READ IT AND WEEP! lol Okay, please don't.

Chapter 5

Angel felt stupid going home that night without even knowing her date’s name.

She still had a couple hours to get ready, so instead of going straight home, she went to White Castle and ordered a bunch of burgers and some fries.

She packed down two of the tiny hamburgers and half of the fries on the way home. She hadn’t wanted to take a break at lunch time because she had wanted to leave the garage early to get ready for her date.

Angel flew from her car and to the front door, landing on her feet for just a moment to unlock her front door.

She was excited. She couldn’t help it.

She hadn’t been on a date in twelve years, and she might as well relieve herself of excitement before what’s-his-face showed up.

She had the key halfway into its hole when she noticed the letter that someone had placed behind the screen door.

She turned the knob and as she stepped over the threshold, she swooped down and picked up the letter.

Her name was written in tall, thin, curvy handwriting on the front of the envelope.

She put down her purse on the table beside the couch as she took a seat in her rocking chair.

She opened up the envelope and out came a short letter:

Angel,

I doubt you received many answers at all from Tony, so I figured I’d fill you in.

Tony and I have been friends for a long time. I grew up three doors down from him.

I offered to drop this note off myself, but Tony didn’t want to give out your address. Would you believe he wouldn’t even tell me your name up front? He made me play a guessing game for it.

And speaking of which, you might not have had much luck either. So I thought you might want to know my name.

Forever,

    Anonymous

She couldn’t help but laugh.

            She continued reading. There was a scribbled note at the bottom, recognizably Tony’s handwriting.

Hey Ange,

            Just thought you should know I’ll be racing tonight. And his name is Danny.

She didn’t fight her grin. It stretched from ear to ear, and she jumped up off her chair and squealed.

She took a quick shower and fixed her hair.

She took out the nicest thing in her closet that would be accepted by a crowd of street racing freaks.

By eight thirty, she was sitting on her couch, reading a Dean Koontz novel. She reveled in the suspense, but tonight she was calmed by it because it stole her mind from other things.

A timer went off beside her, and Angel switched it off. She had set it because she didn’t want to have to think about what time it was every three minutes.

Even after so many years of waiting she still wasn’t emotionally ready for this challenge. But Angel never backed down from something so exciting.

Angel arrived early to the race, which she had planned to do. Danny would have to find her, so she figured she should be waiting for him.

She hadn’t beaten the crowd, though.

She parked as close to Gratiot as she could, got out of her car and leaned on the hood in a half-standing, half-sitting position, arms folded across her chest and her legs crossed.

When nine o’clock rolled around she was struck with a nervous feeling.

By 9:01, she was absolutely nauseous.

She had seen many boys without women since she’d arrived, but most got the hint that she didn’t want to be approached because of her folded arms and crossed legs.

Body language, she thought, is a beautiful thing.

As the thought crossed her mind, she saw the most handsome man any girl could ever hope to see. She almost let her jaw drop, but she immediately turned away and kept scanning the crowd for any boy who might be Danny.

She couldn’t be distracted.

Oh, just for a minute.

When she looked back at the man, she noticed he was starring at her, smiling.

She unfolded her arms and he began to walk toward her.

He’s just going to walk by.

“Hello Angel.”

Oh my God.

“I’m Danny.”

No shit.

He held out his hand.

Oh my God.

She took it.

“Hi. Nice to meet you, Danny.”

By the way, I'll now be switching over to the name "JohnMayerLover" and putting the chapters in ORDER on there. See y'all there.

Chapter 8

Danny wasn’t asleep when he heard someone coming into his house.

He had been laying awake in bed, with his hands behind his head, starring up at the ceiling and grinning. He couldn’t get his mind of Angel.

But he was suddenly alert.

When he reached over to get his MK40 he glimpsed the clock.

4:47.

He stood up silently and listened for sounds as he pressed his back against the wall beside the bedroom door.

It sounded like they were out in the kitchen, opening the fridge. Light flooded even down the hall and into Danny’s bedroom.

Danny shook his head, exasperatedly.

