Ace Of Spades (Complete Raw First Draft, Unedited)

Sixteen: Understanding

"Oldies?" I repeated, unsure of what she meant.

"Your parents, babe," she elaborated, grinning and laid back against the arm of the couch, letting her wild green hair fall down behind her. "Do they still travel?"

"I don't talk to my mum, and she told me my dad was an asshole, but I never knew him." I shrugged. It was better, giving these half truths, it would be easier if anyone tried to pull me up on it.

"More daddy issues for the pile," Tanya joked, then turned to me, grinning. "On Wednesdays, we bitch about our dads."

"You bitch about your dad," Claire shot at her. "You're the only one here with daddy issues."

"Yeah," Amity chimed in. "I love my dad!"

Everyone else laughed, and Tanya flipped Claire off.

It was easy to relax in this circle, and I found that I was really enjoying myself. I'd never really known any of the other girls that worked for Lucas very well. We weren't aloud to speak to one another, and we never had free time where we could just sit around and talk like this. There was only ever bitter rivalry and fear.

Right as I was turning down the cigarette Katy was offering me, Bonnie walked in, and I froze.

"Hey girl," Katy yelled, bending backwards over the arm of the couch to look at Bonnie upside down. "What's going on?"

"Waiting for Clyde," Bonnie replied, dragging out his name in the same singsong voice that Katy was using.

"Should we keep one of the rooms free for you guys?" Amity teased, and they all giggled, sharing in some joke.

"I'll wait and see how dirty he is when he gets here," Bonnie said, laughing as well.

"If I was married to a guy like that, you couldn't keep me off him!" Tanya cried, feigning outrage. "The dirtier, the better!"

"That's her husband you're drooling over," Claire reminded her, slapping her arm.

"I know," Tanya winked at Bonnie. "And he's an absolute hottie. Lucky bitch."

"Well, I'm not sharing him," Bonnie told her, squeezing into the small space between her and Claire. "He's mine."

"I don't know," Amity said, shrugging. "He might even be into sharing."

"Please don't suggest it to him," Bonnie pleaded. "That's something he actually would be into, the weirdo that he is, in bed."

"By the way," Bonnie continued while the others laughed. "Why is she here?"

Everyone fell silent as Bonnie stared me down. I honestly thought she hadn't noticed me, but, if looks could kill, then I'd be nothing but a mess on the floor.

"She's just hanging out, Bon Bon," Katy was the first to jump to my defence.

"Whatever," Bonnie shrugged. "Just don't go leaving anything valuable lying around."

She glared at me again, and I shrank further back into the couch, trying to escape her poisonous looks.

"In fact, it doesn't matter, she'll sniff them out like a mangy dog, even if you do hide them."

***

We had moved our little gathering out to where the bar was, mingling with some of the men who were there as well.

Tanya had dissapeared with Boomer, and Amity was flirting with Ricky. Another girl, Kelly, had turned up a little while ago, complaining about an assignment she had to do that was due in at the end of the week for the course she was studying.

"Fucking group assignment," she was grumbling, to no one in particular. "Why is everyone so fucking stupid? I can do this shit on my own."

It was only a few hours later that Ace and Clyde came to the clubhouse, both of them grubby and tired.

Bonnie jumped into Clyde's arms the minute she saw him, and he caught her up in a hug.

"Are you stoned?" He asked her, smirking, running his hand over her hair. "I can smell it on you."

"Nah," she responded. "The others were smoking when I got here."

"Oh," Clyde said, then noticed me watching, and waved. "Hey, Jenna."

I gave him a tight lipped smile, not wanting to seem rude, then turned away as Bonnie rolled her eyes and kissed him, feeling like I was intruding on something private.

Ace's greeting was much more casual, shooting me a lopsided grin as he pulled up a chair beside me.

"Hey," he greeted me.

"Hello," I replied, feeling shy all of a sudden.

"Don't they just put you off ever getting married?" He nodded toward Bonnie who was standing with her arms draped over Clyde's shoulders, his hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

I just smiled and ducked my head.

"Hey, you two," Ace called to them. "Save it for the bedroom, would you?"

Clyde smirked and then turned back to Bonnie.

"Could we go out there, for a minute?" He asked her, nodding toward the rooms we'd been in earlier. "I want to talk to you about something."

Amity perked up as Bonnie nodded.

"I hope you're gone longer than a minute," she laughed, winking. "Bon Bon, after sixty one boyfriends, I hope your sixty second man actually knows what he's doing."

Clyde looked down at Bonnie, trying his hardest not to laugh as he raised an eyebrow.

"Your sixty second man, huh?" He repeated.

"I never said that!" She cried indignantly.

"And, make sure not to talk with your mouth full," Katy teased. "It's bad manners, remember?"

"Ew," Bonnie cried out in disgust while everyone else laughed.

"Hey, you weren't saying 'ew' last night," Clyde said to her, pretending to be offended.

"Clyde, shut up, or I'll never do that for you again," Bonnie complained, then took his hand and lead him away. "You guys are gross."

Again, I just listened to the conversations around me, occasionally replying to Ace when he tried to include me. I didn't really have much to contribute, otherwise, but I was happy. I was finally beginning to feel safe.

Bonnie and Clyde weren't gone all that long, ten minutes at the most, and when they did come back, Bonnie seemed a lot more sombre than before.

"Jeez, that was a quick one," Amity laughed, giving them another wink, and Clyde shrugged, kind of sheepishly.

Bonnie didn't reply at all, and I realised that she was staring at me again. But, for once, she didn't look like she was trying to picture the bloody ways she wanted to murder me. Her features had smoothed out, and she almost looked understanding and sympathetic.