Save the Date (Modern Arrangements) (13 page)

Demetri stopped at a twenty-four hour
diner with a huge neon open sign in the window. With sandwiches, soup and a
couple side dishes, we went to his place.  The building held multiple studio
apartments.  Demetri, of course, leased the largest on the top floor. 

His place held minimal furniture; a
couch, coffee table and chair.  The light gray walls held a few modern
artworks.  The most intriguing piece lined the wall of the staircase leading to
his balcony bedroom.

With no dining table or chairs, we ate
on the couch, catching up on each other’s lives. After laughing about a story
he told, things got physical. Starting with a tender kiss to my mouth, his
ministrations soon turned urgent.  Leaving a trail of clothing ripped from our
bodies, we barely made it to his bed.

When I woke up next to Demetri and saw
the first rays of light fill his room, I headed to his bathroom. After
showering, I put on my clothes from the night before, grabbed my things from his
room, kissed his cheek and left his apartment. This was the routine. We had a
good time together and that was all there was to it. Demetri wanted a
relationship with me at one time but soon realized we were best this way;
friends with occasional benefits.

On the walk to the nearest bus stop, I
grabbed a coffee and a bagel. Nibbling on my bagel, I waited for the bus to
arrive. I couldn’t help but think about the prior night and smile. It was a
much welcomed evening. Sighing, I took a sip of coffee. Lost in my thoughts, I
didn’t see the strangely familiar silver car pull up.

"Get in!"

My eyes widened at the sight of Aidan’s
car stopped in front of me.

"No!" I shouted back.
"Stay away from me!" I growled, crossing my arms and leaning back
onto the bench.

"I’m not leaving until you get in
the car," he argued.

"Fine!" I stood. He smirked.
Idiot!
I threw my coffee and bagel bag into the garbage next to the bench and walked
down the sidewalk, away from the bus stop and away from Aidan.

Chapter Eight
Stalker

Aidan

I didn’t know what I expected to happen.
She would probably think me a crazy stalker but, still, I sat outside of the
club waiting for her to emerge. I needed to apologize again for the way I’ve
been acting. With the desperation of this awkward situation, I thought we could
help each other out.

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t even see
her walk out of the club until a sleek black car pulled up. She climbed in.
Who
the hell is that?
Before I knew it, I was following the car.

Stalker.

The car stopped in front of a diner and
a tall, dark haired guy hurried into the diner. When he emerged, he had a few
white paper bags. Once he was in, they sped off until I was in front of a large
apartment building, watching them walk in together.

I had never heard anything about a
boyfriend.
Was she seeing someone? Was she even more upset with me because I
had assumed that she wasn’t with anyone? Shit.

 Eventually, I dozed off, waking with a
cramp in my neck and stiff back. Barely daylight, I assumed she was asleep with
this guy or had left, so I started home.

Two minutes into my drive, I caught a glimpse
of her sitting on a bus stop bench eating and steam rising from her cup. With
her eyes closed, she didn't notice me pulling up to the curb until I rolled
down the window and ordered her in.

Her eyes widened and her face reddened.
She was pissed. "No!" she shouted. "Stay away from me!"

"I’m not leaving until you get in
the car."

"Fine!" I gave a victory smirk
as she stood up but when I didn’t hear the door open I looked over and saw her
back as she retreated from the bus stop down the sidewalk.

I quickly found a place to park and got
out of my car.

"Lilli, wait!" I caught up and
stood in front of her.

"What, Aidan? What?" she
crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.

"I’m sorry. Lilli, I never meant to
imply that you were for sale or a whore. I know you aren’t, honestly, I didn’t
mean that in any way. It came out wrong when I was talking with you."

She furrowed her brow but didn’t say
anything.

Before I could stop myself I blurted,
"Are you dating someone?"

"Am I...?" She paused. Her
faced filled with hate. "Did you follow me?"

I didn’t answer.

"You did! Oh. My. God. You followed
me!" She moved to walk around me and I grabbed her arm quickly.

"Let go!" Her hand connected
with my face. I knew she'd hit me but I didn’t feel it until the slow sting crept
over my cheek.

"Lilli, please, I just…I wanted to
talk with you after you got off work. To apologize and to hopefully explain
myself but I saw you drive off with someone else and I just couldn’t help it. I
figured that maybe you were insulted that I assumed you were single or
that—"

"Go to hell, Aidan," she
slammed her palms against my chest. "You don’t know anything about me!
Leave me alone. You can’t own me, go find someone else to proposition."
She stalked away down the sidewalk and I didn’t follow.

Shoulders slouched and my hands in my
pockets I headed back to my car. When I climbed in, I took a deep breath,
realizing what I needed to do. Pulling out my cell phone, I quickly made a
call.

"What the fuck do you want?"
he answered with great irritation.

"Well, hello to you too, Dixon."

"Whatever," Dixon spit out and
before he could say another word, I launched into my apology and what had
happened since last night.

"You did what?" He yelled.
"I can’t believe you are such a selfish fucking asshole. Stay away from
her."

"Dixon, I don’t want to lose our
friendship over this and I am sorry for what happened. I didn’t mean for it to
be this way…I just—"

"You are just lucky that she didn’t
kick you in the balls. I would have. You deserve it."

I sighed as he continued to rant.

"Dixon, can we please talk. I need
to clear this all up." I spit out at him before he could get another rant
started.

"Fine, come by tomorrow, after seven,
so Lilli isn’t home."

I was about to thank him but he stopped
me.

"You’ll be lucky if I don’t kick
you in the balls when you get here." He hung up.

