Target (Complete)

Target 9

"...you won't even have to make a lot of small talk. My sister promised to sit us right next to the open bar. We don't even have to stay the whole time, just enough that all my family knows I attended."He sounded a the tiniest bit desperate.

Lucian Knightly did not want to attend a family function where both his divorced parents would be with their respective significant others, at least not with out back up. His graduation party from UCLA had been a nightmare.

Both his mother and father had presented him with date options as soon as his half-sister got engaged to his step-father's godson.

If Darcy Knightly wasn't the Apple of Hamish Knightly's eye, his princess, he wouldn't have shown up at the engagement party.

If Phillip wasn't like a son to Elena Cavanaugh's husband, Lucian's mom, she wouldn't have RSVPed.

Now, for Alex, Lucian had her at open bar. Plus as an added bonus, she would have an evening of adult conversation where her input would be valued and trusted.

Also, she'd be in one of the few places where people not only knew who she was, but respected her and didn't undermined her abilities.

Plus, it was always a treat for her to talk to Knightly Senior, who always had a new story about her father to share.

"Fine, because I owe you one." She said a little coldly. "But I am only pretending to be your friend, it will not, by any means, be anything close to a romantic date. I will be your friendly plus-one."

She wore a simple floor-lenght dress with a floral pattern, her hair was in an intricate, but loose braid, and her make up was light. "You know, you clean up well Parker." Lucian said while sneaking a gander here and there towards the passenger seat of his father's sedan, the one he'd sent to pick him up.

"On the contrary, you've given me a chance to stop underdressing so much, I feel like myself today."

That really struck him. On the one hand, she was feeling comfortable enough with him to show a real part of herself. And on the other, he was probably one of  the few people who knew what she meant by her statement. She didn't walk around in  gowns at home, but she didn't need to pretend to be somene else either.

For her, it was the first time a man had taken her breath away. Upon decending the stairs to the lobby were she was waiting for him, already with a strong and rock-solid alibi for the Museum and Brodway tour, he looked like a modern-day fairy-tale prince. But she'd die before any of those thoughts were made public, to anyone.

Elena Cavanaugh had made it her mission to engage Alex in conversations throughout  the cocktail hour. After finding out that Alex's estranged  grandfather owned a castle in Scotland, she had made it her life's goal to get this pretty young lady to marry her only remaining baby-son. "You must promise to come over for tea sometime, dear. It would be just amazing. My dear husband Wesley is also related to royalty, on his father's side..."

As the party was going on strong, Hamish Knightly joined the younger versions of himself and his contemporaries, drinking whiskey and trading war stories. "...and the rogue-anarchist-son-of-a-bitch went down, finally. I mean, this kids now a days fill themselves with drugs and attack like rabid dogs. I bet even you, Mr. Knightly, would have trouble with the likes of them, if you weren't retired."

Some of the people sitting next to Alex smiled a little shyly, others smirked, waiting for Hamish to unleash a good smack on him. He looked at the man acrros from him, his eyes hard, but mocking. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't hear Miss Parker here complaining about it though, didn't you and whats-his-face, Donald's kid, went down and smoked a hole nest of them suckers, a whole breeding ground of hippy-gangsters smoking who knows what trying to assassinate the heads of the Council with a BB gun?"