not. I want more from you
David, but I know I’m not going to get it.”

“I’m sorry
Monica. I can’t give you that,” I told her, genuinely feeling sorry
that we had reached this point.

“Then don’t
come back David. Find yourself another fuck buddy.” She then turned
away from me and went back toward the house, her shoulders shaking
from her sobs. I felt so horrible watching her cry and not doing
anything about it, but I needed to go to Trina. I needed to make
sure she was ok.

I drove back
over to Trina’s. I don’t know what had happened in the ten minutes
between the phone call and my return, but she was waiting outside
for me, saying she had calmed down and was willing to stay.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I guess
I was being a bit dramatic.”

“He just
insinuated that I was trying to get inside your pants and banned me
from your house.”

“I know. I’ll
talk to him about it. He’s being ridiculous. I don’t know - he’s
just getting really angry about stupid stuff lately. I'm not sure
what’s gotten into him, he’s snapping over really little things.
Maybe it’s just teething problems from living together.”

“Trina,” I
sighed. “I don’t like the sound of this. Why don’t you just come
and spend the night at my place? Talk to him in the morning when
he’s calm.”

“No, it’s fine.
I’m sorry I worried you,” she said and then went back inside. I
looked up at the building and could see Christopher’s silhouette
leaning against the edge of the balcony watching us. A shiver ran
down my spine as my dislike for him grew even stronger.

After my
altercation with Christopher when he banned me from his house,
Trina had assured me that it wasn’t so anymore. She claimed to have
spoken to him and told him that I was her best friend, and that she
would have me over whenever she wanted to. I really wasn’t sure if
she was telling me the truth, as each time she invited me over,
Christopher was at work. But, I chose to overlook it as I wasn’t
interested in hanging out with him anyway.

Since Monica
and I were no more, I ended up resuming my old habits, going out to
the uni bars and nightclubs with some friends. The only change now
was that on Friday afternoons, I’d go to Trina’s, eat pizza and
watch a movie with her before Christopher came home. It seemed to
be the best way to still spend time together without the discomfort
of me and Christopher in the same room.

“Oh my god!
Why
are you making me sit through this girly movie?” I
complained as the couple on the screen struggled with their
attraction to each other yet again.

Laughing at me,
Trina answered, “Because it was my turn to pick –
you
made
me sit through that horrible action movie last time, so consider us
even.”

“Fine,” I
grumbled. “But I need more beer to get through this, do you want
one?”

Shaking her
head no, she lifted her legs from my lap, so I could stand. I
headed over to the fridge and took my sweet time. I wasn’t a huge
fan of these girly movies, but I put up with them from time to time
for the sake of my friendship.

Just as I
untwisted the cap of my beer, I heard a key enter the door and
click it open. “Ah shit,” I said under my breath, knowing this
wasn’t going to be good.

I spun around
and locked eyes with Trina, who looked white as a ghost. Suddenly,
my heart started to thud loudly in my chest as I watched her start
to fret. Her eyes darted from me to him as she swallowed hard and
tried to speak.

“You’re early,”
she pointed out, her voice all shaky as she flicked her worried
gaze toward where I was standing in the kitchen.

Christopher
followed her line of sight, his face darkening as he spotted me. I
swallowed hard, sensing that the shit was about to hit the fan and
placed my beer on the bench top and locked eyes with him in
challenge.

“What the fuck
are you doing here?” Christopher bellowed at me. For a big guy, he
was surprisingly fast. I literally had zero chance to respond
before he marched towards me, planting the full force of his fist
into the side of my face. Pain exploded through my sinuses and
behind my eye, causing red and yellow lights to flash across my
vision. I rocked back on my heels before I slowly fell.

“No!” Trina
screamed, covering her mouth in horror as I dropped to the floor.
“What are you doing, Christopher?! Get away from him!”

Her protests
were futile. As I scrambled to get up, Christopher grabbed the back
of my shirt and dragged me to the door, throwing me unceremoniously
out into the hallway.

“Stay the fuck
away for good this time!” he yelled before slamming the door and
flicking the lock.

Sitting on the
floor, I kicked at the door in frustration and gingerly touched the
side of my face as it streamed blood from a cut on my cheek.

Suddenly, I
heard Christopher bellow “You!”

My heart leapt
into my throat as I jumped to my feet and pressed my ear against
the door, suddenly scared for Trina. I could hear her protests
through the door and started to jiggle the handle, knocking to get
his attention away from her.

That’s when I
heard a loud crash, and the horrible tinkling sound of broken glass
hitting the floor. For a moment, the world seemed silent except for
those sounds and the blood rushing through my ears. “Trina!” I
yelled, punching at the door so hard that it started to
splinter.

Desperately
needing to get inside, I stepped back and kicked out, thankful that
the door wasn’t solid when my foot went through. I ripped back the
panelling until the hole was big enough for me to fit my arm. I
scraped and cut my arm as I pushed it through the jagged hole until
I could reach the knob and unlock the door.

All I could
hear was Christopher yelling, but I couldn’t hear anything coming
from Trina. I moved against the wall quickly but quietly, until
they came into view.

Christopher had
her on the floor and all I could see was blood all over her as he
pulled at her clothes, yelling at her for being such a stupid
bitch.

Thinking fast,
I grabbed a heavy based frying pan as I passed the kitchen before
rushing at him from behind, swinging the pan at the side of his
head with enough force to knock him out.