Oscar was next, to see if he would also
come along.

I should have expected it but was caught
off guard when Dixon opened the door and his fist connected with my cheek. Pain
blossomed in my cheekbone, spreading to my eye and the side of my nose.

"Fuck!"

Oscar grabbed my shoulders to help
steady me.

"You're just lucky I don’t do
worse." Dixon shouted before motioning us inside.

I flinched as we walked past Dixon, his
hand twitched towards my presence.

"So what do you want?" He
sneered as he sat down across from Oscar and me.

"I want to apologize for
everything," I said. "I truly didn’t mean for this to get this
way."

"Well, it did!" Dixon snapped.
"I just don’t understand what happened to you?"

"What?" I wrinkled my forehead
in confusion of his question.

"Aidan, when we were in college you
totally knew how to talk and charm a girl. What made you think that
propositioning a girl like she was a whore would work?" Dixon sat with his
eyebrows raised.

"I-I don’t know. I guess I was
trying to be businesslike," I answered.

"Idiot," he mumbled.

"Asshole," Dixon corrected.

"Okay, I get it!" I groaned
out. "Did you guys ever think about my side of this? I know that you all
laugh at the ‘conditions’ that I have and think that I could just randomly
select some girl to marry and all that, but it’s much more difficult than
that." I ran a hand threw my hair.

"I only have a little over 6 months
to get married, which means that, essentially, I need to be planning marriage
arrangements in no less than four months." I groaned out loud and threw
myself back onto the couch.

"Damn it!" I slapped Oscar’s
hand as he placed a towel full of ice on my cheek.

"Use it to keep the swelling and
bruising down."

"Okay, so you are desperate, but
why be an asshole to Lilli?" Dixon growled.

"I wasn’t trying to be. I guess I
just came off that way. I told you it wasn’t my intention." I sighed.
"I don’t think for one second that she is ‘for sale’ or that she is a
whore. I simply know that she could use some help and I could use a lot of damn
help."

Dixon shook his head at me.

"You’re screwed!" He laughed
loudly.

Well it was good to see Dixon back with
me, at least a little bit.

"Do you even understand what these
‘inheritance conditions’ truly mean to me?" I answered before either of
them could say anything. "It means that I am responsible for the security
of over 5000 employee’s. If the board takes over the company, my family’s
company, I don’t know for sure what they will do but I’m pretty sure that
Gideon will do everything in his power to ruin it just to spite Grandfather and
my family. Then, on top of that, I’m responsible for securing my family and
keeping my grandfather’s things in our family." I sighed in heavy
frustration and put the damn ice pack to my cheek.

"I get it," Dixon said in a
low voice. "I didn’t really think about it that way but that doesn’t mean —"

"I know, I know. I was wrong in my
approach." I sat up quickly. "How can I fix it?" I looked
directly into Dixon’s eyes.

He shrugged. "She’s stubborn. I
think you should cut your losses and move on to plan B."

"Lilli was plan B." It
unintentionally came out condescendingly.

Dixon raised his beer up.

"Here’s to plan C then." He
laughed before he took a drink.

I groaned, laying back onto the couch.

"Fuck!" I yelled. Oscar patted
my shoulder.

"Look, you have charmed a hell of a
lot of women, why are you so intent on it being Lilli?" Oscar drawled.  I
caught Dixon’s intense look at my face.

"I like Lilli."

Dixon groaned. I sat up straighter.

"I think Lilli is nice and I think
she deserves to be better off than she is right now. I know I don’t know her
well but at least I do know her, she knows me and we have some of the same friends."
I sighed and looked at Dixon. "I really do want to help her out, she’s a
nice girl."

"Yeah, she is a nice girl, which is
why she shouldn’t get involved with you!" Dixon smirked. "Yet, it
would be nice for her to not have to work so much and be so…" He didn’t
finish.

"I doubt she would talk to me at
this point. Besides, I don’t even know where to begin to –"

"Uh oh," Oscar said after he
swallowed the gulp of beer that was in his mouth "I know that look. What
are you up to?"

"Nothing." Smiling, I took his
beer from him. Tilting my head back, I finished it off.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I sat at my desk trying to concentrate
on the contracts in front of me but I was too anxious about my plan. I kept
looking at my watch, when I saw that it was four in the afternoon I called
Dixon.

"You're crazy," Dixon
answered.

I smirked.

"So do you think it will get her to
at least talk to me?" I said through my small smile.

"That or she will think that you
are an even bigger stalker," he laughed and I frowned. "You still
there?"

"Yeah," I breathed out.
"You think that it was smart to not go with roses?"

"Definitely. Very smart move on
your part, she would’ve thought you were really crazy if you had done
that," he chuckled.

"You sure? Because I am trying to
make—"

"Aidan, stop. Lilli isn’t a roses
kind of girl. Walking into a room full of flowers is going to overwhelm her
enough." I could almost hear his eyes rolling.

"Okay," I still felt nervous.

"Calm down. I’ll talk to you
later."

"Yeah, later." We hung up.

I sat wondering if this would work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lilli

Having repeated nights of not getting
enough sleep, I headed straight for my room when I got home after class.
Thankfully, my classes for the semester would be coming to an end then I would
just not register for the next semester. I would pick up another job but was
hoping to just find a more full-time, better paying, Monday to Friday day job. I
could catch up on sleep during the weekends.

When I opened the door I was assaulted
by a strong floral smell, the kind of smell you experience when you enter a
flower shop. My room looked like a blanket of white and pink petals. Vases
filled to the brim with Peonies sat on my desk, bedside table, dresser and
floor.