I thought that with Angelo and me on good terms, the rest of the night would go smoothly, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The evening is enjoyable enough. We all drink wine and play games, mostly Pictionary. Gina and Angelo are both insanely competitive, but I'm actually pretty good at this game since I've played it with the kids many times and I actually know how to draw almost anything in a way that Nathan understands, even though I'm not very artistic. In the end we still get our asses kicked, but at least we don't suck as badly as Sean and Jillian.
We're all tipsy, even Nathan. Hell, Nathan might even be a little drunk. I haven't seen him drink like this since New Year's. Not that I mind. He's just a little louder than usual and he laughs at everything, even when it's not that funny. It's probably just his way of dealing with all the stress of the past couple of weeks and the upcoming trial. He deserves to let loose. Besides, it's not like his friends are still sober.
Around midnight, Jillian and Gina are both exhausted and they retreat to their bedrooms. I am not even close to tired, but I want to give Nathan some time with his friends, so I kiss him goodnight and go upstairs for a long, hot shower. I try to sleep after that, but I'm still revved up, so I end up watching a movie on my phone with the lights out. It's a bit stuffy in the small room, so I open the window and lay back down, praying I will get some sleep tonight even though my body seems to want something very different than sleep. If Nathan wasn't still downstairs and we weren't in his friends' house, I would be all over him right now.
Suddenly, I hear a door open and close, followed by laughter. Apparently, the men are in the garden and their voices drift up through the open window.
"I wish you'd quit that filthy habit," I hear Nathan say.
Angelo responds, but he must be a bit further away, because I can't hear the exact words, only recognize the deep rumbling of his voice.
"She smokes?" Sean asks, sounding surprised. "Damn, Nathan, never thought you'd ever date a smoker."
"She doesn't smoke." I can almost hear Nathan roll his eyes. "Angelo is obviously full of shit." I wonder what he'd say if he knew that while I'm not addicted, I do enjoy a cigarette every now and then. There's still so much we don't know about each other. I didn't even realize that smoking might be a dealbreaker for him.
Again, Angelo's quiet answer doesn't quite reach my ears, but I'm sure he's talking shit about me, because Nathan's tells him to shut up while Sean laughs.
"Last time I saw her, I didn't quite realize how intense she really is," Sean says, his voice pensive. "I get what you mean now."
"Yeah..." Nathan sighs loudly. "Way intense. I honestly don't know what to do about that."
Intense? I'm intense? I rack my brain to figure out what he's talking about, but I honestly thought that everything was okay between us. And apparently, whatever they mean by intense is bad thing. I can tell from the way they say the word. What did I do wrong? Is this about me always speaking my mind? I thought he liked that about me.
Angelo speaks for a while and Nathan seems to agree with him. Damn, why can't that Italian asshole speak up a little more?
"Honestly..." Nathan's the one talking again. He sounds like he's about to spit out something he's not sure he should even be saying. "Sometimes I think that it may be a good thing that I can only see Caroline every other week. If it wasn't for Rose..." He pauses while Angelo says something in his deep voice, making Nathan laugh. "Yeah, definitely. We'd never make it to the summer if it wasn't for those weeks with Rose."
What. The. Fuck. Is he seriously telling his friends that the only way he can handle being in a relationship with me is by being away from me for a week on a regular basis? I thought he missed me during those seven days without me, just like I miss him. Guess not.
"That girl is hearing wedding bells already," Sean jokes.
Angelo says something in response. For fuck's sake, can't he just move a little closer to the window? I'm only getting half of the conversation this way.
"Definitely not," Nathan says. "You're right. I need to slow the hell down."
Is Angelo talking him out of moving on with his life, out of being with me? If Nathan thinks we are moving too fast than he can certainly discuss that with me, but unless I'm mistaken, he is the one that asked me to go with him this weekend. I would been perfectly fine with him going without me. Surely he knows me well enough to know that? How am I moving faster than he is?
"Hey, if she turns out to be a psycho like Elise, at least you got some great sex out of it," Sean says, causing all of them to laugh. "Seriously man, intense or not, she's hot."
This time, Angelo's response is just loud enough for me to hear it. "Even I can see that."
"You've got no idea," Nathan says, a smile in his voice.
"Is she as great in the sack as I think she is?" Sean asks suggestively.
Don't answer that, Nathan, I think to myself. I don't like the way they are talking about me. Like I'm just some young hot piece of ass that Nathan is using for fun.
"She's a goddess," Nathan tells them. For a moment, I think that he will just leave it at that, but then he continues to my utter horror. "She does this thing with her tongue... Man, I've never been sucked off like that before. And her stamina... I mean, seriously, she's insatiable."
