DISCLAIMER: The first version of 'NMW' was out in May and IS all MINE. However, the characters of the BTVS-adapted one and of this sequel are all Joss'. Yeah, I truly pity them, too.
DISTRIBUTION: Well, if you really want this who am I to dissuade you? Just tell me where it is going.
SUMMARY: When getting the guy of your dreams isn't as easy as you first thought...
AN: This is for all the people who asked for a sequel. You can't believe how happy you made me. Hope you'll enjoy this one. Oh! And for all the Riley-, Kate-haters out there I've added some bashing here. Nothing serious, though. I'm sorry.
RATING: PG13... if even that...
FEEDBACK: PLEASE!! Do I need to beg??? I promise to answer you.

Today I wanna play.
So come here. Let's have some fun.
Are you scared? Worried maybe?
I promise I'll be a good girl.
Have I ever lied to you?

You know well who I am:
Your little friend, the nicest one.
Now you'll only have to guess
why am I here, looking for fun.

Don't be so shy, I know you aren't
Don't say a word; it has no use.
I wanna kiss you, have fun together
I wanna play and be with you.
-ME-

You know? Some things are easier said than done... You remember me saying that I was going to get my guy tonight? I meant it. I really did. I just hadn't counted with the jelly-like kidneys and sweating hands and the fact that he is not alone... Not good.

Sigh.

He is over there. Dressed in those tight leather pants that would make me drool if I wasn't so accustomed to the view and well, if you are the one to tell a guy to buy leather pants and actually go shopping for them with him... where's the fun? In seeing him model pair after pair of black, nice, *tight* pants, of course! Let's say that it was a yummy experience. So maybe I wasn't in love with him at the time but I had eyes, didn't I? And they saw pretty, yummy things that afternoon... Maybe we should go into another shopping spree. I just know that he is in need of a bathing suit... and so I am. Oops, I'm digressing. Sorry, I always end up doing that.

So he is over there. Talking with some of his friends and with a stunning blonde at his side. I am blonde too, you know? Well, ok, I am not. But anybody who didn't know that little detail wouldn't be the wiser... and it is not as if his new companion were a real blonde, either. At least I know that my roots don't show... Doyle is the one to see me first. He has been friends with Angel for some months by now. I truly like that guy; he is nice, sweet and deserves far more than Cordelia Chase. But love is blind, I guess. Just as blind as my best friend is being right now.

So Doyle is waving at me and then I'm walking towards this small group of fraternity-boys with nothing in their brains but the best way to screw the easiest girl in the room. Not me, of course. They all know that Angel would have their heads if they did as much as touching me without my consent or me being completely sober... Angel has always been a little over-protective. A reason more to love the guy...

I greet every one of them and Angel presents me with the blonde, Kate. I don't know but I'm beginning to see a pattern here: Blonde hair. Green eyes. First Darla, then Harmony and Michelle, now this Kate... how come he doesn't notice that *I* fit in this peculiar pattern of his, too?? Should I walk with a sign saying 'Notice Me. I'm Blonde and Green-eyed and your Best Friend."? Uhm... maybe if I leave out the last part... Oops, Angel is asking about my little sister. Little brat that she is, always 'borrowing' my lipsticks and then losing them God knows where. He just laughs at my antics. Yeah, of course he will laugh. He loves Dawnie as his little sister and since he lost his own he never stops spoiling her. Lucky Dawn. She gets the bonbons and the toys - no, no toys anymore - and the surprise every couple of weeks and I just get Thursdays and heavy sessions of 'Please Tell Why My Relationships Won't Work, Buffy.'...

Should I be jealous?

Now Kate is the one speaking. Hey! The Barbie Doll comes with battery included! And no, that's not what I am thinking but what Gunn and Doyle and Lindsey's faces clearly reflect. Meanwhile Angel seems to be happy with a beer in one hand and the girl in the other. One look at him and I know he is bored out of his mind. Of course, Kate doesn't notice it, she is just smiling broadly waiting for me to greet her or chat with her or congratulate her for snatching my best friend away... Sorry, girl, not exactly what I have in mind. I was planning on commenting that your mouth does that funny thing that ends in a toothy smile and that your green eyes seem to be just contacts... I could be wrong, of course, it could be just a trick of the light or maybe I'm a little bit jealous. But no more than a little bit, I swear.

A voice at my side stops my thoughts. I recognise it instantly. What is he doing here?

"Xander?"

Oh man! I haven't seen this guy for YEARS... he left one day saying he would look for a life while travelling through the country and hasn't been seen in Sunnydale since then.

