Sequel: Cleave
Status: Complete

Corrupt Me

Micah

Almost two weeks after Jesse’s birthday party and the subsequent misunderstanding between my boyfriend and me, I was frantically rushing to the jewellers in the shopping mall desperately trying to get there to pick up Angel’s birthday present before the shop closed. I had ordered it the day before and thankfully they were able to do it within 24 hours because otherwise it wouldn’t have been ready in time for his birthday. He had only told me days before that his birthday was coming up because he said that he didn’t see it as a big deal. I was shocked when he said that, and even more shocked when he told me that he hadn’t properly celebrated the day of his birth since he was about thirteen. I wondered aloud if that was because his birthday and Christmas were so close together that he just celebrated the two at once, but he said that he didn’t because he didn’t really celebrate Christmas either. He wanted to drop the subject after telling me that, which I allowed, but I wasn’t going to forget about it entirely. I enlisted the help of Elise and Georgia and planned two separate parts of a birthday surprise for him.

With Georgia, I found and booked a nice restaurant out of town. She kindly offered to drop us off and pick us up, which I gratefully accepted. She was already going to be close to the restaurant because she was going to the theatre with a couple of her artsy friends so she wouldn’t have to go out of her way to help Angel and I get there. I chose a little Italian restaurant called Parmesan because I remembered that Angel once told me that he likes Italian food. Then we decided on what I should get him for a present. It took me a long time but eventually I decided on a piece of jewellery that I got engraved and a photo of the two of us in a nice frame. I couldn’t afford anything too extreme since I don’t have a job but I wanted to get him something nice that I could give to him at the restaurant. I was rushing to pick up the engraved jewellery from the mall because I had spent most of my afternoon after school hanging out with Isabelle, Portia, Lisa and Lachlan. Technically I could have picked the necklace up earlier since we were hanging out at the mall but there would have been questions from my friends if I did that while they were around and I didn’t want to risk them finding out what the engraving says. I also could have picked it up on Saturday but that would have risked my parents wondering why I was going to the mall again when I went the day before and I just couldn't be bothered coming up with a decent lie to tell them. So there I was tearing into the shop at the last minute to pick up the present. The worker wasn't too impressed but let me in anyway. He showed me the engraved necklace and I paid him the full amount minus the deposit I left the day before. The necklace was fairly expensive but I thought it was worth it to spend some of my savings on someone I loved.

The dinner was happening the night before Angel’s birthday because the second part of his surprise was happening on Sunday morning on the actual day of his birth. This was where Elise came in. I had mentioned to Georgia that Angel and I hadn’t done anything sexual since Jesse’s party but that I wanted to as a part of his present and to try and bring it up in an interesting way. Georgia ‘noped’ out as soon as I mentioned sex and brought Elise in instead. I told Elise that Angel had tried to initiate sex a couple of times since the party but I’d turned him down in anticipation for his birthday, not that he knew. She gave me a couple of ideas of how to bring up that I wanted to try again and I was able to pick one pretty easily. It was kind of cheeky and secretive but I knew that he would appreciate it.

---

On Saturday morning, I called Angel bright and early to make sure that he didn’t make any plans for that night, and if he already had plans, to break them. I was joking about that last part because if he already had plans with someone I wouldn’t have made him blow them off. Luckily, he didn’t have any prior commitments, but he wanted to know why I didn’t want him to have any. I mysteriously told him that we were going out in the evening and left it at that. Of course, he questioned me further but I kept my mouth shut, only telling him to get somewhat dressed up (I knew that Parmesan wasn’t an overly fancy restaurant, but it wasn’t McDonald’s either) and to be ready at 7 o’clock because I would be coming to pick him up then. He was in the process of informing me that I can’t drive when I interrupted with “gotta go, bye, see you tonight” and hung up. If I stayed on the phone with him any longer, I probably would have ended up telling him where we were going.

I spent most of my day relaxing and doing a bit of homework that I’d been assigned on Friday. I also wrapped the present for Angel and wrote him a card.