What’s in the fridge? I don’t keep anything valuable in the fridge. What an idiot.

The fridge closed, and the house plunged back into darkness.

He heard rumbling of silver wear and the squeaking of cupboard doors.

Amateur.

“Hey! What are you doing in my house?” Danny yelled, hoping to startle him.

What happened next only startled Danny.

He thought he heard a chuckle and the slamming of a cupboard door.

Bastard.

Danny rounded the corner and came face to face with his assailant.

“Who the hell are you?” Danny said, unshaken.

He didn’t get an answer.

He brought up the gun and yelled, “Answer me!”

The figure threw up his hands, backing up as if to say, “Hey, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just lookin’, man.”

“Get out of my house!”

The figure continued to back away, toward the door. Danny shuffled forward, pressuring him to keep moving.

The man turned around and opened up the front door. He looked back over his shoulder and waved.

Danny could tell he was grinning.

The man closed the door, and all was peaceful in the house once again.

Danny went to the front door and locked it, and then sat down on his big recliner, baffled.

“Who the—”

And all was black in Danny’s world.

He woke up the next morning, slumped in his big recliner with a huge headache, feeling dizzy.

He groaned and rubbed his head and felt a small bump in the back.

He rolled slowly off the recliner and onto the floor, onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

After the dizziness faded, he slowly got to his feet, remembering his assailant earlier in the morning.

He checked all the drawers, cupboards, the fridge, his bedroom, and made sure nothing valuable had been taken.

Mysteriously, nothing was amiss.

He popped two Asprin and washed them down with beer.

It was already eleven in the morning.

He didn’t feel refreshed at all, and his back hurt from being cramped into the chair all night.

He decided to leave questions for later on, after the Asprin kicked in.

He took his beer into his bedroom and put it on the desk, next to the computer.

He set his alarm clock for five thirty, which would give him just enough time to get ready to meet Angel for dinner.

But he couldn’t fall asleep.

Despite his effort to not think about what had happened, he couldn’t understand why nothing had been taken.

How did he get in again?

And then Danny remembered the side door that he always left unlocked. For the first time since he had moved there, he felt tempted to get up and lock it.

Who was he and what had he wanted?

Danny suddenly felt terribly uneasy.

He sensed that his attacker hadn’t wanted much of anything… just to observe.

Before Danny could justify his thoughts, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Sorry... no chap. 5 still. It'll be up soon, though!

Chapter 4

Danny thanked the store clerk and told him to have a great day. He pushed the last of his purchases into the back of his car and headed home to go get freshened up.

It was already 3:30. He couldn’t believe he had taken so much time to buy clothes and hadn’t even stopped to get lunch. His stomach grumbled.

He was home within the hour, and he gabbed all seven bags full of clothes and brought them inside, going in through the side door.

Danny lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Troy, so he always left his side door unlocked during the days. There was never trouble on Aspinwall Avenue.

As he came in, he didn’t bother switching on any lights, there was plenty of it coming through the numerous and large windows.

As soon as he stepped in the house, he turned right into the kitchen. If he had gone forward he would have walked downstairs into the basement.

His house was very open. The kitchen had wood floors, and beyond the kitchen, visible over the countertop and beneath cupboards was a little dining room nook. Directly to the left of the nook was a small living room, large enough for three people to move around with relative ease.

It was carpeted in beige, and the couches were a milky looking brown, with a computer off to the far left in the corner of the room and a television set on the back wall.

But, from the kitchen Danny turned left and entered a two bedroom hallway, both of them at the end of the hallway. One to the right, the other to the left. The bathroom was to the right, a few feet before the bedroom.

Danny turned to the bedroom on the right and spilled out all of clothing onto his bed. Before he went back to the kitchen to cook up a late lunch, he folded all of the shirts and pants and put them in separate piles.

The clothes he didn’t want to wear on his date, he put aside on the bed.

He had four shirts and two pairs of pants to choose from tonight.

He decided to make the fashion verdict after he had eaten something.

He went to the fridge and opened it up.

