If There's Another Life

Chapter 3: Calm before the storm

“What's up, ladies? Enjoying the party?” Whitney and Celine froze and turned to look behind them.

“You know what, yeah maybe I was until someone decided to walk up to us and ruin it.” Celine replied, with gritted teeth.

“Celine, I see your hate for me hasn't diminished one bit,” Damian said and curved his lips slightly.

*Damian’s POV*

Then it happened

For a split second a bright blue light shone over her, complementing her skin so much.

She looked like a siren calling out to unknown sailors in the sea.

Suddenly I saw her dress in full light and only one thought came to my mind, “No one else is allowed to see her like this.”

—

“Oh, I'm sorry. It's a good thing you noticed the obvious” She rolled her eyes and turned back to her drink. Whitney shrugged too and turned back too, not of course after toasting him a drink.

Damian discreetly sent a piece of his button from his shirt, towards a little space under her chair and walked back smiling.

“3,2,1…” He counted down in his mind.

At the very end of his countdown, Whitney suddenly tilted and hit Celine right when she was about to have her second drink, causing it to spill all over her clothes.

“Oh my goodness, what have I done? I'm so sorry Celine, I don't know what came over me.” Visibly distressed because the drink had ruined Celine's dress.

“It's ok, I can just change into another outfit. I have a closet in my personal room here.” trying to calm Whitney.

—

*Celine's POV*

I suddenly caught the sight of a button on the floor and pieced up some strings of action together.

I realized something wasn't quite right, so I turned towards Damien's direction, just in time to see him raising his glass towards me, smirking and giving me a knowing smile.

—

“Ughh, I hate this guy, I'm gonna kill him.” Celine trembled in anger.

“Who are you gonna kill?” Whitney turned to ask her.

“Damien, he did this” She showed her the button.

“Ok Celine, this doesn't prove anything; it's just in your head, alright?” Whitney gave her a light pat on the back and escorted her to her personal room, but then she gets a call and leaves to answer it.

Meanwhile, Celine went in and changed into a Jumpsuit. She had just stepped out when she bumped into Nathaniel and Bella.

“Hi, pumpkin.” Nate steps forward to hug her while hiding his visible disgust.

“Nate, you haven't been texting me since what happened?” Celine said and looked up to him, not noticing the black expression on Bella's face.

“Oh, Sister, why would you ask the obvious? He's obviously been busy preparing for the wedding.” Said Bella mischievously.

Celine pressed her nails into her palm to force a smile.

“Yeah, that's true, let's go.”She then grabbed Nate and walked into the party, where some friends and college classmates were already waiting for them.

—-

Damien stared coldly at the couple walking in together, trying so hard not to lose control and yank Nathaniel's filthy hand off Celine.

The couple proceeded to sit at the head of the round table where the others were already seated.

Bella, unhappy with their closeness, then came up with a plan that would make her and Nate sit close to each other.

“Since it's such a joyous occasion, why don't we play a game, guys?”Bella said, smiling innocently at everyone.

“Yes, yes, that's a great idea, it's getting quite boring.” The crowd echoed.

“Let's play two truths and one lie. And… to spice it up a little bit, how about shuffling everybody. What do you guys think?” Bella turned to face everyone.

“Nice, yeah, let's do it,” everyone echoed.

Bella then clapped, and two people brought a box.

“Alright, the rules are as follows, you simply dip your hand inside the box and anyone with the same letter gets paired. Do you guys understand?”

“Yes.”

As planned, Bella got paired with Nate, she didn't forget to act all surprised, but wait, she didn't end it there, it turned out she also rigged it to make Celine get paired with Damien.

Then Whitney got paired with Ray, who had apparently been waiting in the dark earlier.

Brenda got paired with Sky, Allison got paired with Scott until everyone had a partner.

Celine could not believe her luck.

“Great, of all the people present, I just had to get paired with this psycho.” She tried to shrug it off as much as possible while still retaining her sanity.

Damien leaned in a bit and said to her in a way that only she would hear him.

“Well, well, well, would you look at that! What are the odds that little Red Riding Hood would get paired with the big bad wolf?” He chuckled to himself and sat back to watch the show.

“Who wants to go first? No one? Then I'll go first.” Bella said and quickly replied before anyone else could interject.

“I love dancing, I love Nathaniel and I love my sister” She beamed and squinted her eyes playfully.

“That's easy, you love dancing, you love me, 2 truths and you don't love Nathaniel that makes one lie” Celine answered, not thinking much of it, so does the crowd, because they all nodded their heads in agreement.

But Whitney didn't agree, rather she stared at Bella and Nathaniel suspiciously, looking concerned.

“That's absolutely correct.” Bella giggled, “Oh Celine you couldn't be any more wrong.” She thought.

“Alright, who's next? Whitney, why don't you go next?”Bella said, smiling at her.

“Oh really? I dislike your fake smile, your white lotus behaviour and I love your personality. What do you think? Which is true and which is a lie?” Whitney replied, squinting her eyes while smiling.

She turned and saw Bella feigning tears, and then she received a lot of looks of disapproval from the crowd, to which she snorted and began playing with her phone, totally ignoring everyone, acting as if she had not uttered those words, seconds ago.

A cold voice rang out.

“You dislike her fake smile, and her white lotus behaviour, that's two truths and you love her personality which is one lie.” causing Bella to freeze in disbelief midway her crying performance.

“Hiss.” Everyone sucked in a breath of cold air, turning around to see who actually had the guts to answer that question. When they discovered it was Damien, they all said nothing, ready to watch the show.

“You see, someone who gets it,” Whitney laughed and threw him a look of appreciation in his direction.

Which of course got a look of disapproval from Celine, but she couldn't care less because she had had enough of Bella's stupid performance.

“I don't know what I did wrong to you, Whitney, but whatever it is, I can apologize.” Bella said and bowed her head down, looking very aggrieved,

“Urghh, here we go again with the drama.” Whitney groaned in frustration.