“S
o, we are actually dating?” She asks as she sat across from me, with a paper in hand and in a pen in the other.
I roll my eyes, “Fake dating.”
She impatiently muttered, “How are we going to play this?” She rolled her tongue in her mouth as I knocked my head back.
“Hey, don’t give me this attitude. This is your doing; we are in this predicament in the first place because of you.” She said with conviction.
“This should be really easy.” I huff out.
She scowls, “How are we going to tell our friends?”
I fidget with my rings, “We tell them the truth and they help us with the lie.”
Adrianna’s eyebrows furrow as she looks down at her checklist.
“Is this all necessary?” I lean forward, folding my hands together. “I like being prepared.” I sneered as she let out an effortless smile.
“You will not be running for president this year.” She folds her arms together with a wide smile.
I lift myself up with urgency, “The fuck I will.”
Adrianna places the pen’s tip in her mouth, “Do you want my help, Prince?” She says in a friendly fashion.
I deemed aggravation as she winked, “Your relationship with me will give me great publicity as well as make Brooks jealous.” She went on.
“You actually like that dickhead?” I laugh harshly as she glares.
“I don’t like him, I just want him to regret his decision to cheat on me with Maya, which is another candidate I’m running against.”
I nod.
It was rare to see Adrianna bothered by anyone else other than me really, and the way she talked about Brooks made it really look like she was betrayed.
“So, revenge, more like?” I yawn as she nods.
“And besides, not to make your head any bigger but, you are the hottest guy known around here, so…” I smile at her as she looks away quickly.
“Did you just… compliment me?” I let my grin advance as she snaps her mouth closed at the sudden shock of realization.
“No, I’m just repeating the latest gossip.”
I lean closer again, looking into her honey eyes, “It’s not gossip if it’s real, Dove.”
“I hate you.” Adrianna huffed as she scribbled with her pen.
“Why? I’m quite lovely.” I flash a smirk that she so famously hated. “So, when is our anniversary?” She asks as I just looked at her blankly. “Today,” I say, irritated.
“Great.” She rolls her eyes, writing down on the piece of paper, “If you want this to look believable, you need to actually put the effort in.”
I look at her, “I don’t even understand why you’re willing to help me, you have never done anything else than argue with me.”
She looks up, her smile thinning, “I’m feeling generous.” She places her pen down, “I have a question.”
I lean back, “Okay…”
“…Will you be seeing other people?” She asks, “Like… will you sleep with other people?”
I haven’t really thought about this aspect of the fake relationship. It was known that I slept with many women, I was of course safe and clean. But being in a relationship with August, I had never slept with anyone but her.
So, it wouldn’t be different from this would it? “Will you?” I question as she smiles.
“No.” She said it rather quickly. I flash a smile, “Why?”
Adrianna had looked at me like I had seen a ghost, but her face calmed down, “I know what you’re doing.” She urged.
“I don’t know what you’re speaking of.” I roll my eyes as she grips the collar of my shirt.
“I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you!” She probes as I form a smirk, “And I’m trying to subtly avoid it!”
Adrianna’s eyes turn a dark hue of brown, not like the honey she would have, “Well, fucking stop. Can you please work with me here?”
“I know how to be in a relationship, Dove. I’m not a rookie, I know my
boyfriend duties.” I simply smile as she frowns.
“Well, I need to know the basics of your so-called duties .” She puts it in quotation marks.
Until I finally figured it out, she was nervous this whole time because… “Dove.” I flash a look of curiosity as she looks up, her lips trembling.
So kissable.
“Prince.” She answers while giving me her full attention. I tilt my head, “Have you… ever been in a relationship?”
Adrianna’s eyes widen, as her face flushes in a light hue of pink and red.
I smile, her expression embarrassed. “What?” “You haven’t!”
She caves herself with her hands, “You make it seem like it’s a bad thing!”
I keep my eyes on her red cheeks, “It’s not! I think it’s cute!”
She reaches over, slapping my arm, “Hey! You are not allowed to think that I am cute!”
Adrianna covers her face up as I quickly swipe the paper and pen from her reach.
“Prince!”
I sent her a playful scowl, “I want to see what you wrote down!”
“You do realize that we have to spend time together and enjoy it.” I yawn as she nods.
“In classes, out of classes, at home.” She listens as I take the pen, scribbling down on her paper.
“Hey, what are you writing down?” She looked unsettled. “I’m not going to ruin it,” I mused.
“No, it’s not that. I like my things organized; I need it all in my handwriting.” She went on as I held the pen out.