He smiles at me and I can almost feel the frown on Angel's face. They never liked each other. Only God can guess why. It might have something to do with the fact that Xander had that huge crush on me in high school and that even then I preferred to pass time with my best friend. Who would know that Xander would ever have a real motive to be jealous? Not that it would matter now. Those things are long past and now we are just good friends. Xander forgot all about me the day he met a lovely redhead. Willow was her name. I met her again some months ago when Angel was still dating every girl who crossed his path. Nice girl. Really cute. I still talk with her sometimes, even if now we have to use the Internet since after the break-up she decided to go study to L.A. Last thing I heard of her she had met an old flame again. And it was not Xander. It was a starting musician. Oz something... or was it something Oz? Who knows? Musicians are always so strange...

I stop my inner ramblings when I notice Xander staring at me. As always I turn to Angel for help. He is already accustomed to me spacing off and always helps me to avoid potential embarrassing moments such as this one. He looks at me in amusement and I know this time will be no exception. Have I ever mentioned that I love the guy?

"Yes, Buffy. I also think it would be nice to meet Xander's girlfriend," he says.

So *that* was what Xander was trying to tell me!

"Of course." I smile brightly at Xander. "Maybe we could go to the movies next weekend... "

Xander smiles back. "Oh yes. I'm sure Anya would love it. Maybe we could make a triple date or something like that. You know, me and Anya, Angie here with her," he nods in Kate's direction. She is smiling again. Only over my dead body, Blondie, only over my dead body..." and you with...er... Are you still with Parker?"

I feel heat on my cheeks and actually hear Angel's snort of disgust. I hate it when my friends don't know about my life. But I really can't blame him, I mean, he hasn't been in Sunnydale since the beginning of college.

"I guess not." Xander says seeing our reactions.

"A long story, Xand. Let's just say that he was a mistake." A huge mistake. The worst mistake in my life, if you want to specify. Of course, he went with a blue eye courtesy of Angel and a bruised... uhm... let's just say that I doubt he could 'perform' for some weeks. What can I say? I hate it when being lied to and I didn't take those self-defence classes for nothing...

We agreed on a date and hour for our reunion and then Xander left. I can see Angel isn't too eager for this 'reunion' but it's not as if he will let me go there alone when he knows Xander and his girl will be on cloud nine and that I shall feel left out of their romantic bubble. Nope, he definitely will go with me - no Kate included, of course - and he will tell me old jokes and ask me if I know this or that girl and how to court her and then he will tell me about the last date he had with the girl behind us or the one in front of us or maybe the one at my side... Uhh... I think I'll just go alone and spare him and myself the fake smiles.

Or then, maybe I'll do my mission as I planned it and by Saturday at 6:00 p.m. two couples very in love will enter the Sunnydale Movies hand-in-hand. Yeah. Consider me mission-girl since this moment. Now... what shall I do first?

However, before I reach a decision, music - GOOD music *at last*, who knows what the DJ of this party is on- plays and I just know that Angel loves to dance to this one. Ok. Step A already decided. I will ask him to dance. Or I would if my throat weren't so dry and his arms weren't already around Kate and he wasn't leading her towards the dance floor.

I hate my luck.

"Care to dance, Buffy?"

I really hate it.

"No thanks, Riley." He was a good friend, one of the best boyfriends I've ever had but he isn't that good in the brains department. We broke it off SEVERAL months ago. How much longer will it take until he gets the message? It's not that I don't like him. Really. That's not the problem... it's only that I want to kick him into oblivion every time he asks me for a date or for a dance or just for coffee... Can't he understand that I don't want anything to do with him now? Of course not! Right now he is standing in front of me with those puppy blue eyes. Do you wanna have a *true* blue eye, darling? He isn't moving and the guys have gone to the dance floor... I'm all on my own and I just know that he wants to chat a while... He is opening his mouth... Oh no! God helps me!

But God doesn't as He decides to send and Angel to do it. *My* Angel. Now Kate is standing alone on the dance floor open- mouthed and I haven't been so happy for a long time.

"Hi, Riley!" Angel says as if they were best friends. Riley gives a start at the sudden interruption and just gazes at him confused. I love Angel, I truly do. Whoever saves me from this guy deserves my eternal love...

"Could you make me a real favour? "My friend asks using that smile of his that meant 'Do What I Want Or Pay The Consequences'.

Riley doesn't get it and just stares at Angel like an idiot. I never was in love with him, I swear. He was just too nice and reliable... After Parker I *needed* nice and reliable. "Uh-huh..."

