Chapter 3:
“Sweetie?”
“Mmmm?” Angel put his arm around Buffy’s shoulder as they walked down the street toward Drusilla’s house.
Many of the guests had already arrived, parking in Drusilla’s driveway and filling in most of the cul-de-sac around the house. As the couple kept walking they could hear the sound of music and loud playful laughter coming from the party.
“How come you never wanted to dance before tonight?” Buffy asked.
“Dance?”
“I mean I know you’re busy a lot, having late conferences and business trips once a month, but we could have done this a while ago….”
“We could have?” Angel seemed a bit surprised.
“Sure…I mean I didn’t think you’d be interested in this kind of dancing.”
Angel chuckled, “Is that what you call it?”
“Ummm….” Buffy was a little perplexed what he meant by that, “Well ya…that’s what everyone calls it.”
“Okay…we’ll call it dancing…” Angel smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“I’m just trying to say that we can go out and do this without it being a work event…” Buffy explained.
In fact, Buffy was hoping to get Angel to go to less work social gathers all together, the people at this company shin-digs just made her uncomfortable. It seems that ever year at the company Christmas party she is the one begging to leave early because Lindsey McDonald was chasing after her to look down the front of her dress. Buffy just wished that Angel would make the effort to socialize with people she liked—not with woman named Darla McDonald and Harmony Kendall.
Buffy was putting out hope that she was wrong about Drusilla though, that she wasn’t a weird gothic chick and she was a nice lady that wasn’t trying to chase after her husband like all the other ladies were obviously doing.
“You mean like…go to a public party?”
“Why not?”
Buffy thought it would be fun to give Willow and her other good friend Xander and his wife Anya, a call so they could go out and do something together. Maybe bowling or go to Movies in the Park every weekend, things that were more of a family atmosphere. After taking a step forward and getting her drivers license changed, Buffy thought it would a nice time to start thinking about children.
Angel bit his lip and shook his head at the idea, “I don’t know if I’ve comfortable going to a public club and doing this Buffy…”
‘Okay then, maybe he is shy on the dance floor.’ Buffy thought to herself as they reached the front door and Angel pressed the button to ring the doorbell.
They waited there for a few seconds before Buffy’s eyes bugged out and said, “Oh no! I forgot the bottle of wine and my bag in the car.”
Before Angel got a chance to say anything, the door opened. Drusilla, with a cocktail in her hand, greeted the O’Connors with a smile.
“Angel….” Drusilla’s eyes sparkled when she smiled up at him first before turning to Buffy and giving her a slight ‘hello’ nod, “Buffy…so happy you could make it. Come in, come in.”
“Uh Buffy forgot something in the car Dru.”Angel said and started to back his way down the walk, “I’ll just be a minute; introduce Buffy around.”
Buffy frowned, she hated when he did that sometimes—leaving her in an awkward situation with a complete stranger. Plus, she thought it was bad manners on his part that he would ask his boss to introduce her to people.
“I’ll come with ya sweetie.” Buffy said as she backed away from Drusilla.
“Don’t be ridiculous” Angel waved, “Go and mingle with the others and I’ll be five minutes.”
Buffy couldn’t catch up to him even if she wanted to, not in her heels.
“Come in Buffy, I’ll introduce you around.”
Buffy thought it was seemed sort of funny that Drusilla would be introducing her around to employees—being since she too worked at Wolfram and Hart and that Dru was the one that was new to town.
The two ladies walked away from the foyer and into the main hallway.
“Let me take your coat, sunshine.” Drusilla smiled, “Your dress is very posh…Macy’s?”
Buffy didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. ‘Did Dru find Macy’s posh in a sarcastic way or was Drusilla like her, not caring about the label inside the dress and all about how it looked?’ Buffy thought to herself.
“Umm…Saks…” Buffy decided to not play the Macy’s card and just lie.
“Well it’s just divine…you must show it off to Darla and Harm….” Drusilla smiled a smile that seemed to let on that she knew how Buffy felt about the two ladies.
Buffy was lucky that she had her face turned away when Dru mention those two names, she cringed in disgust instantly. When she turned back around she pasted on a fake smile.
“Oh, I didn’t know they would be attending.”
“Really? Hmmm….well usually everyone guesses they would be the first to attend these sorts of parties, if you know what I mean.” Dru giggled and started to move down the hallway towards the living room where the guests were.
Buffy’s eyes instantly darter to Darla and Harmony as soon as she reached the doorframe. Luckily for her they were distracted by a few gentlemen that were flirting with them.
‘Knew Darla was the queen slut of the company…’ Buffy thought to herself as she narrowed her eyes in at the blonde. She now felt a little bit sorry for Mr. McDonald. I mean, here was Lindsey’s wife, cheating for the world to see while he was back at home on a Sunday night taking care of that new baby boy of theirs.’ If her precious Lindsey knew she was here, flirting with all these other guys he’d---‘
Buffy froze when she saw Lindsey sitting on the sofa. He was squeezed between a redhead and a girl she often saw in the ladies room.
“Everyone, everyone….” Drusilla announced over the party, “Angel and his wife, Buffy, are here….”
Most of the gentlemen around the room gave a leering smile and checked out Buffy’s dress. The petite blonde was very tempted to go back and fetch her coat.
‘What is taking Angel so long?’ she thought as she met eyes with an eye lingering man that looked like he was sixty years old.
“Drinks are over by the bar Buffy.” Drusilla pointed over to the corner where a small crowd was already huddled around. “Is this your first time to this type of party?”
“Umm…well, I haven’t done this in a while.” Buffy said softly as she strolled around the room with Drusilla by her side.
“Oh, well then, I’d advise you to start drinking to calm your nerves, sunshine.” Drusilla said as she held up her cocktail, “I can sympathize with you a little bit actually, for those first few years with William I was off limits to these little gathers, but with time I was back on the horse…” she giggled.
Buffy smiled and nodded, she wasn’t fully paying attention to anything Dru was saying. She was too busy staying clear of men that she saw as a threat to harassing her, which was a bit of a problem because they all looked guilty.
“You know Buffy, you don’t take me as being the swinger type when I first met you.” Drusilla ranted on.
Buffy did a double take at that. “How so?”
“Well, you seem all proper and innocent; having sex with lots of men doesn’t seem like it would be your style.”
There was a pause before Buffy said, “Say what?”
TBC…