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Jubilee sent a flirtacious wink at Everett as he came back with her drink. Clarice laughed and nudged her as he sat down.RISKY BUSINESS written by Echo
"Jubilee, you are such a flirt!"
"What's wrong with that?" Angelo whispered in her ear. "It leaves more opertunities open."
Clarice turned a glorious shade of red and stred at the table.
"Angelo! What did you say to her?"
Angelo just smiled and took a drink of Mountain Dew.
Paige and Jono came off of the dance floor and joined the foursome. Paige was grinning widely as she sat down.
"I love that song!"
Jubilee rolled her eyes. "No duh, Guthrie. You were freaking out, out there."
"It's called dancing!"
"Huh-huh, are you sure?"
"Paige, Jubilee. Stop fighting!" Everett became the voice of reason.
"We weren't fighting! C'mon Ev, let's show them how your supposed to dance!"
"Um, no Jubes, let's not." Jubilee grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor.
Paige was right behind them, pulling a terrified Jono. Both boy's eyes grew huge as "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys came on.
//Maybe we should sit down.//
"Ya, this isn't the best song to hold a dance contest to."
Jubilee shot a look of murder at both boys. "Dance."
Clarice and Angelo sat at the table and laughed at the foursome. She twirled the liquid in her glass while he watched her.
"Where do you think Monet is..." She trailed off when she saw him watching her. She turned red and stared down at her glass again. "What are you looking at?"
"You," he answered simply.
She took a deep breath but didn't look up. Even when he caught a wisp of her hair and tucked it behind her ear.
"Can we talk?"
She didn't look up but nodded her head. Her heart was pounding as she followed him outside. The wind bit through her thin dress and she shivered. He gallantly took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. They walked down the street in silence looking into shop windows. They were walking towards the edge of town but neither noticed.
Angelo just kept walking. He had no destination in mind, all he knew was that he had to keep walking until.... until what? He got his answer as she stopped walking.
What else was she supposed to do? He wasn't going to talk to her unless she made him. Besides were they just going to walk back to the mansion? No, she had to tell him how she felt and this was as good of a time as any.
"Angelo, I need to tell you something."
"I need to tell you something too."
"Let me go first." She couldn't look up at him while she talked, so she stared at the ground and shifted her weight from one foot to another. "Angelo, you've been a great friend to me ever since I came here. I want to thank you for that, for making it easyer to live here." She stopped to moisten her lips before continuing on. "This is really hard, but I guess I should just come out and say it. I-"
"I think I'm in love with you Clarice."
She gasped as she heard him say those beautiful words. She looked up at him with tear filled eyes. "What?"
"I know that I'm only seventeen, but I love you. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the one that I'd been looking for." He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair. "When Blink and I were trapped with the Phalanx, I thought it was her. I watched as someone that in a short time I'd grown to care about, was pulled from this world." He started pacing now. "When you came, I thought I'd been given a second chance. But when I talked to you and listened to you and watched you, I realized that you and she are two completely seperate people. I liked her but I love you."
She had tears running down her face. "I didn't see my Angelo die. I didn't hear his last screams, but I know that if I had to choose between him being alive, or being right here with you, I'd choose you."
She came over and stood with her hands on his forearms. Their lips were mere inches apart. "We've been given a second chance, I think. I intend to use it."
She hooked her arms around his kneck and pulled his mouth down to hers. He put his arms around her waist and then brought them slowly upwards and into her hair. They broke apart long enough for Clarice to whisper, "I love you," in his ear.
Angelo knew then that they needed to stop, if only to protect his sanity. He broke apart but she only clung to him tighter. He unhooked her hands from his neck and brought them down to her sides.
"We need to stop, Clarice."
"Why?"
That was the last answer he expected. "Excuse me?"
She crossed her arms infront of her and held a challenging pose. "Why do we need to stop?"
He stared at her, completely speechless. He tried concentrating on something but he kept being sucked into her eyes. "Because... um, because..."
"I love you and you love me. What else matters right now?"
"I don't think you realize what your saying."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I know exactly what I'm saying." She lost her courage then. "Unless, you don't want me in that way, I understand-"
She was cut off as he lifted her face p to his. "I love you in any way possible." He kissed her the top of her head. "I just don't understand why?"
She looked up at him, directly into his eyes. "I've seen people die before they ever got to say 'I love you' to the people they cared about. I hated Gambit, but I know that Rogue loved him and that he loved her. They never had a chance and I know that she regreted it. I don't want that to happen."
He kissed her forhead and then left a trail of kisses from her temple to her throat.
"Is that a yes?" She whispered.
He grinned and picked her up in his arms. She hooked her arms around his kneck and stared at his eyes. When he set her down she grew nervous, but he sat down next to her and whispered in her ear, "No one could love you as much as I do right now."
"Hey, where's Angelo and Clarice?" Paige stood next to the table with her hands on her hips.
Monet shrugged and pointed towards the door. "I think they went outside."
"Doubtful, Monet, Clarice was dying to dance! Maybe they're out on the floor and we can't see them." Jubilee squinted at the crowd trying to pick out her friends. After a few minutes she had to admit defeat. "Or, I could be wrong."
At that moment a lemon slice came soaring throught the air and landed in the middle of the table. A skinny blond dressed in a red tanktop and black miniskirt, sashayed over and picked it up.
"Sorry! It flew right out of my hands." Her words were slurred and laced with heavy sarcasm. "I'm sure it won't happen again."
Paige smiled politely and turned to listen to what Monet had been saying. She was able to miss the sneer that was thrown in her direction. Jubilee on the other hand didn't and shot the girl a dirty look of her own.
"Do you have a problem with me, China-doll?"
"Jubilee," Paige hissed at her. "Let it go."
Jubilee was not about to let it go. She stood up and stared menacingly at the girl. "What did you just call me?"
"Is there a problem here?" A tall muscular boy came over to the table. He put his arm around the blond. He wore a black and green letterman jacket witht he name 'Chip' on one of the pockets.
"No, Chip. There's no problem. Little China-doll here didn't take to kindly to my lemon accident."
Everett stood up then. "Quit calling her that. It's extremely rude!"
Chip stood infront of his girlfriend and stared at Everett. "Who do you think you are? Don't talk to Candy that way!"
Everett wasn't backing down. "Then teach Candy some manners and I won't have to."
Three more boys wearing jackets came and stood behind Chip. On of them put his hand on the other boy's shoulder. "Hey, Chip, cool off, OK."
"Stay out of this Zack. This little punk need's to have his Ass kicked."
Zack wasn't backing down to the boy either. "That may be true, but your not going to do it. Candy's drunk. Take her home, or get Mike to do it. Either way, you need to leave."
Chip looked like he was about to argue but all he did was curse and march out of the club. Candy and the other two boys were right behind him.
"Sorry about that." Zack looked mad, but not at them. "Chip tends to loose his temper easily." He smiled at Jubilee. "Candy's an idiot. She doesn't know what she's saying half the time. I'm sorry if she offended you."
"No prob," Jubilee mumbled.
"Hope to see all of you again. Hopefully under different circumstance though." He smiled and then left out the same door his friend's had gone.
"He was nice," Paige stated.
"Whatever," was the only comment Jubilee would make.
"He's a mutant." Monet sat utterly entranced, staring at the door he'd gone out of. "I think he has a low leval of telepathy, or something of that nature."
"Pretty vague there, Monet," Jubilee muttered. Everyone else stared at Monet and shrugged, leaving her to follow the direction the boy had gone.