"Good! Do you see that blonde over there?" He points at Kate, who still is on the dance floor trying not to appear abandoned.

Riley nods dumbly.

"Well, you see, I have this problem where she needs to go home and I don't have my car at hand..." Liar! The day - or night - Angelus O'Connor goes out without his black convertible will be the daytime ceases to be. Of course, Riley doesn't need to know it. "...and well, I happen to know your car is just outside and I was wondering if you could take my friend home..." Bored already, Angel? I already knew it but there's nothing like having you recognise it and send the girl away. Guess this one wasn't Mrs. Right, either...

Good.

Riley nods again and leaves us to encounter the lonely blonde. They speak a little while and for a moment I can see Kate's eyes widening in surprise and going directly towards Angel. He winks at her playfully and waves goodbye. Guess he hadn't told her about his plan to get Riley out... Will she make a scene? No, she won't and she leaves the house with as much dignity as possible considering she was just dumped in the first date - or what I *think* was the first date - and that Riley Finn is going with her.

I hug him and I'm all 'thank-you' and 'you saved my life' and 'I'll never be thankful enough'... Then I hug him a little more tightly because I just remembered that I'm in love with him. After my little outburst - I *knew* I shouldn't have drunk that fourth beer - he looks at me with those brown eyes of his... Brown eyes. Friendly eyes. Sexy eyes. *His* eyes...

It's cliché but I'm a puddle on the floor right now and I want him to look at me with those brown/friendly/sexy... *blind* eyes until my last day and beyond...

Time for the real action, people. Blindness will not be accepted anymore in this relationship... if only my knees were stable and my hands weren't sweating...

Calm down, girl! It's only Angel! And he is lecturing me about how to break up in ONE stroke with losers like my ex and he just isn't shutting up long enough to let me speak. Guess those beers have left him very speech-able. Quite a difference from my *normal* Angel if you ask me... this guy can be silent for hours - which is good cuz I'm no good to stop talking - and then say in one to three sentences everything he thinks. I have always complained about it... and now that I need him silent he just won't shut up.

Luck is SO not with me tonight...

He speaks and I listen. He speaks and I stare. He speaks and I sigh because tonight is not my night.

And then the guys come back.

Gunn and Lindsey and Doyle with Cordelia in tow, of course. Now those two will be kissing like there is no tomorrow and after half an hour they will say that they are tired and want to go home and we will pretend to believe them.

"Do you wanna go home with me , Angel?"

Just tell me *why* don't I say that?

Must be my brain stopping me.

Damn brain!

Conversation goes nicely enough, I guess. I would know for sure if I wasn't concentrating on thinking of a way to get to speak with Angel in private. A difficult thing considering we are in the middle of a party. I know that I could do it on Thursday... Only that I couldn't. There's a certain 'something' in our *friendly* reunions that stops me from trying anything romantic... Must be my brain again. A nudge brings me back to earth as Angel is just saying "Yeah, Gunn, I feel your pain." I nod quickly in agreement and Gunn smiles knowing he has such attentive friends. Then he goes on complaining about his new boss and I know that in some seconds Doyle will start complaining about Gunn. They share a room, you know? Even after all this time I still don't get how those two can share anything, much less the dorm room; they are as different as day and night. Doyle thinks Gunn is a cleaning-maniac and he doesn't stop teasing him about it... or he wouldn't if he weren't so busy kissing the daylights out of Cordelia Chase.

Gunn is a good friend of Angel, he often helps in a small orphanage in the outskirts of the town but after hearing him speak about this 'Snyder-wannabe' I'm guessing he won't go back for a long time. It's not that he is lazy and looking for excuses not to work, on the contrary, he is one of the most serious persons I ever met and I know it's difficult for him to live with the Doyle we all love and fear. I swear, that guy could compare to a little tornado when passing a night at your place! God only knows how he maintains his side of the room... Pizza boxes and beer cans scattered on the floor comes to my mind when thinking of it... Only that I doubt Cordelia would accept to go to such an untidy place and considering that she still lives with her parents and Doyle hasn't got any money and the way they are kissing and groping I'd say they spend *a lot* of time in his room... Yeah, I'm sure he now is even tidier than Gunn. Who knows, maybe his romance with the ex Queen-C - or was it Queen-B (itch)? - isn't that bad.

