"You were amazing back there!" Adrian said as he led Jennifer out of the meeting room after the meeting had been dismissed. Jennifer blushed. "You should have controlled yourself back there. You kissed me in public. They were all staring at me." Jennifer's cheeks heated up with each word she said. "I couldn't. Okay? You were talking about him as if he was the only guy you've ever met." Adrian mocked Jennifer playfully precisely portraying her body features when she talked about her past love.
"So what do you want to eat?" Adrian asked Jennifer in between of their conversation where they both were laughing and joking. "I don't want anything to eat." Jennifer replied. "So… do you wanna go shopping?" Adrian asked again. "No. I already have enough clothes." Jennifer said. She was so busy fixing her skirt that she didn't pay attention to the fact that Adrian was just trying to find a reason to go out with her. Adrian pursed his lips into a thin line. "A whole human ATM is standing next to you and you don't want to spend a penny. How rude?" he said.
"You do realize that I'm richer than you." This was again unconscious. After Jennifer said this, she realized what happened. "Oh! I meant to say that yes! I would love to spend a day with you. Why don't we go and have some ice cream?" She spoke in a sweet voice trying to cover up the near blunder she made. She instantly linked her arms with Adrian's and started walking in direction of her favorite ice cream parlor. Adrian mentally smiled at how cute she was.
At the ice cream parlor, Adrian and Jennifer ordered their ice cream and sat down to eat. They talked and laughed. Joked around. A perfect date in Jennifer's mind. This place was really great as well. They sold ice cream, gelato, sorbet and frozen yogurt to consumers. The best in the country. After they finished their ice cream, Adrian and Jennifer roamed around in the town, hand in hand, talking about something. It was a perfect date until Adrian gets a call.
He picks it up. "Hello." He said. Although Jennifer couldn't hear everything the other person said, she felt that he sounded like James who was really stressed and now on the verge of breaking down. "I'm coming." Adrian said. His voice had also turned deeper. More serious. Guess the date was over. Much to Jennifer's surprise, Adrian turned around and said, "Want to have a mafia style date?" Jennifer was confused by what he meant but agreed nevertheless.
When Adrian saw Jennifer agree to him, he held her hand more tightly and started walking back in the direction of his own house. "Where are we going?" Jennifer asked but all Adrian said was, "You will get to know when we get there." Jennifer was getting restless now. They had been travelling for 15 minutes to and Adrian had been abnormally quiet all this time. "Adrian, at least say something." Jennifer tried although she wasn't sure if it would work this time. She had already said this sentence for a hundred times and Adrian ignored it like he ignored Debbie.
But this time he replied, "Your whole perception is going to change now. But before I lead you into the situation, I need to talk to you." He said and opened the door of the car. Jennifer was surprised to find herself in front of which looked like a medium-sized house with two stories. The house looked old enough. Surprisingly, the paint was still intact on much of the walls. The garden was in stark contrast. The grass was brown and dying. The creepers looked like they hadn't been taken care of and trees looked creepy as hell.
"This house is strangely familiar." Jennifer said as she steeped out of the car. "I know." Adrian said and walked straight near the main door of the house. The situation that unfolded was stranger than ever. James was standing near the door. "What is James doing here?" Jennifer asked as she walked behind Adrian to reach face to face with James who looked pale. "What is Jennifer doing here?" James question came as a surprise to Jennifer.
"If she going to be a member of the den, she should know. Remember?" Adrian whispered to him. "Besides, she needs to know. She has the right to know about Abby." Adrian's words were like a short term respite to James' constantly burning soul. His best friend was finally taking planned decisions in the right direction. Oh Jennifer! You have done to him wonders I only thought of doing. But the larger problem was still there slicing it's way through James' wounded emotions, slowly and painfully.
"Don't you think she will hate you when she discovers the truth?" James questioned Adrian's decision. This question whisked up fear from Adrian's guts. The fear of losing Jennifer. The fear that she would hate him forever. The fear that she would see him as a murderer. As a criminal. The fear that he would loose her as soon as he got her. Adrian fell silent. Sudden anxiety and tension took over his body. It was the choice between the painful right thing or the easy wrong thing. Does anyone know that this is the most difficult choice a human has to make in his entire lifetime and the irony! Every human has to make it at least once in the time period of their living on the face of earth.
"Umm. Excuse me!" Jennifer tapped Adrian's and James' shoulder to being them back to reality. They both were so lost in each other's problems that they entirely forgot Jennifer's existence. "I have the right to know what?" Adrian got pushed back into the harsh reality with a jerk and now he had to face Jennifer with an anxious heart. "Follow me into the car. We will talk there." Adrian said and started walking towards the car without another glance at Jennifer. He didn't even wait for Jennifer to reply.
Jennifer was left with no choice but to follow him. She was curious about thing Adrian and James were talking about. What was so severe that it got Adrian all nervous and shaking. Adrian and James exchanged several looks all along the way to the car. It was safe to say that they both didn't even break the eye contact of it were not for the fact that humans had to blink.