Before she took it, I pulled it away, “This is a relationship, right?” “Sadly.” She mocked.
“And it takes two to tango, Dove.” I take a look at the pen, then back at her, “This list or contract of yours should have a little piece of both of us, shouldn’t it?”
Adrianna bit her lip, rolling her eyes, “Fine, but tell me what you wrote.”
I tap on the written words, “You must come to all my hockey games and show me, your boyfriend , support.” Adrianna gives me some type of dirty look that could kill.
She was very un-enthused. “Great! I just love hockey.”
I coughed, “Well, because of that attitude of yours.” I wrote down one more thing, “I wouldn’t mind a handmade poster.”
“Sure!” Adrianna smiles, “I’ll give it to you after I shove one of the million hockey sticks you own up your ass.”
Adrianna looked at me with demise on her mind as I laughed, I hadn’t really seen this side of her. We barely even had any conversation since the time I knew her we were always taught to stay away from each other.
“Hey, if it makes you feel better, I’ll tell our parents that I said that I liked you first.”
Adrianna nods with her shining smile in view again. “But we have a problem.” She makes a notice.
I yawn again, “Which is?”
“Obviously, it’s known and very well captured by our peers that we hate each other.” She points out, “But even our friends hate each other.”
“You mean, Liam and Margo.” She nodded.
“If we want this to work out, we need to convince everyone around us that we are dating.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of this?” I stress.
She continues, “You know, you’re going to have to work really hard not to fall in love with me after all of this.”
She smirks as I rub it off. Over my fucking dead body.
“I would rather sell my whole car collection than ever actually catch feelings.”
Adrianna’s smile grows, “Here, how about you try flirting with me?” I laugh, rolling my eyes as she settles back in her chair.
“Pretend we are at dinner with our parents?”
I shot her a blank look, “You look like a Picasso painting.” Her face morphed into an offended expression.
“Do you know how Picasso painted people?” She exclaimed. I laughed, “Indeed, I do.”
“I can’t stand you.” She slaps my arm again. “In my defense, I never really passed art.” “I knew it!” She shakes, “What is it?”
“I knew you couldn’t be genuine, even if you tried.”
She starts to pack her things up, “I can be genuine!” I defensively stated as she laughed, “I’m serious.”
“You flirt like how you play hockey.” She looks me dead in the eyes, “Without effort.”
She continues, “You think everyone just wants to be with you because you are the great Grayson Prince!” She mocks, “Everyone throws themselves at you, I bet your friends aren’t even really your friends. They only stick with you because you might sue them if they abandon you.”
Adrianna’s well-composed self was out of the window, and with my stubbornness and her pride. We bickered but we were well into arguing.
“God, of course, how foolish could I be to think we can have a solid conversation without fucking screaming at each other?”
I certainly felt my blood pressure rise, “As opposed to you, who lives in a princess world where maids make your bed, and you spend about five hours on your make-up because you need to be perfect for others’ approval.”
Adrianna’s eyes boiled with bitterness.
“You are so arrogant about everything, including people’s feelings, maybe that’s why your ex dumped you in the first place. She didn’t feel compassion, instead, you looked at her and paraded her around like a prize.” She grew out of breath, “It’s what all you men know how to do.”
“And you think you aren’t arrogant as well, Dove?” I laugh in frustration, “You think you can just run that pretty little mouth of yours whenever you want?”
I stood up, “You take pride in other people’s insecurities, you shame others for the way they dress at school, you don’t do favors, because there has to be something for you to get in return, and you have all these great ambitions and yet you haven’t achieved anything in your life that’s worth something your father can be proud of.”
Adrianna sat back down slowly, her eyes staring off.
“We both aren’t perfect.” She starts as I look down at her, “You need this fake relationship to work because you want your parents to take you
seriously and to prove to your ex that you can handle a serious relationship.” I swallow.
“And you need this fake relationship to work because you want to win the election. It boosts your image, and you want Brooks and Maya to kick rocks. And to make him realize he shouldn’t have cheated.” I repeat to her as she breathes out.
“Look, we know that we both have differences and that we can’t stand each other.”
“We both don’t want to do this, I know. But you have to understand that we need this, more than anything.” I continue as she finally looks up at me.
“Everything is temporary, this is very much just temporary.” She reassures herself.
I bend down to her, “I promise that I will break your heart at the end of this, fake girlfriend. ”
Adrianna smiles, standing up and placing her hand out for me to shake. I take it, “I’m counting on that.”