“Well, we’ve got hot dogs… hot dogs, pickles, hot dogs, and beer.” He said to himself, amused with his tiny selection.

He cooked three hot dogs in hot water in the microwave while munching on a pickle and taking swigs of his beer.

Under the circumstances, he was relatively calm. He had no idea what was going to happen or what they would talk about.

How would he find her?

He decided to give Tony a call and ask.

Before he picked up the phone to call, he noticed he had two messages on his phone.

One was the phone company. That could wait till a later time.

The second one was from Tony.

“Hey Daniel. I just thought I should let you know where you’ll be able to find Angel tonight. Since the race is in Detroit on Gratiot, everyone is going to meet at Macomb Mall. She’ll meet you there at nine o’clock. She has a dark blue Ferrari F355. Look for it. It’ll stand out.”

“Thank you Tony,” he spoke to the answering machine as he deleted the messages.

He ate his hotdogs and after dinner he took a long shower, shaved, and chose not to gel his hair tonight and let the natural curls come out.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and went to his room. He had three hours to decide what to wear.

He quickly made up his mind to be rid of two shirts, leaving him with just two to choose from.

One of them was a black, button-up, light cotton shirt with loose cuffs so he could roll them up past his elbows.

The second was a casual, long sleeved, white, silk, button-up shirt that was loose around the length of the arm, but tight at the cuffs.

Before deciding, he checked the weather channel. He always based what he would wear on what the weather was.

It was supposed to be seventy-five degrees, and though silk breathed more, Danny figured he’d roll up the sleeves of the black shirt and leave the top three buttons undone which gave him more of a street-racer look than a silk shirt would. He would feel overdressed in either of the shirts, but he was trying to make an impression.

He went back to his room and pulled on the shirt and buttoned it up. He then chose the darker of the two pairs of pants and slipped them on.

He looked through his closet and found a pair of plain toe, brown leather boots.

He slipped those on and took a look at himself in the hall mirror. He gave himself a thumbs up.

Okay, I started the book in Detroit and I'll probably finish it in Detroit. My goodness. I was havin' such bad writer's block. I couldn't think of a thing to write.... And then I went to Detroit again, and this is what came up:

Chapter 7 (sorry, I still have nothing but a start to chapter 4 and 5)

The moment Angel walked into the door, she fell on her bed and closed her eyes, remembering the perfect night she just had.

She hadn’t been laying on the bed more that a minute when the phone rang.

“What do you want?” She spoke into the receiver, playfully.

“To know how it went.” Tony’s soothing voice washed over her like the soft caress of a full moon.
            She couldn’t stop smiling as she explained her night with Danny.

He said the hated phrase to her—“Told you so”—and bid her an awesome night.

She went to the kitchen and made herself coffee. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t out to justify her actions. She didn’t believe caffeine kept her up or gave her extra energy.

Besides, she was cold.
            Angel was always cold, no matter the weather. She wrapped her hands around her hot coffee mug and let them be warmed up from palm to back. She sipped the warm, thick liquid and she felt it drift down to her stomach, and she smiled contently as she felt the frost being lifted from her fingers.

She made her way to her bedroom and cracked the window open slightly. She felt as if sleeping beneath the window pouring fresh air in would rejuvenate her more fully during the night.

Pulling her sheet and comforter over her cold body, she had a bout of insomnia. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t quiet her mind. The mystery man ordeal was entertaining to her.

Finally, she decided to take a sedative and was asleep within twenty minutes.

Suddenly, Angel was pulled from her sleep. A crash startled her. She was awake immediately, sitting up in bed, listening intently. Since she'd been dreaming of Josh Groban when she'd been abruptly, but did not consent happily, awoken, she didn't know from where in the house the sound had registered.

She waited.

No further sounds.

Unconvinced, she reached toward the nightstand. She slowly opened the drawer, reaching for her P-32 semi-automatic pistol.

The door skidded open, and she loathed the sound as soon as it began, and if she hadn't been listening past the faint retching sound, she wouldn't have heard the soft click of a closing door.