At six, I decided to start getting ready for the evening. I had a shower and washed my hair. I dried and straightened my hair while wrapped only in a towel and then got dressed in a nice pair of skinny jeans and a button down shirt, which I left untucked. I even went as far as borrowing a squirt of my dad’s cologne, and, once I had put my shoes on, I deemed myself ready. By that time, it was nearly time to pick Angel up. I did one last check of myself in the mirror and made sure I had all of his present tucked into the inside pocket of the jacket I slipped on, as well as my wallet and phone, then I went and knocked on Georgia’s bedroom door. She opened it moments later dressed in jeans, a plain white t-shirt and holding a jacket over her arm.
“Ready to go?” she asked. I nodded. “Mom! Dad! Micah and I are going now!” she yelled to the whole house. My sister sure has a set of lungs on her.
“Okay, have fun, you two!” Mom called from the family room. We had told her that I was going to be at the theatre with Georgia and her friends so that there wouldn’t be any questions about why I wanted to go to a restaurant out of town with an unknown someone.

Before I knew it, I was sitting in the front seat of Georgia’s car and we were pulling up to Angel’s house. Georgia knew where it was because she dropped me off there that one time when we were supposed to be working on our assignment and Angel kissed me the first time. I wasn’t sure if I should let Georgia beep the horn or if I should go to the door like a gentleman, but thankfully I didn’t have to make that decision because a few seconds after we parked, the front door opened and out stepped Angel. He looked very handsome in similar attire to what I was wearing, except he was wearing his button down shirt open over a plain black t-shirt and the sleeves rolled up. A black jacket was slung over his arm. I got out of the car after a nudge from my sister and opened the back door for him as he approached. He grinned at me, clearly amused by me trying to be a gentleman. I returned the smile. I was surprised when, instead of just shuffling past me to get in the car, Angel wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. I went bright red, knowing that Georgia was so close by, but thankfully it was only a simple kiss and he pulled away a second later, smiling triumphantly as he did so, and then got in the car. I followed suit, praying that Georgia wouldn’t say anything, which luckily, she didn’t.

The drive took about half an hour. The radio was on quietly and the three of us sat listening to the music in silence. Angel held my hand the whole way. He rubbed his thumb on my hand as well. It was really sweet. We kept on glancing at each other as well, smiling when our eyes made contact and making my heart flutter. At one point, a One Direction song came on the radio and I think I visibly started to mouth the words, because Angel started laughing under his breath. I was confused at first, until I realised I was doing it and stopped abruptly, embarrassed. I looked out the window the rest of the way, hoping that Angel wouldn’t bring it up.

Before long, Georgia pulled up outside the restaurant and told me to text her when we were ready to come home. If we were finished eating before her play was finished we would just walk around the town for a while until she was ready.

Angel and I got out of the car and headed into the restaurant. It was quite small and cosy and smelt like pasta sauce and garlic. It was dimly lit; most of the light came from the candles sitting on the tables, which were covered in the typical red and white checked tablecloths you see a lot in Italian restaurants. There was a statue of a fat Italian man holding a pizza right near the front counter. It was all very stereotypical but I thought it was nice.

After a few moments of the two of us standing at the counter, a black-dressed waiter came over to serve us.
“Hi, how can I help you?” he said.
“I have a booking for two. Micah?” I replied, and the waiter busied himself by looking in the appointment book in front of him.
“Okay, come with me,” he said, gesturing towards the tables with his hand. He led us to a table in a corner of the restaurant and placed menus in the spaces between the cutlery. I thanked him and he left us to seat ourselves.

Once Angel and I were seated, we picked up the menus and scanned them. It was the typical kind of food you would expect from an Italian restaurant. We were quiet for a little while as we read the menus. I was tossing up between a pizza or a chicken parmigiana with French fries and a salad.
“Anything caught your eye?” I asked, still reading the menu.
“Mhm,” Angel replied. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so I looked up. He was staring at me with a half smirk on his face.
“I meant on the menu, Angel,” I said dryly, trying to hide my smile.
“Oh. Well in that case, not yet.”
I rolled my eyes. He can be so corny sometimes.

We were soon interrupted by a waitress, who introduced herself as Alice. She had red hair, enormous boobs and seemingly an immense interest in my boyfriend. When she took our order, Angel’s face practically ended up buried in her cleavage. He looked extremely uncomfortable, not that she noticed that. She barely acknowledged my existence aside from when I told her that I wanted the parmigiana and a Coke, but looked at Angel like he said the most riveting thing when he ordered a pasta carbonara, with garlic bread on the side, and lemonade.
She eventually bustled off and Angel let out a huge sigh of relief.

“God, I thought she’d never leave,” he said.
“Yeah I know. I’m surprised she didn’t just drag you out to the bathrooms and have her way with you,” I replied, grunting at the end.
“Are you jealous, baby?” he asked with a smirk.
“Not at all.” He knew I was lying.
“Sure, sure. By the way, I forgot to tell you when you came to pick me up, you dropped something.”
“What?” I cocked my head, trying to figure out what I could have dropped at his house that wasn’t important enough to be told about until now.
“My jaw.”
“Oh, my God. You’re so lame,” I said, laughing nonetheless. He shrugged, as if that was common knowledge.

