The Curse of Awkward

Chapter 3

Emmy was walking, to where she wasn't sure.

Trees encased the area around her, leaving her a small path to walk upon, barely wide enough for her foot to land. She knew she was on a mission, but for the life of her she couldn't remember why.

That's when she heard it, the sound of horse hooves trotting in the distance, quickly coming closer and closer. Fear, like she'd never felt before struck her in the gut. Looking around, she tried to gauge where the best hiding spot would be, but it seemed that all the trees were too thin; none would offer her the protection she needed.

Then she saw it, an overturned tree. The stump just big enough to hide behind. As stealthily as she could manage, which wasn't very stealthy, she scurried over to the log and dropped down.

Within minutes, the sound of horses ceased, as they came upon the spot where she'd been walking before. "Do you think she could have gone north, sir?"

"No, no, I think she would have followed the path. I mean, that leads straight to it, right? She would have known that Chives." She let out an involuntary giggle at hearing Chives' name, and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth in horror.

"Did you hear that sir? I could have sworn I heard something."

"Ah, Chives, ever the paranoid one," came an arrogant voice from the other side of her hiding place.

"But sir! Really I thought-." Suddenly, I hand was clamped over her mouth, preventing her from screaming.

"Don't make any noise, I'm trying to help you," a voice whispered in her ear, sounding distinctly like Roman. A shock of relief ran through Emmy's system.

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"Wha-." Emmy awoke with a jolt from her sleep. Attempting to sit up, she noticed an arm laying across her midsection, sending her into another bout of panic. Tracing the arm from the wrist up to the face, she noticed that Roman had his arm thrown across her.

Eyes wide in shock, she examined his face for any signs of waking. Satisfied that he was still out cold, she slowly eased herself out of the bed.

She made it half way before one of her legs caught in a sheet, twisting, and causing her to fall with a thud onto the ground. Praying that Roman hadn't woken up, she glanced up, only to see that she wasn't so lucky.

Roman stared at her with a confused look on his handsome face, glancing between her and the bed, then back again.

"Why are you on the floor? Actually, why are you still here in the first place?" The deep timbre of his sleepy voice caused shivers to run down her spine, but one look at the bedside clock told her his question was warranted.

Two a.m.

Crap, her brother was going to kill her.

"Well, um, you see... Actually I'm just leaving." Emmy quickly scrambled to stand up, wrestling with her towel to stay against her body. Even worse than she thought, it was two in the morning and she was only wearing a towel.

Careful to not meet Roman's gaze, she situated her towel into the most comfortable position she could muster, while quickly making her way towards the door. As she reached for the handle, she heard a small wait come from the direction of the bed.

Ignoring it she swung the door open, adopting the task of trying to navigate to the front entrance.

"I said wait, woman. Don't you ever listen?" Frustration sounded in his voice.

A tug on her wrist had her spinning and landing against Roman's chest. Clearly, he hadn't anticipated the move, for both her and him soon landed on the floor.

Her head was pressed into his chest, her hair pooling around her, too bad it was anything but romantic. Her body was at a right angle to his, her nose shoved near his armpit. Emmy tried to move from the head lock that Roman had accidentally put her in, without much progress.

Roman was still recovering from the wind getting knocked out of him when he finally let Emmy go, realizing she was struggling. "Okay, never trying to stop you ever again, lesson learned," he managed to wheeze out.

Emmy couldn't help but smile at his halfhearted joke. "It will do you well in the future," she replied, causing him to chuckle. "I really need to get going though, my brother will be worried, so don't even think about forcing me to stay here for the rest of the night or something."

"Uh, I wasn't." He gave her a strange look to emphasize his point. "I was just going to tell you that I need to disable the alarm system before you open the door."

"Oh." Looking away from him she glanced down the hallway. How foolish she'd been, of course they had an alarm system. They were the royal family.

"I will though, be driving you home, no 'and's, if's, or but's' about it. You're only wearing a towel, it's the least I could do." Without a word she agreed, figuring she'd made enough of a fool of herself for one day.

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The ride was silent beside the sound of the radio, neither wanting to talk for fear of disturbing the peace. Only once Roman pulled up in front of her house, did she dare utter a word.

"Thank you for the ride," she said glancing at him from under her lashes.

"Don't sweat it." His gaze swung from the front windshield to her, for half a second, before returning to the windshield again. Feeling dejected by his lack of response, she slowly climbed out of the vehicle, but a hand on her wrist stopped her before she could shut the door. "Have a good night, or I guess it would be good morning, Emmy."

She could tell by the genuine look on his face that he wasn't mocking her, which caused her to reply with a quiet, "You too."

He released her arm, and after shutting the door completely, she walked inside, rubbing the place where his hand had just held.

Her moment was ruined though, by her cat lady neighbor, Miss Stacy, screaming at a cat named Sprinkles, and a lot of animal hissing.