So the guys are now talking about cars and motors. Gunn has this fascination for motorcycles and cars and especially for Angel's convertible. He has been begging him to let him drive it since I met him. Sorry, Gunn, but I am the only one who can claim to ever have driven the Angel-mobile... and to ever have crashed it, too. Angel didn't speak to me for a week but he finally understood that I needed the practice and promised to lend me his auto when I was forty and careful. But well, guys are speaking and I am saying the right thing at the right moment and I think I should have a best *girl* friend... Sorry, I know, digression much? It is only that being Angel's friend had not been the best way to make female acquaintances. I meet them all right, but then I have to avoid their jealous and angry and hurt looks after Angel has dumped them. It's not that I'm complaining on Angel. I'm not. 'Womaniser' or not he will always be the best for me. But right now I need someone to tell me that I am being an idiot and that I should be kissing my best friend instead of hearing him joke about my driving non-skills...

After they are done laughing about Cordelia and me - you can't blame me for turning the attention onto the *other* death- driver in our group, can you? - We begin to speak about other matters. Right now I'm telling them about the loony teacher in my Psych class and soon I'll have to resort to complaining and/or praising Mum's new boyfriend because I'm running out of horrible things to say about Prof. Walsh. She gave me an E. Yeah, a nasty *big* E and it wasn't fair and from the expressions on my friends' faces I've already told that story at least three times. Have I told you about the time my mum... er... she...

Of course, as always, Angel saves the day - night - and before I start telling how this Mr. Giles has been entering and leaving my home - or more specifically, my mum's room - for months Angel grabs my hand and asks me to dance.

Dance?

Oh yeah! That thing where you move along with your partner to the music of - in this case - a SLOW song. And Angel wants to be my partner. And this is a slow song. It'll involve being near him and having our arms around each other and resting my head on his chest. Nothing we haven't done before. This would be the nth time he and I danced together... it's only that right now I have trouble speaking and thinking and breathing at all.

I just nod.

Yup, there are Angel and I on the dance floor, and if he leaves me here as he left that Kate I'm going to... shut up and bear it until I can breathe again. He has his arms around me and the sensation is so familiar I wanna shout because being with the one you love should be a new experience time and time again. I'm feeling wonderful here. I could bet that he is using the cologne I gave him on his last birthday and the song is one of our favourites. And it is . so. wonderfully. slow. that I know I could stay here forever. There's a life outside Angel's arms? Not for me, thank you very much.

Reality comes back with the last accords of the song and I really need a girlfriend because she would wink at me right now meaning that I should set all fears aside and tell him I love him and finally kiss him. And I would do it. I really would. Only that in my dreams there's no blazing music surrounding us and we are alone under the moonlight and Angel isn't responding so eagerly to my kiss. WHAT?!

Tell me I'm dying. Please, go on and kill me right now. I can't believe I... Oh my God! Catcalls and whistles and Gunn and Lindsey and even Doyle and Cordelia have stopped their make-out session to stare at me with that amused glance in their eyes and I can't bring myself to face Angel.

*What* am I going to do now?!

His arms are still around me, you know? Is that a good thing or is he so surprised that he doesn't know what to do now? I don't know either. Can you blame me? I'm still not looking at him but I know I should. I've just redefined the concept of 'embarrassing' and I can't shake off the feeling of his lips on mine. I've just blown up every chance I never had... Maybe I should run... that would be a good option if I didn't know that I can't brake off his embrace. Time to face real life, Summers. You got yourself in this mess and now it's time to say...

"I'm sorry."

Huh? I could swear that it was not my voice. It was Angel's. Why is he apologising? Or is this the prelude to a nice and friendly brush off?

"I shouldn't have..." His voice is insecure and I don't know what the hell he is talking about. "I shouldn't have kissed you."

What??! Is he saying that *he* kissed *me*? When did I miss it? Damn digressions of mine! I finally raise my head. His eyes are as brown as ever and I have only seen him like this once before. Of course, at the time I was just a spectator and there was another blonde woman seeing his eyes. Understanding floods over me and... did I ever say that he was blind? I was SO wrong. *I* am the blind one. *We* are so blind that blindness is our secret element... Blind can't begin to describe how stupid I am and I'll make sure of telling him that and scream at him for not telling me earlier...

Ok, I'm shutting up now. He is kissing me again - this time I know it was my fault - and I'm enjoying it.

Maybe tonight didn't go as I had planned it but I did get the guy, didn't I? And if the guy is kissing me, who am I to even think of you?

Wow! I can't believe I ended it!! Aren't you proud? Please do tell me what you thought of this sequel. I passed a long week thinking of a plot and an even longer night writing it. I'm fairly sure that Sian needed a long time to beta it. I'd really like to know if it was worth our time.

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