Chapter 31
Ian
The ride to the charity event was both excruciatingly long and entirely too quick. I berated myself the entire way there for being this worked up over the possibility of seeing Maggie, but it honestly had nothing to do with her. Things with Adalyn were so amazing and I hated risking letting anything get in the way of that. Maggie was a mean, callous person and Adalyn did not deserve to be on the receiving end of that just because she’s with me.
I never found out why Maggie did what she did. I never really cared to find out for myself. Once the initial shock wore off the only thing I wanted to do was thank her. It didn’t matter why she hated me and treated me the way she did, it just mattered that she was finally out of my life. It hurt to think about Carrie though. How she could do that to her when Carrie had always treated her like a sister.
Carrie had been so devastated when she found out. Not just over what Maggie had done that night, but because I had never told her how Maggie treated me. Maggie was always very careful to not show her true colors in front of others and I felt I was doing the right thing by not worrying Carrie with my own personal feelings. Not to mention the fact that I spent a lot of that relationship in denial.
Adalyn had been squeezing my hand, supporting me in silence, the entire ride. I didn’t even realize the limo had come to a stop in front of the hotel holding the event until Adalyn gently ran her hand down my cheek, pulling my face towards her.
“We’re here.”
“I’m sorry you have to see me like this. I’ve seen Maggie several times since that final night, and it was never difficult to just ignore her, but she’s a loose canon and I don’t know how she’s going to react when she sees you.”
“Ian, I’ve told you a hundred times, quit worrying about me. I’m not going anywhere, she isn’t going to scare me off. If anyone will be running off scared it’s her.”
I gave her a nervous laugh and moved to open the door to exit the limo since the driver apparently wasn’t going to do it for us.
“Hold on, one last thing before we go in,” Adalyn said as she pulled on my arm. She started to undo my tie.
“Ummm…as much as I would seriously love to have sex with you in this limo, there are about twenty photographers waiting right outside this limo for us and a line of people waiting to pull up.”
She laughed and shook her head at me while pulling my tie from my collar and pushing my jacket off of my shoulders. I sat there, watching her slowly undress me, mesmerized by the excitement in her eyes. If we weren’t about to have sex then why was she having me get naked?
“Adalyn…seriously, what are you doing?”
“Tonight is an important night, Ian. Important because this charity is dear to your heart, and important because this will be the first time we are out as a couple, announcing to the world that we are together. And I want to mark this special night by spending it with my boyfriend. My real boyfriend, not the pretend version of him.”
“Uhhh…yeah you are just confusing me even more. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
As she finished unbuttoning my dress shirt and pulling it off to reveal the t-shirt I had been sporting under my suit, she slipped off my dress shoes and pulled my black converse out of a bag sitting on the seat next to her. Then she held out my suit jacket to slip my arms back through.
“You are going in there as Ian. Ian the person, brother, friend and amazing boss. Not as Ian the suit wearing, business deal making, Armani wearing robot you pretend to be,” she explained as she put my own shoes on for me.
“Adalyn…I appreciate the gesture, but this is a really classy event. Everyone in there is going to be very dressed up and like it or not, I will actually look like an idiot if I go in there dressed like this. This charity is important and I need people to take me seriously if I want them to keep donating.”
“People take you seriously because you are brilliant, kind and successful. You are all of those things without your suit, too, Ian,” she explained as she pulled out a contacts case from the bag and handed it to me. Before I could object, she pulled out my glasses as well. “Take out your contacts and wear these, Ian. It’s not a request,” she giggled as she mussed up my hair.
I couldn’t help laughing as I acquiesced to her demands and took out my contacts. “What about you? Won’t you feel silly looking so amazing in your dress, standing next to a grown man dressed like a teenager?”
“How do you know what my dress looks like? I’ve had this long coat on all night, for all you know, I’m wearing a clown costume.”
“Are you wearing a clown costume?”
“Well, no…I’m wearing this…” She pulled off her coat to reveal a tight fitted graphic t-shirt, similar to mine, a short plaid skirt and knee high gym socks. Pulling out a pair of Converse, matching to mine, she slipped them on and pulled her loose, wavy hair into a high ponytail. Then she slipped on glasses with thick black frames like mine to complete the look.
I couldn’t hold in my laughter. “What in the world are you wearing, Adalyn? You look like a naughty nerd straight out of a porno.”
“Good, that’s what I was going for,” she said smugly, lifting her chin proudly in the air.
“Do you even wear glasses?”
“Well, no, but these make me look super smart, don’t you think?” she giggled as she pulled them down to the tip of her nose with one hand and wiggled her eyebrows up and down.
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her long and hard, showing her with my caresses just how much I loved her for doing this.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I am seriously the luckiest guy that ever lived. And even if we get laughed out of this place tonight, it will still be the best night of my life. Well, it will be the best night up until the night you say ‘I Do’ and become my wife.”
Adalyn sucked in a sharp breath and her eyes widened in surprise. “No, don’t worry, I’m not proposing right now. But don’t for one second think that that won’t happen soon. Very soon.”
A few weeks ago a statement like that would have had Adalyn running far away from me, shutting me out entirely, but not now. She looked at me with love and admiration shining in her eyes, and all I wanted in that moment was to turn around and take her home and have her in my bed all night.
“Oh, no you don’t, mister,” she said as she hopped out of the limo.
“What?”
“I know that look. As turned on as I am right now, we have a party to get to. Time is of the essence, Clark Kent. Let’s go.”
As we approached the hotel, hand in hand, the cameras went crazy. Since Maggie, I hadn’t taken a date to a single event. Any women I had chose to see, in any capacity, I had done so in private. It had given the tabloids plenty to speculate about. Was I a hopeless bachelor or a closet homosexual? Personally, I didn’t care what they thought.
I did, however, care about Adalyn getting hurt. I was more than aware of how ridiculous we looked walking into a formal event dressed like characters out of a ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ movie, but it was hard to get too caught up in those thoughts when I had Adalyn on my arm. Whenever she was near me, the rest of the world seemed to fade away.
Still, I was showing everyone a completely different side of me. A side I had kept hidden for so long that it made me feel exposed. Years of Maggie berating me and putting me down had messed with my mind more than I had ever realized before Adalyn. Yet here I was, this amazing woman next to me, encouraging me to be whatever I wanted to be. It was liberating and for the first time in probably my entire life, I was a hundred percent comfortable with who I was.
Questions were being thrown out at us as we walked past the cameras, but Adalyn’s smile never faltered. The way she squeezed my hand told me she was feeling a little overwhelmed, but it never showed on her face. She was by far the bravest person I’d ever met.
An hour passed and there was still no sign of Maggie. As happy as I was to be there with Adalyn, I couldn’t help the anxiety of constantly worrying that Maggie would appear and cause a scene. I knew Adalyn was feeling neglected and I felt guilty for not giving her the attention she deserved, but I had to be prepared to intercept Maggie at any point if she did decide to show.