“Okay, I have a lemonade and a Coke!” Alice’s nasally voice came from beside the table. She was clearly only talking to Angel.
“The lemonade’s here, thanks,” Angel said evenly.
Alice set the Coke down in front of me without even looking in my direction, slopping a little bit over the side of the glass.
“Here you go! If you need anything else, you just let me know, okay babe,” she said to Angel as she carefully placed his glass of lemonade in front of him and sticking her boobs in his face again. He pointedly looked away. It didn’t seem to faze her. She left us alone again. I huffed quietly in my seat, but Angel heard me. He chuckled.

“Her tits are fake, you know,” he said conversationally, as if this was a normal topic to discuss at the dinner table.
“How the hell do you know that?” I asked, too curious to pout about the attention she was giving him. I knew that he was not even a tiny bit interested in her but I still didn’t like it.
“Too round. Too even.” He shrugged.
“Oh.”
He smiled at me. “Look at you being all jealous. It’s cute. Makes a nice change, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Usually it’s me who’s jealous. Surely you know why I was such a dick to Isabelle.”
“Oh, uh yeah. I guess,” I replied, blushing a little. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, so I think you know why we came here?”
“Because you love me and you know I love Italian food and wanted to spoil me?”
“Well, yes, but um, it’s also for your birthday. I know you said you don’t celebrate it much but I wanted to do something nice for you.”
His face softened and he let a small smile grace his face. “Thank you, baby. That really means a lot,” he said, leaning across the table, obviously looking for a kiss.
Just as I started to lean in as well, we were interrupted by our meals arriving. Thankfully it wasn’t just Alice this time so she couldn’t smother Angel with her fake boobs with the other waiter around.

We dug into our food. And quite honestly, it was delicious. We were quiet for a good five minutes, just munching on our meals.
“This is so good,” Angel said around a mouthful of pasta. “Do you want to try some?”
I nodded, and he twisted some pasta on his fork. I cut off a bit of my chicken, making sure to get a piece with plenty of cheese and sauce on it. We swapped forks and tried each other’s food. He was right, the carbonara was really good. He liked mine too.

“Mm I nearly forgot,” Angel mumbled, swallowing a huge mouthful of pasta a few minutes later. “Don’t think I didn’t see you singing along to One Direction in the car.”
I coughed, turning bright red. “Oh God. I forgot that I do that. I don’t usually listen to them.”
“Sure seemed like you knew the words,” he said, teasingly.
“Shut up, it’s on like every radio station about twenty times a day.” I scowled at him.
“It’s fine, babe. Besides, they’re not that bad. One of them is pretty hot.”
“Which one?” I asked curiously, although having to admit to myself that I didn’t know which one is which.
“I dunno. One of them. It doesn’t matter,” he said, grinning. He could probably sense the jealousy radiating off of me again. “You’re better looking than any of them, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
I wasn’t as sure about that as he was but I let it go as we finished off our meals.

Too soon, Alice was back to clear our plates away. She asked Angel if he wanted dessert menus. He pointedly asked me if we were having dessert, which I affirmed. She left for a few seconds before returning, bringing the menus with her.

After looking over it, there seemed to be only one option for me. Death by chocolate was the by far the best sounding dessert on the menu.
“Well… I know what I want,” Angel said.
“Yeah?”
“Death by chocolate. Hands down.”
“That’s what I want too,” I said. “Do you want any coffee?”
“Nah, I’m good. Might just get some water though.”
I nodded as Alice returned. “What would we like babe?” she asked Angel. He rolled his eyes.
“Two death by chocolates and some water,” he said abruptly.
She smiled. “Sure thing!”

The water came to the table first and, after Angel took a sip, he began to cough. My eyes widened, wondering if he needed me to come and pat him on the back or not.
“Fuck. I’m choking. I’m gonna need mouth to mouth. Quick!” he said in a weak voice once he stopped coughing so violently, leaning across the table with his lips pouted.
I didn’t hesitate to meet his lips this time. We held the kiss for a few seconds until there was a throat clearing noise beside us. Alice was standing there holding two chocolatey desserts and looking like she wanted to throw them. Angel coughed a couple more times. Clearly my CPR skills needed some work.

