King of Hearts (House of Cards Series 2) [Student/teacher]

Four Jacks

West refused to admit that the tightening in his gut was nerves. He had scaled across the roofs of the barros and run with the bulls in Spain, there was no way a little thing like a school Gala was enough to make his palms sweat and his throat run dry. And yet as he wiped his hands against his pant leg for the ninth or tenth time, West was forced to admit that maybe he was a little.... anxious about the show today.

After the showdown with Joao and the Dog's, West had spent most of April ready for an attack. Add to that the issues his friend Alice was gonig through with the media and having Stuart on the loose, and his life had gotten far more interesting than he had ever anticipated at the beginning of the school year. The Cubano had to stop and take a moment when he realized that ever since November, when Alice first walked into his life, things had gotten thrown off their predictable course and onto a new, crazy one. And he was actually thankful for it, because this new path in life had given him Maddison.

So he walked over to Alice, seeing her quietly panicing in a corner, and threw his arm over her shoulders. "You ready for this?" he asked, smiling at her.

Alice turned to probably give him a smarta** responce but instead dashed to the garbage can to throw up. West raised his eyebrows, having seen another student do that ssame thing about five minutes ago. Nerves were contageous it appeared. "I'm guessing that's a no." he laughed, handing her a napkin. "You know it's not too late to run away with me." he suggested to the woman he now considered another sister.

Alice gave a soft laugh, knowing that he was joking. "For once that actually sounds good." she teased.

West gave voice to the truth of the matter. "Yeah but dealing with Reaper once he caught up would suck."

Alice smiled at the mention of her fiancee. "D*** straight. That man would hunt me down like the predator does alien. His favourite words are 'found you.'" she laughed, and West grinned, knowing that he had distracted her from the worst of her nerves. And his own nerves had been pushed aside at the same time, double win.

On the other side of the stage the band started to play, welcoming the guests in. West squeezed her shoulder in silent support and disappeared off to his side, knowing that they were both about to haveto focus on bigger things than a little stage nerves. It was time to go out and kick a**. A moment after that thought occured, Romeo stepped in beside him and the two men silently nodded hello to each other. Ever since the night of the throw down with Jo, the Trinidadian had been walking with an extra swagger in his step. Even if there had been no real fight going on, West's side had clearly won and Romeo obviously liked being on the winning side.

"Rock 'em sock 'em." Romeo muttered to West as the last of The Final Countdown faded away.

With a smirk, West strode out onto stage, taking his place as King Oberon. Sure it meant he had to dance with Lexi as if she wasn't toxic, but that was a small price to pay for the applause he'd get at the end. West was just honest enough to admit he liked the attention. He was just grateful that the irritating blonde wasn't doing her own speaking roles. She had this squeaky, little girl voice that the idiot thought was sexy! West just had to pretend that the woman in his arms was his red headed Angel, because that was the only way he could keep this blonde idiot in his arms and not have clear disgust on his face. Thankfully they didn't have to spend too much time actually together on the stage. Soon enough Lexi huffed off, the only realistic part of her acting was the overly dramatic exit, typical.

West felt the amused grin spread wider across his face as he saw Alice dance on stage. She wasn't attractive to him in that sense anymore, but he could appreciate the way the little squaw moved. For all intents and purposes, this was his sister-in-law dancing towards him, and if things had gone just a little differently, they probably would have ended up together as a couple. But knowing how much she loved Reaper and how badly West needed Maddison, he knew things had worked out exactly as they were supposed to. Still, he could flirt and tease and play, knowing that Ace was aware of how things stood between them, even if no one else really understood.