Danny threw a pillow at Jade, "No, no, no! How many time do I have to repeat myself? Three feet isn't much of a distance. He can still agonize me from ten feet away. Besides, I happen to like staying at home if you didn't notice. I don't have to spend three months indoors. There's a huge swimming pool out there, I can always go for a swim if I'm bored. Or go out the the garden to read to the koi in the pond." Exasperation was laced liberally in Danny's voice. "Besides, I never asked him to come back, as far as I'm concerned, he can stay away from here for the rest of my life. Just as I am enjoying my life, he has to come back and ruin everything. It's so not fair." She grumbled.
Danny and Jade was as different as day and night. While Danny preferred being alone, listening to some mellow music and reading, Jade liked loud music, hot cars and even hotter guys. Jade was a party animal; Danny preferred peace and quiet.
Jade handily dodged the flying missile headed her way. It hit the wall behind Jade and bounced harmlessly to the floor. "What you have just described is worse than hell. How can you survive the three months like that?"
Danny cracked a smile. As much as she loved Jade, she could never understand why Jade loved her back. Jade could not condone anyone not doing anything. Jade always had to be doing something. Tennis, dancing, shopping... any activity that requires her to move her entire being. Once, she had tried to be like Danny, to just sit and read while listening to Bach, within five minutes, Jade had ran screaming out of the room, bellowing that she was bored out of her mind and Danny must be crazy to subject herself to this kind of torture.
Danny had pulled Jade kicking and screaming back into the room and told her that she wasn't crazy, just that she didn't have Jade's high level of energy. Then, Jade had dragged her out to the mall and made Danny spent the entire day shopping with her to compensate for boring her out of her mind.
Since then, Jade had not stopped harping on the topic that seemed to be constantly on her mind. That Danny needed something more interesting in her life, like maybe a boyfriend.
That was two years ago, now, Jade had effectively introduced countless of men to Danny, all whom Danny had rejected. Danny had told Jade, "I'm not a lesbian, but I'm just plain not interested in the dating game. I don't have any use for a boyfriend. My life is already very complicated as it is, I don't want, or need one to complicate my life any further. I like very much this current state of confusion, thank you."
To that, Jade's patient reply was, "I'm not asking you to marry them, just go out with them and kiss a couple of them. You're seventeen and you haven't even experienced your first kiss. That is a disgrace for us, women. Don't take it so seriously, pretend that it's a trial, you know, practice so that when the time comes for you to kiss someone you like, you'll know what to do, like what goes where, that kind of thing."
Danny had doubled over with laughter at that and Jade had joined in, yet, when Jade continued introducing eligible males to her, Danny had treated them with a mixture of politeness and aloofness.
"I'll rather be bored out of my mind than face that tyrant of a boyfriend of yours. I have enough insults to last me a lifetime, thank you. I don't think I'll appreciate anymore." Danny told Jade dryly.
Jade leaned a hip on Danny's dresser, "Well, I think that if that's the case, you should try not to throw barely veiled barbs Nick's way. That's what set him off usually, if I'm not wrong."
"What are you saying, Jade?" Danny gave Jade a wide-eyed look. "That I'm baiting Nick? Now, why would I want to do that? He's the Nick Carter, the love of almost every teenage girl's life. Why would I want to irritate the epitome of manhood?"
Jade gave Danny a tolerant look. "Save your sarcasm for some lesser being, Danny. You like Nick as much as you adore lizards, which is not too much really. If you had your way, Nick and lizards would never have existed in this world."
Danny gave Jade a grin. "I wouldn't go so far."
Jade rolled her hazel eyes at Danny, "You would go further than that. Why do you detest him so much anyway?"
Danny laid back on her bed and regarded the canopy of her bed. She shrugged, "I don't know. Why don't you ask him why he hates me so much?"
Jade moved from the dresser to Danny's bed and laid down beside her. "I did."
"What did he say then?"
A barely perceptive pause. "He said it's instinctive." Jade whispered. Danny never took her gaze from the white gauzy material of the canopy. She couldn't hide the flare of hurt in her silvery eyes, but she quickly masked it. Hiding her feelings from the world has always been Danny's forte.
"Maybe that's why I detest him too, because nature dictates." Danny announced cheerily, a bitter-sweet smile curving her lips upwards, not that Jade saw anyway.
"You're sure you don't want to come with me?" Jade couldn't resisting trying one last time.
"Not unless you want an all-out war on your hands. You know what always happen when the two of us meet. Catastrophe always strucks. This time, a stray bomb might accidently hit you." Danny joked.
Jade shuddered at the vivid image Danny painted. Jade knew first-hand just how brutal Nick and Danny fought each other, she had been there every time their verbal swords crossed. The most recent one had been the one when most blood had been spilled.
It dated six weeks back, on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Nick and Jade were at the private stretch of beach fooling around and carrying on like kids. Nick was threatening to dunk Jade when Nick stiffened, his radar telling him that his nemesis was within range. Without a word, he had put Jade down on her feet and his laughing and carefree demeanor had vanished, replaced with a warped sense of anticipation burning in his steel-blue eyes. Jade had tried to take his attention off Danny, who was still oblivious to either her or Nick's presence, by splashing water on him playfully, trying to entice him into ignoring Danny and paying attention to Jade.
All of Jade's efforts failed. His eyes were trained on Danny, who was dressed in a simple long white dress that flattered her complexion and re-enforced the image of an angel. In her left hand was a leash and Honor, her Scottish terrier was straining against the leash and trying to chase the waves that crashed on the beach while trying not to get wet. Danny's attention was on Honor, her lips was curled in a genuine smile at Honor's antics.