“Two death by chocolates?” Alice asked, placing them on the table in front of us before we could even reply and flouncing off. I’m not sure why, but we both got the giggles at that. It was a few minutes before we could calm down enough to start eating our desserts, which were delicious.

Once we were finished eating, both of us felt completely stuffed. Angel was going to get the waiter (Alice was nowhere to be seen at that point in time) to bring us the bill, but I stopped him. I still had to give him his birthday presents after all.
When I pulled the wrapped gifts out of my jacket pocket, his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Um… Happy birthday Angel,” I said awkwardly as I presented the gifts to him. I was nervous. What if he didn’t like it?
“Thank you,” he mumbled as he began to unwrap the largest one, which was the photo in the frame.

Once he got the paper off and turned it over, he smiled widely. It was just a photo of us goofing around one time at his place when we were meant to be working on our assignment. We had stupid smiles on our faces and I was half sitting on his lap and half on his bed, as he’d pushed me off him moments before he took the photo.
“I love this photo,” he said, smiling.
“I know,” I replied. “This one next,” I said, pointing at the box containing the necklace.

He gingerly opened up the lid and saw the silver dog tag necklace nestled inside. It had two plates, both of which I had got engraved. He lifted the necklace out of its box to read the engravings. The top one read ‘Happy Birthday Angel. Love M-J-G’. It was short and sweet, but it was the second plate that meant the most to me. It read ‘The world changed when I met you’ and I included a date on the bottom.

“Oh, my God, Micah,” Angel whispered after he moved on to read the second plate.
“Do you like it?” I asked nervously.
“I love it. Micah, this is – fuck, amazing. I love you so much. Thank you,” he said softly. “The date… was that the first day of school?”
“Yes. It was the first day we met.”
“You’re amazing.”
“I know,” I joked. He grinned. “I love you too, by the way.”
“Good,” he said and leaned close to me again. I gave him a quick peck on the lips before pulling away. He pouted.
“You still have a card to look at.”
“Can’t I look at it later? I’d rather be looking at your naked body right now.”
“We are in a restaurant. Open the card,” I said, making it look as though I was being deadly serious.

He sighed playfully and pulled the card towards him. He lifted the flap and removed the card. Upon opening it, a smaller envelope fell out, which he snatched up immediately. He looked at the front, where I had written ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 8 AM ON YOUR BIRTHDAY’ in very large bold letters. This was the part that Elise had helped me with planning. Angel looked confused, but put down the small envelope and read the card. I’m pretty useless when it comes to writing interesting things on cards so it was pretty generic. Hopefully the presents made up for the crappy card writing skills.
He looked up at me with adoration in his eyes. “Thank you, Micah, so much. This has been the best birthday in such a long time. I love the presents.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Now, let’s get this bill.”

I tried to wave over Alice, who I guess had gone blind in her short absence, as she was ignoring me, so eventually the male waiter came over instead. I quickly asked for the bill and he left to go and get it. I insisted on paying for everything since it was my idea. Angel wasn’t happy about that, but tough luck.

Once I paid the bill and Angel and I started to leave the restaurant, Alice suddenly found her “charm” again and offered Angel her phone number. I stood there fuming. How many times did it have to take for her to get that Angel wasn’t interested in her through her thick head?
“You know, Alice,” Angel began nicely, and I wondered where he was about to go with that. “I actually thought I was gay until I met you.”
Her face lit up while mine dropped in confusion.
“So, do you want t –,” she began excitedly.
“Now I know for sure. I’m a flaming homo,” Angel finished. He wrapped an arm around my waist and rested his other hand on my cheek, gently pushing my face towards his until our lips connected. He pulled away a second later. “You can keep your phone number for someone who doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

With that, I let him pull me out of the restaurant, laughing hysterically once we were out on the street again.

I hadn’t been on many dates before this one (read that as ‘I haven’t been on any dates’) but I would have to say that this was definitely one of the best I would ever experience.
♠ ♠ ♠
I personally really like this chapter. How about you?

There will be three or so chapters left of this story. I have a sequel planned and I also plan on getting back into my other story 'Fat'.
So make sure you comment a lot until this is over otherwise I'll be leaving this story on a cliffhanger for ages :P (not actually joking, spoiler alert)

Thank you so much to:
inhibitions
megzor
Kacen Shea
sindie.
rawrritsjess
Josh Cutlip.

for commenting on the last chapter. Please keep them coming!!!
Also thank you readers, subscribers and those who recommended. Love you!