Angelo's response is not loud enough to reach my ears completely, but I swear the word slut is in there somewhere. Surely Nathan isn't going to let his friend talk about me like that? It's bad enough that Nathan is discussing our sex life with them.
"I wouldn't call her that," Nathan grins, "but she's certainly not shy either. She's kinky as fuck."
I'm so angry that I see red. Not only is he not telling Angelo off, but he's basically telling them I'm easy and into anything. Why the hell does he think it's okay to talk about me like that? Sure, I discuss my sex life with my friends too, but never like that. I tell them he's a god and that he makes me come so hard I see stars. I tell them what I like and what kind of toys we use, but I don't laugh and tell them that he can't get enough. I don't talk about him like he's just some guy I'm fucking. I love him and when I talk about him, I know for a fact that I'm always respectful. How dare he laugh with his friends and talk about me like he picked me up at a bar last night?
"Yeah," Nathan agrees to something Angelo said, "sometimes. Her ex-boyfriends used to call her frigid. Imagine that! Those boys just didn't know how to fuck her right."
Tears fill my eyes. I told him that in confidence and he's just sitting there telling goddamn Angelo and Sean about me not being able to reach an orgasm easily. I'm feeling sick sitting here while he boasts about what a great lover he is. He may be great in bed, but right now he's not being a good boyfriend. Not at all.
Angelo says something, making all three of them roar with laughter.
"Her friends are all taken or gay," Nathan says, still on the verge of laughter, "so I guess you'll have to stick to Gina, because I'm sure as hell not sharing. Of course, you could always ask her to teach Gina the tongue thing. I swear, there's nothing that even remotely compares to getting blown by Caroline."
Every time I think he's done talking about me like that, he says something else that makes my skin crawl and my blood boil. That's it. I'm not putting up with this. I grab his pillow and blanket and make my way downstairs, feeling like I might throw up if I have to hear him say my name one more time.
"Oh shit," Sean says, as he's the first to spot me when I open the backdoor and storm into the garden. "Ohhhhh shit."
Nathan turns around, his eyes unfocused as he puts his beer down. "Hey, Car, what's wrong?"
"I'll tell you what's wrong," I shout at him, no longer able to contain my anger. "Apparently, I'm too intense, whatever the hell that means, you're happy that you don't have to spend every single day with me and aside from being good at giving blowjobs, you don't seem to like a single fucking thing about me, Nathan!"
He stands up, holding up his hands in surrender. I can see quite clearly that he's even more drunk than he was when I went upstairs, but I don't care. Alcohol is no excuse. "Caroline, I didn't-"
"I don't care," I interrupt him, throwing the blanket and pillow at him. "Don't worry about it. You don't have to deal with my intense, slutty ass tonight. You're sleeping on the couch. And don't you dare follow me, because I will call a fucking cab if you do and leave right now. I don't care that it's late and that it'll cost me a fortune to get back home. I don't want to see you in our room tonight."
"Caroline, he didn't-" Angelo starts, but I won't let him finish.
"Don't you dare talk to me, you fucking asshole!" I shriek. "Isn't this what you wanted all along? To get me to break up with him? Well, you might get what you want after all. Because I may be intense and slutty and kinky and god knows what else you were saying about me, but I am not going to let someone who is supposed to love me disrespect me like this."
"Honey, please-"
"Don't call me honey, you piece of shit," I hiss at Nathan. "And you can forget about me ever doing that thing with my tongue again. Find some other girl to suck you off!"
Before any of those goddamn assholes can come up with a response, I'm already back inside, slamming the backdoor behind me. When I make my way back upstairs, I see Gina standing on the threshold of her room, rubbing her eyes groggily. The door to the guestroom on the other end opens as well and Jillian steps out in her nightgown, her eyes wide.
"Sorry to wake you up," I say, angrily wiping away my tears. "It won't happen again."
Before I can get back to the room, Gina grabs my wrist. "Caroline, what's going on?"
"I'm an asshole," Nathan's voice sounds from the bottom of the stairs. "That's what going on."
"Damn right you're an asshole!" I shout back, hating that we're making a scene in front of his friends. "How dare you talk about me like that. After all that crap about trust and love and how you would never treat me the way my ex-boyfriends did..." I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. "You may be older than I am, but the way you're acting tonight is not the way a real man acts, Nate. You're just as bad as those boys I used to date."
"Caroline, what are you-" Before Gina can finish her question, I jerk out of her grip on my arm and go back to the bedroom, slamming the door behind me.
"What the fuck just happened?" Gina demands to know. "Angelo, did you do this?"
"No, Gina," Nathan's voice responds, sounding desolate. Even though I'm mad at him, my heart still aches because of how broken he sounds. "This was all me. I fucked up."