Angel's hearing was so acute that at times she couldn't believe she wasn't kept awake at night by the sound of the breeze rolling across the bricks on the outside of the house.

At first, she heard the sound come from the hall, the study door closing, but as she gripped the pistol's cold steel, her head spun in revelation. She had given her hearing too much credit. The sound had come from the master bathroom, not ten feet away from the side of the bed.

She bolted out of bed into a shooter's stance, terribly unnerved by the thought of someone being so close without her knowledge.

What did they want? she wondered silently. Was he a robber? Did he have intent to harm me? Well, think genius. If he wanted to hurt you, he would have while you were sleeping, dreaming about Josh.

Oh, that bastard.

She stood behind the bathroom door, listening intently, ear pressed against the wood, eyes tightly shut to alter her sense of hearing more prominently.

She didn't want to open the door. She wasn't afraid, but slightly unnerved and it was much safer just not knowing. But, quietly, she twisted the knob and waited a second. She took a deep breath and threw open the door and her gun hand drew itself up almost automatically.

No one.

Not even a mouse.

She crossed through the doorframe, over the threshold.

A faint breeze startled her. She almost chuckled at herself, but repressed the urge, afraid to make a sound. She didn't want to mask another sound as the nightstand drawer had.

She saw a small mirror in the sink. Not a crash, but a clatter. She looked to the open window above the sink. No figure loomed in it.

Pressure, she thought, air pressure. That's what closed the door.

She didn't remembering opening the window at any point during the previous day, but she had often done things she couldn't remember doing and was finished battling out her forgetfulness. Too often, she'd lost the battles.

She moved the mirror back to its original placement, balanced on the back of the sink against the wall and closed the window, flustered.

She felt an eerie presence and closed the bathroom door, only now feeling safe enough to switch on the light. The bulb sputtered on.

She wasn't stupid, just indecisive. She knew that if air pressure closed the door it would have sounded louder than the soft tink that it had expelled. Also, the closing of the door was too timely. It was covered by the sound of the nightstand which was not just a coincidence. Plus, the door wasn't weightless. It was flimsy on the hinges and heavy, and the rug on the floor beneath it was too plush for the door to have closed by itself unless there was a hurricane.

She decided, ignoring the awareness of another being somewhere in the house that as long as she's up, she might as well.

She relieved herself, and as soon as she had sat down she felt terribly vulnerable. She willed herself to hurry, the feeling of the company tugging endlessly at the back of her mind, becoming too hard to ignore.

She jumped off the toilet before even pulling up her panties, and she stumbled on the thick rug, and engaged the lock by pushing the button in the middle of the doorknob.

She backed away from the door and now took the time to pull up her panties and flush. She praised modern technology, be it only a mere toilet. It flushed fast, virtually noiseless and it took less than fifteen seconds to replenish the water supply, leaving ample time for her to listen for noises outside the bathroom, of which there were many.
Someone was moving through the bedroom, drawing nearer. She turned on the faucet, pretending to wash her hands, but instead did the same thing as she had only moments ago on the other side of the door. She pressed her ear hard against it and closed her eyes.

The dry sound of wood scraping on wood. The nightstand drawer.

Footsteps.

Nothing.

Suddenly, she felt someone on the other side of the door, only an inch of wood blocking her ear from being pressed against his.

She knew it was a boy. He was loud, clumsy, and genuinely not cautious at all. Also, it seemed like no one in the world pulled a brake-and-enter these days unless they were acquainted with the victim. Angel didn't ever talk to other women, sans Tony's boyfriend, Jessica, and some friends she had left behind in Wisconsin when she left for college.

Though she sometimes hated being one of the guys, she hated more a group of insecure women, willing- eager to let her into their ten year (or more) long friendship filled with inside jokes, girlish jargon, and long late-night phone calls that end with promises of fun filled times.
            Angel could hardly contain her excitement.

She hated the phone anyway, but now, as her gaze was pulled down by movement, she wished she had access to the digits 911.

The doorknob was slowly turning and Angel backed away from the door until she softly bumped into the sink, rattling the mirror.

She eyed the sink.

