Chapter 26
Meet My Fiancé
I wander into the cafeteria, about an hour later, after getting a text from Gemma that she and Shy are waiting for me. The smell of french fries and the sound of hundreds of students is oddly comforting. I know this environment. It’s predictable.
I get to the table to find all three of the guys are there, as is Robert, although he refuses to look at me. It’s possible he’s using the girl club card he revoked from me.
I do my duty and sit next to Adrian, thinking that our first day at this should not be over-the-top. We don’t need to hold hands or any of that nauseating stuff. I’ll sit here, trying not to hit him, and try to smile when he looks at me. This should be easy enough.
Only A few short minutes in to the meal, and Adrian proves me wrong—this is not going to be easy. He abruptly stands and steps on a chair then up to the table. He waves to get people’s attention.
“Hey, shut the hell up,” he says in a booming voice.
Are you shitting me? My first day on babysitting duty and he's pulling a stunt in the lunchroom. I reach over and backhand him across the shin.
"Ow." He scowls down at me.
I point my finger at him then point to the floor, indicating he needs to get his ass down.
"Oh, right princess," he says, making me want to hit him again. Did he really just call me princess?
He steps from the table onto a chair, standing on it instead. I close my eyes and turn back to my friends deciding I don't want to witness whatever it is he's about to do. I also decide I'm going to turn in my resignation letter, as his babysitter, as soon as I get home today.
Adrian yells one more time, somehow effectively quieting the entire cafeteria.
"Hello, fellow schoolmates. It's great to see all of you again," he begins, sounding like a politician. "Most of you know me as Adrian Christian Elliot The First, but others of you may know me as the guy who is always getting scolded by the professors, and the dean… and the president on a couple of occasions."
Adrian Christian Elliot, the first? What is happening right now? I can't believe I agreed to be a part of this guy’s daily life. Oh yeah, it was his stupid mouth, on my stupid mouth, that sealed the deal.
"As your class president, I would like to—” He's cut off by several people laughing and shaking their heads. He looks around at each of them with curiosity and then his eyes go wide in realization.
"Oh right, I'm not your class president." He taps his head scanning the room again. "And why exactly is that? I mean, I think I'm great presidential material. I have an outstanding reputation, and I have a great working relationship with our professors and deans, as I recently described."
More laughter.
I glance up to see Adrian grinning from ear to ear. He freaking loves this. I don't know why that surprises me, I guess because I hate being the center of attention. Not Adrian, nope, he’s an attention whore.
"Anyway," Adrian goes on. "I want to introduce to you the woman who would’ve been your first lady if you’d elected me as your president."
Oh holy mother of Batman. If he’s about to do what I think… before I can finish my thought, he's grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet.
"I'd like for you to meet Miss Keegan Marie Hughes, my fiancé."
The room erupts in applause as I spin to face him. Taking aim at the first target I find, I reach up and squeeze a small section of his triceps between my thumb and forefinger and twist. He yelps in pain, but no one can hear him over the applause. A few seconds later I hear silverware banging off the tables and trays.
Adrian pulls me against him and cups my face. When his lips are a breath away from mine, he whispers, "I think they want us to kiss, princess."
And then he kisses me, and I don't try to stop him. It's as if his lips have some sort of connection to my brain that causes it to flat line instantly. Because honestly, when would I ever stand in the middle of a college cafeteria kissing a guy, let alone someone who is not my boyfriend.
When he pulls away from the kiss, it takes me a few seconds to jumpstart my brain again. I hear him talking to someone about a song then I hear Robert sounding as excited as a schoolgirl. What a traitor he’s become. Adrian slides one arm around my back and he lifts my hand to hold it in his, posing us in a dance position. As my brain begins to function again, I attempt to push away but he pulls me closer and whispers in my ear.
"Our people want to see our first dance.” He begins moving us in a circle, as Aerosmith sings, from Robert’s phone, about being crazy. He nailed our first song. I’ll give him that.
I clench my teeth and whisper back in his ear. "I don't care what your people want. If you don't let me go, I'm going to castrate you with my knee right now."
"Keegan, baby," he whispers seductively, causing my brain to begin another flat line. "If we're going to get married, you have to stop being so violent. I won't be domestically violated, regardless of how much I love you.”
“You don’t love me,” I hiss, wondering if I would be charged with murder when the jury hears my side of the story.
He squeezes his arm tighter around my waist and begins to lean me back, trying to dip me. I see the second he realizes we’re going fall because his eyes go wide and he looks over my head to see what I’m going hit. Somehow, he manages to twist us so that we both fall on our sides, instead of him falling on top of me.
As the room erupts in laughter, Adrian laughs too. “That was fun, wasn’t baby?”
“Yep,” I say, pushing up until I’m leaning over him. “As much fun as it’s gonna be watching your ass get kicked outta here.”
Still smiling, he reaches up, grasping the back of my neck. He pulls me down so that my mouth is hovering over his.
“Nah, no way they’ll expel the class president, especially since he just found his first lady.” Then he lifts his head until his mouth meets mine.
Once again, his tornado comes crashing through my life. This time it left me lying on the cafeteria floor, with hundreds of people staring. At least this time, Adrian is still here, in the middle of the wreckage with me.