Marvelously Mismatched

Engagement Party Drama

By Saturday, I'd been scrubbed, washed, massaged, and polished. The parlour day proved to be really useful, as my skin glowed and my nails looked amazing in deep blue coloured acrylic.

Mateo: I'll pick you up at 8.

Mateo had sent the message on Friday.

At sharp 8pm there was a knock on my apartment door. When I opened the door, I saw Oliver talking to Mateo.

More like arguing with Mateo.
"Stay away from Ali, you intruder." Oliver yelled, pointing his toy sword toward Mateo.

"What if I don't? You gonna hit me with that?"

"You are definitely asking for it."

"Look, kid I don't have time for such games. Let me see Alex."

"Who are you? The only man I've ever seen Ali with is Ethan, and he's a lot better than you!"

"Ethan?" Mateo raised his eyebrows. Then he noticed me standing near the doorway, hiding a smile. Mateo's eyes moved up and down by body, slowly.

When Oliver noticed that his opponent's attention had been diverted from his scary weapon, he turned to look at the distraction, Your's truly.

His jaw dropped and both men continued to stare. I did a little pirouette for them to see the whole look.

I did look stunning. The makeup took me 2 hours at the most and this was exactly the kind of reaction that I deserved for my efforts.

"You look beautiful, Ali"

"You look beautiful, Alex."

Both of them turned to glower at one another, and before another fight could ensue, I interrupted.

"Thank you, Ollie."

Mateo furrowed his eyebrows and Ollie turned to smirk at his fallen expression.

"Who's this man?"

"Oh... um.. he's my fiancè. We are getting married."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ollie said softly, his face crestfallen. Before I could say anything he ran inside his home and slammed the door shut.

I felt bad, but what was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to explain to a kid that this marriage was for name sake. That we would separate in a year.

Oliver had seen the worst side of marriage from his parents, he believed that marriages were abusive and that marriages destroyed people.
I looked at his closed door, my heart heavy. Mateo cleared his throat to gain my attention and said, "So, who's that kid?"

"He's Oliver. He's my friend."

"He's very protective of you." I nodded my head. Mateo extended his hand for me to take.

I placed my small hand in his much bigger one, and we walked towards the elevator.

"You should apologise to him." Mateo spoke once we were inside the elevator.

"I know. That would be the first thing I'll do tomorrow."

We fell into comfortable silence which lasted till we reached the venue. Maybe I was the reason, because I kept on thinking about how to say sorry to Oliver. That kid deserved better than half-assed truths. The moment I got out of the elevator, I saw it.

It wasn't exactly subtle that you could miss it, it was a limo. Mateo bowed down and in a fake British accent he said, "Please allow me the honour to accompany you to the event, milady." We laughed and he opened my door. I slid inside and Mateo followed me. He grabbed the bottle of champagne and poured it into two glasses, "If we're doing the limo thing, we should do it right."