She had been washing her hands an awful long time.

She knew she wasn't fooling anyone, especially not herself because she was on to her own charade. Maybe, if she just acted normally, he'd... disappear.

She shut off the sink and the turning of the knob became more intense.

He jiggled the knob back and forth, obviously aware that she was aware of him, because he wasn't putting forth much of an effort to be discreet.

Now she let her emotions run free and she was scared.

The jiggling stopped, ad he left. She heard the front door close.

She immediately exited the bathroom, intuition telling her that his leaving wasn't staged and he wasn't actually huddling in the darkest corner of the living room.

"Who the hell?" She asked aloud, almost demanding God to answer her.

Why would he give up trying to enter the bathroom and then just leave? Would he have done anything if he had been able to get into the bathroom?

Something told her no, and that he wouldn't have come in even if the door had been unlocked.
If he wanted in, all he had to do was insert an object about the size of a bobby pin through the other side of the hole in the center of the doorknob, apply slight pressure and pop the lock out of place. She often played this game as child, utterly fascinated with the simplicity of the lock.

She twisted the deadbolt on the front door, twisted the lock in the middle of the knob, and latched the chain across the door and onto the wall.

Had she carelessly left the front door unlocked?

She couldn't remember, and lost another battle.

"Damn."  

And some time... in this frenzy of chapters being COMPLETELY out of order on here... I'll post chapter 4 and 5.

P.S. Once I have chapters 4 and 5 finished... I'm going to switch accounts to JohnMayerLover and then put the chatpers in ORDER on there and use that one from now on.

Chapter 6

Danny was having one hell of a time. There were so many things written on her face but nothing was legible. When he looked at Angel, he felt like he was trying to solve a Greek crossword puzzle where you had to unscramble all the hints.

Their talk had started out small, about their addresses and phone numbers. Danny took it as a good message that they had already gotten past exchanging numbers, which meant she had to be interested in some way.

“Do you mind me asking about your last relationship?”

“It was twelve years ago.”

Danny was awestruck.

“Are you serious?”

“His name was Alex Warner. He was the sweetest boy I’d ever met. He wasn’t extremely attractive… he was short and weighed too much and had pudgy little fingers. But he treated me like… well, like an Angel.” She stopped and sighed. “We didn’t see each other over the summer. He stayed with his grandmother in Vermont the whole time because his parents were going through some things. When he came back to school, he was tall, skinny and beautiful. He dumped my ass right then and there.”

Danny shuffled his feet. “I feel bad not knowing what to say.”

“I didn’t know what to say either.”

When Danny decided to change the conversation to her favorite type of flower, he didn’t get much of a response, but she lit up like a light when he asked her to explain the process of an engine. She talked for half an hour excitedly about the difference between fuel injection systems and carburetors and something about pistons and a crankcase. Danny felt bad that he had stopped listening to what she was saying, but he was too happy to see her excited to think much of it.

“… and that, my dear Daniel, is how an engine works.”

“Oh wow. You might have to explain that to me again. Maybe you could show me on a real engine sometime?”

Angel pretended not to hear his question. She stood on her tiptoes, looking over him.

“The races are starting! I’ve got to go wish Tony good luck. I’ll be right back.”

Her light brown hair flowed gracefully behind her as she jogged to the front of the crowd, pushing her way through. Danny sighed contently and fell back softly against the wall of a building, hands in pockets, remembering. Exactly one week ago he was on his way to work when he spotted a woman, this woman, Angel Johansen, and time had stalled. He had drank what features he could make out through the rain as long as time permitted him to get over his shock, for he was sure he would never see her again.

Now her picture was clear in his mind. Angel had the most beautiful blue eyes, with flecks of grey and green and her hair deeply complimented it when it fell just to the side of her eye, brining out the green in them. He also felt his smile couldn’t even compare to hers. Her smile was the type to light up a room, and it never failed to make you realize that there is beauty beyond comprehension in the world. Her sense of style perfectly depicted who she was. Her shirts had a feminine touch, but never revealed too much. And her flattering slacks floated down to her grease-stained tennis shoes.