It was Honor who brought his mistress's attention to the intruders. Honor saw Nick and began yelping furiously, trying to run towards Nick and flung itself on him and licked him face, hands, anywhere he can. It was one thing that had always frustrated Danny, that her own dog would betray her by actually liking her nemesis.
Danny stiffened when she realized who was the object of Honor's enthusiastic barkings. The sunny smile disappeared and a predatory glint flashed in her turbulent gray eyes. She let Honor pulled her to Nick and Jade.
Honor reached Nick and started wagging his short stubby tail and licking Nick's feet at the same time. Nick stopped glaring at Danny long enough to scoop Honor into his arms and scratched it's head. Honor whimpered and snuggled into Nick's bare chest.
Danny watched through narrowed eyes as Nick soothed and tamed her dog and the fact that Honor allowed it set off her temper. "Traitor!" she muttered under her breath, giving her dog her most intimidating glare which caused it to shrank deeper into Nick's arms.
"Seems like it doesn't live up to his name. Honor. How contradicting," he smirked.
The top of Danny's head reached only to Nick's shoulder, but what she lacked for height, she made up for wits. "What I name it is none of your business. By some stroke of fate, he seems to like you, that's my cross to bear. The fact that I don't like you shouldn't color other's opinion of you. After all, what does a dog know?"
The smile froze on Nick's lips and his blue eyes turned to blue shards of eyes. "What are you doing here, witch? Don't you have any curse to put on people? Don't you have any poison to be made, ingredients to be gathered?"
"What makes you think that I'm not out here gathering ingredients for my latest spell? After all the beach is full of unexpected things, you never know when you'll find what you want. I'm surprised to find you here so early in the morning? I wonder just how did Jade manage this amazing feat of dragging you out here before noon. I applaud her adeptness at working miracles. Nothing short of a miracle can wake you up before noon, right Jade?"
Nick's face turned purple. "Well, at least I have someone to spend this beautiful Sunday with, unlike you, poor thing, have to endure only your dog's company!"
"Nick!" Jade was appalled by Nick's bad manners.
"It's all right, Jade, I need no defense, I can manage my own battles." Danny reassured Jade. She turned back to Nick, "I choose to spend time with my dog instead of spending time with slobbering jerks like you, that's a wise decision in my opinion."
"No wonder they call you a frigid!" Nick returned angrily. "I bet you've never even kiss a man before!" What fueled Nick's fire was that no matter what he said, he could never rattled Danny, never break through her rigid self control, never see her shouting in anger. Always, she wouldn't lose her temper, she would returned his insults calmly and evenly. She always kept her head in their confrontations.
"If kissing a man means kissing someone like you, I'll rather go kiss a donkey." Danny retorted.
"What's wrong with a man like me?" Nick shouted before he could think further. Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized his mistake. He had just handed her more ammunition against him. He looked into her smiling silver eyes and he knew that she knew as well.
"Not a whole lot," Danny began, relishing the malevolent and panicky look in Nick's eyes. "Except that you could be best described as a pasty-skinned she-male trying to fool the world into believing you are a male and somehow managing to accomplished that. Who are you trying to fool with your holier-than-thou act, when you have a mind more foul than all the parasites of society combine? What I can't understand is why Jade would want to touch that body of yours. You have have a face that rivals the angels in the heavens, but you'll have a hard time flying, considering the bulk you'll have to lug around.
"Jade," she turned to her friend. "take my advice, it's not worth it, no matter how beautiful he is, his sheer size of body just isn't worth it. You may just find yourself sleeping on the floor one night because the bed couldn't accommodate both your body and his. You might be thin, but trust me, you're not that thin."
When she was finished, Jade felt hysterical laughter welling up inside her. That was a nice move, really nice. She had always known that wit was her friend's strongest suit, but never had Danny used them so extensively. One look at her boyfriend's dumbfound face told her that if she so much as made a beep, he'll totally and completely lose it.
Sensing that victory for this time was hers, Danny snatched her dog from Nick's arms and retreated before he could recovered and fired a few rounds into her.
After Danny had vanished over the horizon, Nick finally snapped out of his strickened state, but no matter what Jade did, she couldn't get him to have fun. He was distant and moody for the rest of the day.
No, Jade decided. She definitely did not want a reenactment of that day on the day she was to see her boyfriend after an extended time apart.
"All right then, I'll go myself." Jade hastily agreed. She glanced at her very expensive wrist watch and started. "God! I'm going to be late. I've to go now, bye!"
She grabbed her purse from the beanbag near the door and rushed through it. Seconds later, Danny heard the front door shutting firmly then a car starting. Danny closed her eyes and smiled, that was just so like Jade. She was like a whirlwind, sweeping through a place as fast as she could so that she could go on to her next amusement.
Danny padded over the carpeted floor to pick up the small pillow she had hurled at Jade, her mind clamoring with memories best forgotten at the same time.
"Shut up, just shut up!" she hissed at herself. "Why would I think of that freak now, he can drop off the face of earth of all I care!"
Her mind understood that Nick Carter is a man who would steal your heart, play with it while it amuses him then throw it over his shoulders when it no longer can sustain his interest. He is the sort who will trample and squash and shatter your heart without qualms. Oh, her mind understood his sort perfectly, in fact, her mind had been through this zillions of times, but that perfidious heart of hers refused to accept that logic.
Danny retrieved the pillow and sank onto the floor, hugging the pillow to her chest, her mind wandering to that night she had met him.
Chapter Two
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