Quite tame kissing in this chapter, just to try and get into the swing of things.

"So I've got one definite crease on my wrist and the line that Jack said was my life line is really short," Angela frowned tracing her palm with her finger. They had finished the pizza muffins and chocolate milk they had made and now they were lying on Angela's bed in her small room. "So I'm going to have one child and die pretty early. That's morbid."
"That's not actually true, Angel," Patrick teased. "Palm-reading."
"Says Mr Psychic," Angela teased back. "You might have to resort to it. You can't be boy wonder when you're twenty. Or we could practise reading tea-leaves. The boys left all their cups for me to wash as usual. Though I'd much rather you do something honest…"

"I have thought about it," Patrick said. "About what I'm going to do. I'm pretty good at…connecting with ghosts."
"Ghosts?" Angela said sceptically, propping herself up.
"Not real ghosts," Patrick emphasised. "Not even really ghosts. More or less, I'm pretty good at reading people who've lost loves ones and…telling them what they want to hear."
Angela was quiet for a long time. "That doesn't sound like a very good idea, Patrick."
"No, it's not bad, Angie," he turned to look at her. "I tried it today. You should've seen her face. She was so…at peace. Happy."
Angela bit her lip and looked at her ceiling.
"Stop worrying," he said and she turned to him with a fair amount of trust in her eyes. Then she went to have her shower and he was alone in her room. He had been in there many times before but this was the first time he looked at it without his eyes otherwise distracted by a certain seventeen year old.

It was a bigger than his own room but her bed was smaller and covered in a colourful patchwork quilt that Sam and the other ladies had sewn her for her sixteenth birthday to brighten up her room. Jonathan had twined pretty fairy lights around her bed and curtains at some point making the room glow. It wasn't Angela's taste but Patrick assumed she had kept them up to indulge her father. The clutter on the floor, however was definitely all Angela. Overflowing books placed in precarious towers, maps of the world, photographs old and new and the clutter of scribble composition papers over her keyboard on the desk made the relatively neat room look more like a teenager lived in there. She would play for him sometimes on her keyboard and he loved the sound. Her father was teaching her how to play piano and write her own music. There were a lot of photos on her wall. A few family pictures, Jack and Angela dressing up in lipstick and high heels when they were five and then the both of them when they were fifteen, Pete and Sam at their wedding and some of Patrick and herself.

Before he could look more closely at them, she came back in drying her long wet hair with a towel.
"Whoa," he gasped at her.
"What?"
Her petite upper body was hidden by a white mens business shirt with the buttons done all the way up and it came down three inches above her knee, barely appropriating the acceptable amount of material required for a nightgown.
"I..urh..um."
"I'm not going to seduce you in nothing but a formal shirt, Patrick," Angela told him. "I have more originality than that."
"Is…is that mine?"
"Oh, it is," she turned pink. "You left it here and it's pretty much the only thing that fits me now."
If this outfit was the most decent, fitting night garment she could find he would've hated to see what her actual ones looked like on her. No, actually. He would've loved to see what they looked like on her.
"I hope you don't mind… I could probably find something of Dad's that fit's me…"
"No, I..no," Patrick managed to get out. "It, urh, looks better on you anyway." Fantasising about her on his lonelier nights would be a lot easier now his fantasies were becoming realities.

She smiled at him and threw her towel over her desk chair letting her damp soft curls hang loose at her waist. She took out a cassette tape from the desk drawer and put it into her radio. Patrick was used to this. Angela loved music. She had several cassettes that Jack usually updated for her with music that was to her taste or tapes they found at second hand stores when they managed a trip into the local town of whatever place they were set up.

Angela lay back down next to him and he could smell her intoxicating soap and shampoo.
"I talk to my mother," she said quietly. "Is that strange?"
"No," Patrick said softly. She never spoke about her mother. "That's not strange."
"So I guess I don't need to be institutionalised until she starts talking back," Angela joked and Patrick's heart broke a little for her. "What do you talk to her about?"
"All sorts of things. Dad and Danny, my dreams, what I'm afraid of…and you," she smiled ruffling his hair. "I really wish she knew about you."
"I don't know, depends on what you've told her about me," Patrick smiled. "The title of irresponsible best friend that's going to deflower her only daughter probably wouldn't win me too many points."

She burst into sweet laughter, throwing her arms behind her hand making her shirt ride dangerously up her thigh.

"Patrick," she said a little more seriously. "I've been thinking about that. What we planned to do."
"Yeah?"
"I'm not sure anymore whether it's the right thing to do."
He felt his heart in his throat. "Why did you think that?"
"I don't want you to think it means something it doesn't."
Here it comes, he thought. She was about to tell him not to fall in love with her or think that them sleeping together meant that there was not any romantic attachment whatsoever.
She continued while he prepared his heart for the next blow.

"I mean, I didn't explain it very well. I guess you think now I want to use you because I want to have sex but it's not that exactly…"
"'Use' is a harsh word, Angel," Patrick said, glad the conversation had turned into something other then what he originally thought. "I know that's not your intention but I don't mind. You told me why you don't want to be a virgin anymore. I guess I'm your only choice if you seriously don't want to keep it for much longer."
"No," Angela sighed looking away from him. "I wasn't…completely honest or explanatory with that. Of course, I want to have sex like any other teenager but my virginity isn't….a priority or a deadline. It really didn't have much to do with the being a virgin. It was mainly with who I…it's too embarrassing."
"You can't start and then not tell me," Patrick smiled and poked her but she didn't move. He hit her with a pillow and she looked positively offended. "You deserved that."
She wacked him back and it continued until one of them tore and white feathers whooshed across the room propelled by the pedestal fan that was on due to the heat. They both collapsed into laughter at the ginormous mess they'd made. Her favourite song started playing on her cassette tape. It was 'Asleep' by The Smiths. Patrick knew it well.
"Tell me," he whinged.
"Urgh, fine I just…" she groaned and buried her face into a surviving pillow so her voice was only just audible but very fast. "I don't know much about sex or what it is like the first time. I would die of embarrassment if I asked Dad. The only people that have told me about theirs are you, Jack and Sam and it seems all three of you had horrible experiences. So I've tried to understand more from reading my books and unfortunately those are set in the early nineteen hundreds and all the other ones end the same clichéd heart breaking way and I just…I just want this to be one of the few things that will turn out nice and I won't be a regular person who regrets it. I want to be happy and remember it with fondness and not wanting to change anything. Oh, it sounds so ridiculous and girly and stupid when I say it out loud."
She finally stopped for a breath.

