My Favour to the Bad Boy

Popping The Question

As Adrian, Kim and I walked home, I suddenly came to the jolting realization that this would be the first time I was properly invited into Adrian's home. When Adrian quote on quote popped the question, I mindlessly accepted his offer as if I was being invited into Kim's house instead. Even Kim seemed slightly surprised I hadn't made a joke or two or even tried to avoid the situation completely. Something about being in a part of Adrian's house that wasn't the patio seemed frightening, like it was some kind of new territory to explore.

"I wanted you to properly meet Monica and Troy. I know they've been to your house before, but you didn't spend much one on one time with them." Adrian stated. His arm reassuringly brushed against mine, though I was anything but reassured.

"So, we're doing the 'meet the family' thing already?" I tried to sound casual.

"Weren't you the one who wanted to get to know more about me? Monica is the perfect person for that. She's practically been my second mom since..." He stopped himself. "She'll love you. She probably already likes you from your first encounter."

Totally, I'm sure her and Troy were very enticed by the fact I resemble their murdered friend, aka your 'ex'.

"This is my alley y'all, I'll see you guys soon." Kim smiled and gave both of us a quick hug. "Behave, you two." She turned to us with a smirk from the middle of the road, pointing two fingers at us.

"She's a funny one, isn't she." Adrian said to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as he guided me forward.

"Real funny," I replied.

There was a reason I was so nervous to be formally invited to his house. It wasn't just Monica. It was the way he had kissed me after lunch. It was the goosebumps around Noah. It was Harper and her damn safe house. Why did this invitation make things so real? Was I taking it too literally, as if this invitation meant I was being welcomed into his life? The way he answered earlier about allowing me to know a bit more about him; maybe he was making an effort to finally let me in. I can't afford to mess things up with him.

In just a short amount of time, we had reached Adrian's front door. He slid the key into the lock and gave it a quick twist, giving the door a harder than normal push.

"How heavy is your door?" Before I could get an answer, the door nearly closed on my face as I caught it with my shoulder and side arm. This thing weighed a lot. It felt like an exercise just trying to keep it open.

"It's been reinforced. With the life I live, you never know." He shrugged his shoulders as if he was more than used to being asked this question.

"But you've got huge windows right beside your door." I deadpanned as I let the heavy door slam behind me. I winced at the loud thud, shooting him a quick apology as he turned back to look at me.

"Ballistic glass. We're not that dumb." He slid his shoes off and walked into the living room.

"You say that like it's normal..." I said in a quieter voice, looking around as he walked away. I slowly made my way into his living room. I wasn't sure what I expected to see, but everything looked normal. The floor was covered by a grayish blue fluffy carpet. A comfy looking white cloth couch sat in the middle of it, a small glass coffee table in front of it, followed by a medium sized mounted flatscreen on the wall. The screen was framed by two tall, dark brown book shelves that didn't hold many books at all. A few cook books and a dictionary sat scattered on each side, some of the shelves displaying small figurines, as well as a number one soccer trophy won by Troy.

A gold detailed picture frame sitting on one of the shelves caught my attention. As I walked closer to it, I could see it was an older picture, the edges of it frayed and whitened, with white cracks running through where the picture had been folded before. A small orange date stamp sat in the bottom right corner, marking the date around the time Adrian had been five years old. It was a picture of Adrian and his mother, their cheeks pressed together, both smiling as big as they could.