Though her features were soft and beautiful, her face had a hard look instilled around her eyes. A look of time building upon her lonesomeness. For too long Angel had suffered in the dark, pleading for a way out. Danny was determined to be the lighted path that guided them to a heaven in which they would dwell forever, in never ending rapture.

She returned after another moment and took his hand and tugged him toward the crowd. “Come on! We’ve got to watch Tony race.”

They weaseled their way through the crowd as far as they could manage.

Angel was having a hard time seeing over the crowd.

Danny crouched down. “Get on my back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, come on. You’ll be able to see.”

She got onto his back and held fast around his neck as he stood up and straightened out.

“My God, you’re tall.”

“6 foot-three and a half.”

The crowd began to shout as the four cars on the front line revved their engines.

“Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”

The woman on the starting line let down her flag and tires squealed loudly as they took off.

Angel and Danny cheered for Tony until the cars were out of sight beyond the first turn.

Angel jumped off of Danny’s back after thanking him for the view.

When Angel jumped off Danny’s back, she hit someone behind her and they fell to the ground.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Angel, are you okay?” Danny asked.

“I’m fine.” She ignored Danny’s hand and got up.

Angel offered her hand to the stranger and helped him up.

“I’m alright, thanks. My name’s Eric.” He held out his hand for her.

“Angel Johansen.” She shook his hand in return.

He smiled a peculiar smile.

Immediately, Angel didn’t like the stranger. He had an eerie air about him. She decided that a stuck-up, snobby, jerk was her immediate impression, and it held throughout the night. Her second impression was that she knew the jerk, but that one she withdrew as she took her leave from his presence.

Danny insisted on checking to make sure she had no scratches on her.

“Don’t. I’m fine. I work on cars, remember? I'm a big girl. I’m fine.”

“Sorry.” Danny apologized sincerely.

“Was there a point in him introducing himself?”

“He was probably just saying ‘No hard feelings.’ Come on, Angel. Let’s go wait for Tony at the finish line.”

In a few minutes, Tony’s car sped around the corner.

“He’s going to win!” Angel jumped excitedly. They cheered Tony across the finish line and he skid to a stop.

Angel ran up to him and greeted her friend with a huge hug. He picked her up and spun her around in his arms as she exclaimed, “You did it!”

Danny walked over and Tony put her down. Danny held out his hand with a huge smile. “Congratulations, man. That’s awesome.”

Tony accepted his hand and shook it with a warm laugh. “Thank you.”

Angel and Danny were pushed away as a crowd bombarded Tony with congratulations. Angel laughed with Danny about the crowd’s enthusiasm as they waved to Tony over the swarm.

They walked back to Angel’s car and sat on the hood for a while, not saying anything, just listening to the roar of the mob. Soon enough, the commotion died down and everyone was getting into their cars and heading home.

Danny sensed the evening coming to an end, but tried to make a bit of conversation before the night was through.

“So Angel, do you like kids?”

Her eyes flashed, but not angrily. She seemed afraid of what he would think of her answer.

 She hesitated for a moment, a sullen look upon her face. Suddenly, her face grew dark as she explained, “I love kids, but I don’t want any of my own. I don’t want to curse them by bringing them into this world and forcing them to put up with all of its evils.”

“There’s a lot of beauty in the world, Angel.”

“Evil outweighs beauty in my world.”

Angel moved toward her door.

Danny stepped in her way.

“You’re beautiful.” He said honestly.

For a moment, Angel paused to look at him. She blinked twice, and then walked around him and opened her car door.

“I don’t take very well to flattery. And if you’re looking for a serious relationship, you’re talking to the wrong girl.” She got into her car and slammed the door.

He rapped on the window with his knuckle and she rolled it down.
            “So I’ll see you at seven tomorrow night?”

“Sharp.” Angel sped away.

Daniel felt like a fifteen year old boy again. With a big goofy smile on his face, Danny strolled to his car, casually got in whistling a happy tune loudly and followed the evacuating crowd.

(Chapter 4 and 5 are coming soon... I hope. )