Marriage By Law

Chapter Twenty-five

"My- my- my babies!" I whined as I looked down at the bud. There was one, one damn bud, and he had to kill it. I gritted my teeth and he took a step back.

Count to ten, Ivory. Count to ten. There was no point arguing.

"We can still throw a party?" Darius threw up his hands, trying to placate me.

I narrowed my at him. He bent down, picked up the flower and held it out to me.

"It's not that dead. Maybe if you float it somewhere, it can blossom," he said. I reached for it but he pulled his hand back and inspected the flower. He pulled at the closed petal and I let out a squeak.

"What are you doing?"

"There." He pried it open, trying to make it look like it blossomed. Only the petals all fell and scattered to the ground and all that was left was the stem.

"That wasn't meant to happen," he quickly reasoned out.

I looked at the pale blue petals on the ground and groaned in dismay. Rich men. I bent down and started to pick them one by one and saw him join me. 

"Here, I got it," he said, grabbing some.

"Don't worry about it"

Yet he insisted. "No, really. I got this." He took the petals out of my hand and placed them on his palm. But sir genius forgot about the wind which just blew them straight out of his palm and away. He looked up at me with a sheepish look.

I laughed so hard I fell back against the fence and ended up sitting on the ground.

"I told you not to," I reminded him when I stopped laughing.

"Sorry."

"They're just flowers," I said with a wave of my hand. It's not like they were my favourite, but I had been trying to grow it for months. He sat down on the ground as I leaned my head back, looking up at the stars.

We were quiet for a little while, and then somebody barged in."There you both are."

I looked up to see Adrian walking toward us and exchanged looks with Darius. What on earth was he doing here?

"What are you doing here? At this time?" said Darius, reading my mind.

Adrian decided to plop himself right next to me, spreading his legs out unceremoniously, nearly onto Darius's lap. The latter playfully kicked Adrian's leg away.

"I wanted to see my awesome sister-in–law, of course."

"At this time?"

"Yes. We are cheating behind your back," Adrian replied, his voice laced with mirth. He even placed an arm around my shoulder, as if to make the point, but it only made Darius shake his head. Cheating, cheating. Isn't that what I was doing by not telling Darius about James?

"Seriously, why are you here?" I asked, looking at Adrian.

"Well, sorry for interrupting your night, kids, but I was at the bar, and was too drunk to drive so I decided to walk to your house. Darius, do me a favour and call me a cab, will you? And pay them, too."

"Do it yourself," muttered Darius. I listened to the childish banter between them as they exchanged words. This was a nice side, a friendly side, a childish side I hadn't seen in Darius before. 

"You're an idiot," muttered Adrian.

"You're an idiot. Go sleep in one of the rooms. I can drop you tomorrow."

"Do I get the master's bedroom?"

Darius narrowed his eyes.

"No."