"I don't care that much about being a virgin but I want to enjoy and remember my first time and the only instance I can think of where it would be absolutely perfect is if it was with you. You are my best friend and I absolutely positively love you and I know I always will no matter who we end up being with and marrying and I trust you so much and I know you would never hurt me so I could never regret sleeping with you. I just don't want you to think I'm using you for sex because you're my only option and I just want to get it over with. Honestly, having sex doesn't have all that much appeal to me but having sex with you is different because I know it's the only circumstance where I'll be truly happy and it sounds really selfish, I know. I don't want you to do it unless you want to and I definitely don't want you to resent me afterwards because I'm like all those women that used you so I'd much rather not do this and have you as you are then the other way around."

She stopped talking for a whole minute and Patrick took a while to process all of the information.
"I didn't know that," he said stunned. He assumed the main reasons that she picked him was because they were friends and he was experienced and she wanted to get it done with quickly. This was more than what he could've hoped and dreamed for. Patrick knew she was talking about platonic love again but it didn't matter. The fact that she didn't want sex, she specifically wanted him was more than his mind could comprehend so he just sat there in stunned silence.

"I just want to know that you're okay with it," Angela said. "I guess I thought it worked out well because like I said the other night, you won't get attached to me or feel any obligation to me afterwards. It's just sex to you."

"No, it isn't," Patrick finally worked up the words to talk to her and rolled her over to her side so he could finally see her face which was pink with embarrassment. It was hard to take him seriously when he had so many feathers lodged in his hair. "Don't ever compare this to what happened to me when I was younger. This is so different and incomparable and…indescribable. This is you. It won't be just sex," he really hoped she didn't pick up on what he really meant by saying that. "I want it to be perfect for you. For the both of us. I just wish I could help make it as perfect as possible."

"Okay...well...," Angela trailed off thoughtfully laying on her back. "Maybe we should just ease into it? So it's not as uncomfortable and awkward."
Loosening the physical boundaries was definitely an idea he was for. He still couldn't believe he was lying next to Angela Ruskin, the girl of his dreams who wanted to have sex with him and that in a way, she loved him too. It was all too much. Patrick tried to take in all her small details just to confirm he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating.

He touched the tip of a still damp lock of hair, fanned out over her head and it seemed real. Patrick focused on her face…the sparkle in her blue eyes, her soft porcelain skin laced with her blush from the current topic. Angela below him was still ranting on about ways that they could feel more comfortable with each other, trying to ignore the white bits of fluff that kept cascading around her like snow. Patrick honestly thought that she was the closest thing to an angel on the Earth and he had no words for her as he picked bits of fluff and feather from her hair.

"I mean, I don't know about-" Angela babbled on until she was interrupted by Patrick pressing his lips against her own. Her lips were soft and silky and warm and tasted better than he imagined. She got over her initial surprise in a matter of seconds and responded to him in the most delightful of ways, pulling him closer and deepening their kiss. Their lips moved against each others like puzzle pieces and it feels like years and he pushed her deeper in to her pillow.

He gently traced her bottom lip with his tongue and one of his hands stopped softly gripping her hair to slide up her legs and underneath the obtrusive shirt to her delicate waist to pull her small perfect body into the shape of his own, pouring a year of unrequited love into one kiss. The other held her face steady while his thumb stroked across her closed eyelid. The feeling of her body, her lips, her precious heartbeat and the general feel of her underneath him made him softly moan her name into their kisses. He had never been more aware of all his senses.

Patrick was unsure if he had passed out or he had done something wrong to her but he felt her warm body disappear suddenly as she threw him off the bed in a matter of milliseconds.
He landed on his side of the carpet just in time to hear her greet her father.

"Hi Daddy," she said breathlessly like she had ran a marathon as her father's head appeared around the door. "What are you doing back at this time of night?"
"Hi sweetie. It was pretty fun until Danny got into some poison ivy. His rash has gotten a little better since we came back and put some cream on it."
"Oh," she tried to smile or find the oxygen to say something. Patrick stayed between her window and bed trying to recover from a kiss that was more exhilarating then all his sexual encounters put together. Jonathan Ruskin was not a stupid man. He was a young man of thirty four but far from stupid or naïve.

His daughters lips were swollen, her hair messy, she was wearing nothing but a shirt and boyleg short underwear with her blanket tangled around her legs. Not to mention she was concentrating on her breathing. He noticed how sparkly her eyes were and how the hint of a smile was on her swollen lips and couldn't remember how long it had been since she had looked that happy and glowing. Regardless, he seemed to have intervened at just the right time. She was his seventeen year old daughter after all.

"I'm glad you're okay," Jonathan smiled at her. "Goodnight Evangeline."
"Goodnight Dad."
"Goodnight Patrick."
"Bye Jonathan," Patrick said automatically before clapping his hand over his mouth and Jonathan closed her door, chuckling slightly.