The line went silently dead for a while still transfixed and dumbfounded, Brayden stood holding the phone by his ears tightly thinking he'd heard wrong.
His ears must've not be functioning as they used to properly. What??!!! A child??? Was the old man drunk again? Like what was he saying? He seriously got to be bluffing with him right now?! He pondered now peering closely at his phone.
"Aren't you going to be saying anything? Why the sudden silence?" His grandfather finally said after some moment that the lines between them was as silent much as a graveyard.
Baffled, Brayden could only gasp in confuse of what was happening and really going on.
"What do you want me to say?" He asked his voice like a whisper unbelieve was clearly evident in it.
"That you would begin working on giving me a child, my grandson" The old man immediately responded smoothly and on the other line he was wondering if he was crazy or just mad.
"What're you saying here, grandfather? You must be kidding me honestly" He covered helplessly tired and stressed.
"I'm not. I want a son from you, Brayden" His grandfather stated firmly and demandingly.
In thoughts, Brayden managed to ask himself his grandfather was turning or running mad.
"How can you expect me to father a child? I'm just as young as 18!!!" He exclaimed in exasperation.
"How many time would I tell you that you're not too young as you think anymore? Now, you're a man who've fully developed the organs that could get any girl pregnant. So, what're you saying?" This was the old man curtly reply before he chuckled at his grandson's likewise naivety.
"I can't believe you're saying this. Like, what the hell?" He muttered unconvinced.
"Well, it yours choice to believe it or not but all you should know is that what I'm going to be expecting from you on my birthday. A good news of an arriving baby boy and I know very well that you're man enough to do more than that, Brayden, I mean, too even make me more overjoyed on that day you could make it twins" His grandfather explained all in a rush making him crease his perfectly arched eyebrows puzzled.
Unfazed and sighing, Brayden still thought in his mind that his grandfather was trying to play jokes and pranks on him as he usually do with hell of a serious matters. So, he knew this instant was one of them and it won't be long before the old man had his laugh giving up his joke of a pitch and cutting him the crap.
"You just can't be serious saying all this nonsense and ridiculous things now" He wondered his thoughts of the whole thing out loud.
"Grandson, how I'm spitting nonsense or saying ridiculous things?" The old man said in a quietly taking aback calm tone making him frozen.
"I think it's about time you stop pulling my legs on this" He instructed vexed still not taking the old man surprising words seriously.
"If you must know, you're the one pulling your legs here" His grandfather responded truthfully.
"What?" Hesitantly, he asked back being perplexed further by his grandfather's in descriptive answers.
"You...." The old man begin then paused all of a sudden.
"You know, what?" He barked suspiciously in questioning.
"I think it's about time" Was the completion of the earlier said words by his grandfather.
"It time for what?" He asked clearly still in the dark and not the light of everything.
"Its the time that you finally choose to get married to Dakota Carraway" The old man announced dropping a shocking ticking time bomb of words on him.
Over surprised, Brayden eyes widened like saucers and his mouth hung open in much of an big letter 'O'.
Within himself, he'd know that this day that he'll be talked into getting joined with his childhood be throned will come but he hadn't expected it this soon.
"Grandfather?!!" He exclaimed loudly as if horrified by something scary.
"What? You both have been said to be in an arrange marriage for years so how long do you want to run or stay away from your future bride" His grandfather informed wisely but it wasn't much or a piece of advice to him.
"But you know very well that i don't really love her" He calmly but quietly answered breathing heavily hard.
"Love?" The old man muttered laughing loudly from the other end. "No one marry out of love these days including I and your late father. We marry for alliance and to amass more wealth to the ones we have for ourselves. So, love isn't a damn thing for people being together today, young man"
From childhood, Brayden knew his grandfather very well as someone who if was hoping to get or collect something from a certain person who'd plan his approach and conversation really well till that person lands in his trap. He knew well enough that it won't be long before the old man caught his ass.
"Why would you want me to marry her right now when there is still a hell lot of time?" He asked calculative and reflectingly.
"Isn't it already pictured to you now? Its all so that you both could get engaged granting my last wish and hand me the child I've been wanting and asking from you for ages now" His grandfather answered in a snap of the finger.
Derisively, he whispered like pleaded,"I need some more time to myself and life. I'm not ready to get married to her now, grandfather"
"Who cares if you're not ready?" The old man asked chuckling humorously to himself before continually saying, "Brayden at the moment, all I need is to hear a 'yes' from Dakota the instant she says so you're going to be putting a ring on her finger and be exchanging those God damn vows with her at soonest"
Angered by the old man's rashness of words and heart towards him, Brayden firmly stated in his icy tone,"Anytime soon, I won't be getting married to that slut or whore"
This habit of his got that of his grandfather's into their own tail's of action.
"Choose your language carefully, young man" His grandfather thunder like voice reverbrated in his ears.
In a light tone, Brayden tried not to loose his calm else he knew the much expected causes and replied,"But that's what she really is"
"Wait!" The old man commanded in an icy shuddering voice before minutely asking, "Are you going to be nerving to violate against my words, Brayden?"
Breathing in, Brayden sighed fearfully for what he was about ever daring to say accepting his fate and respectfully answering,"I'm sorry, but yes if it means I don't get to be given another choice, grandfather"
Expecting the dangers as to having the boldness of saying that, Brayden waited for his grandfather to lash is difficult judgement but he was silent obvious thinking taking the chance he prayed for the best.
"You want to be giving another choice, right?" His grandfather's fright-like voice demanded.
Unfazed in the outside but scared in the inside, Brayden feigned boldness and smoothly responded,"Yes, I want one"
"Alright" The old man curtly said before beginning a short speech, "Over the last eighteen years I've been raising you, I've watched you live reckless and act so unserious with the things of life but then I've coming to the conclusion that it must end before you turn 20"
Making sure there were much emphasis on his words, his grandfather stopped before going on further.
"If you don't want to get married to Dakota now but at your time being then I want you to introduce me to your one and i repeat only true girlfriend" His grandfather dropped before continuing. "Either that or you get married to Dakota it's your choice"
The two choices weren't in anyway helpful or compelling to Brayden, he doesn't have a girlfriend as he couldn't just commit in a relationship to one. Being goodlooking, he was a huge flirt, player, pkayboy and likewise going to be a Casanova. He liked and loved girls lot of them.
In thought, he wondered, 'How he could possibly just be or stay with just a girl? Who knows the time the old man would've calling the whole thing off? How?? When??...
"So, what choice would you be making?" The old man impatiently asked intruding on his train of thoughts.