Blind Love Ch. 03

The blaring music deafened Daniel, leaving him feeling slightly adrift without the aid of his hearing to get his bearings. He wondered why he had decided to come in the first place, and then he remembered: Sophie. It didn't matter that she currently seemed to hate him, something about Mike's attention towards her made him feel uneasy, and he felt an overwhelming urge to protect her.

Yeah, like my good intentions have paid off, he grumbled to himself. Tom had vanished off with some chick to one of the numerous bedrooms upstairs, and Sophie was probably with Mike. Still, the evening wasn't a total waste - several girls had flirted with him, and even if he wasn't genuinely interested, he had to admit it gave him a nice ego boost.

Feeling useless and somewhat stupid standing around doing nothing, Daniel decided to make his way to the kitchen to get a drink. Asking someone the way, he found the wall and began to follow it out into the entrance hall, and then walked straight until he found the kitchen table. Someone offered to pour for him, and drink in hand, he headed back out, when he heard a familiar voice coming from a side room. It was Mike, and from the sound of things, he was surrouned by his usual posse of idiots.

Daniel continued on, determined to ignore his rival when he heard Sophie's name mentioned. He paused, curious about what Mike had to say.

"Dude, nice work, scoring with Sophie. She's smoking," came the congratulatory tone of one of Mike's buddies.

"Yeah man! I mean, that tight little ass in that miniskirt of hers, those legs, those tits..." added another.

"Promise me you're gonna nail that," came a third.

Daniel felt his stomach tighten. How dare those bastards talk about Sophie like she was some piece of meat.

It didn't surprise him though. After all, he couldn't honestly say he expected more from these guys. Then came Mike's reply:

"Totally dude. I mean, she's only the hottest little pricktease in the school, but I'm going to cure her of that. I bet she'll give it up easily too, you should see the way she looks at me, it's like she's begging for it."

He laughed, a lecherous, arrogant laugh, and his cronies followed suit.

Daniel couldn't stand it anymore. His rage had reached immense proportions, and he longed to barge in and deliver a stunning knockout blow straight to Mike's smug face. As tempting as the idea seemed, he thought the better of it - one blind guy versus a group of buff but brainless guys probably wouldn't end well for him.

Regardless, he couldn't do nothing about what he had just heard, especially since it confirmed his worst fears about Mike. The thought of him defiling Sophie made Daniel physically sick. He didn't want to disturb Tom, so he decided to do the next best thing: go straight to Sophie, and tell her everything he had just heard. Surely then she would see why she shouldn't be with Mike, even if she wouldn't consider being with him.

He hurried off, wondering how he would find Sophie in this strange and disconcerting environment, when suddenly a smaller, female figure crashed into him. He put his arms around her waist to steady both of them, breathing in the scent of this stranger and realized that his prayers had been answered. His body responded instantaneously to the knowledge that the girl currently pressed tightly up against him was in fact Sophie.

He sensed her take a step back, and he waited for her to say something. She struggled to find the right words, momentarily stunned by how good it felt being held against Daniel's surprisingly firm chest.

"Oh Daniel, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there, I was trying to find Mike," she stammered.

Daniel knew then that no matter what she said, she had definitely felt the chemistry too. The thought emboldened him.

"Actually, Soph, I wanted to talk to you about something. Something important."

"Does it have to be now?" she asked, exasperated.

"Yes," he replied firmly. "Now come on, let's find somewhere quiet to talk."

"Fine," sighed Sophie in resignation, as she lead them to a guest room.

"Sit," she ordered.

She did not like the fact that the room offered no other seating than a plush, four-poster bed, but at least Daniel didn't know that. Except he did. He sat down as told, and then bounced lightly up and down.

"Soph," he asked, his voice slightly amused, "are we sitting on a bed?"

She swore softly under her breath.

"Look, what did you want to talk about?"

The sooner she got out of this bedroom, off this bed with Daniel sitting dangerously close to her, the better.

"Ok. So, right before we ran into each other, I...I heard something."

"What?" She sounded impatient.

Better to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"I know I shouldn't have been listening, but well, Mike's friends...they were talking about you, and they were discussing you, like you were some, some trashy piece of meat." His voice had risen, and gotten steadily more indignant.

"That's what was so important?" she sounded incredulous. "God Daniel, between you and Tom, I don't know who's worse. So what? Guys talk about me, deal with it." She stood up.

"No Sophie, you don't understand, that's not it. Please, sit down," Dnaiel pleaded.

The look of earnest concern on his face melted Sophie's heart a little, and she relented, sitting back down next to him.

"Ok, what was it?" Her tone had softened ever so slightly.

"Well, one of them told Mike he hoped Mike would "nail you," and Mike called you a pricktease, and said that you were practically begging for it, and that he would be the one to "cure you." Soph, you have to stay away from this guy, he's bad news."

There, he'd said it. Surely now she would see reason, thank him for saving her from a big mistake, and everything would be fine. Which is why her reply caught him completely off guard.

"You have some nerve! Just because you don't like Mike, you go making up some bullshit excuse to convince me what a bad guy he is. Go to hell!"

With that, she stormed out of the room, leaving Daniel feeling utterly dejected yet again. How could this have backfired so badly on him? How could she not see how completely wrong Mike was in every way? That she deserved so much better?

Still, he wouldn't gain anything from continuing to feel pathetic, so he headed back out. Only to run straight into Mike and Sophie, and judging from the appreciative grunts emitted by Mike, they were probably grinding.

He couldn't bear the thought of Mike running his hands all over Sophie, and so when Stacey, one of the girls from earlier sought him out again, he decided to drown his sorrows in some mindless grinding of his own. Sophie watched them, surprised at how upset it made her to see Daniel groping Stacey, whom Sophie looked down upon as a blonde bimbo, but her hurt made her more determined than ever to enjoy the fact that she had finally snagged Mike's attention.