A Friendly Proposal (On Hold)

Chapter 3 ~ The Effect | Now |

Chapter 3 ~ The Effect | Now |

I was still shaking as Landon led us to his car. Cameras flashed all around us. Normally, I liked cameras. Recently, they had begun to intimidate me. Now, though, it was almost like they weren’t even there. I was in my own world.

Except that I wasn’t.

With his cute proposal, Landon had brought me into his world.

And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to return to mine any time soon. We were surrounded by media personnel, who were spurting out questions the same way food spurted out of a blender if I didn’t close it correctly, but I couldn’t hear any of them at the moment.

It all sounded like an echo in my ears. The only things I could hear were the pumping of blood in my chest and my footsteps as I blindly followed Landon. Ironically, I had blindly followed Landon into this mess. He’d asked me to come, and I did.

But then he did this. He didn’t even ask me. I knew he was going to make it official. I knew it, but I never imagined he’d pull something like this. People did these sorts of things in movies, at the end, when the hero was convinced he was in love with the woman and was ready to declare it to the world. Then, they’d live happily ever after.

I felt like my story was just beginning, and this wasn’t a Hollywood drama. This was worse. This felt like chaos.

Then, I was in the car. The noises stopped, but I could still feel the rough thudding in my chest. Then, reality seemed to hit me. I was going to marry Landon. Landon Oliver. The Landon Oliver. Did things like this even happen?

“Sorry about that.” Landon said, a cheeky grin on his face. “Now, before you get mad—” He began to say, but I promptly cut him off.

“I’m already mad!” I exploded. “Shoot Landon. You could have at least warned me. I looked like an idiot out there. You should have told me you were planning to do that. I could have at least been prepared.”

“I didn’t want you to be prepared.” Landon explained, his smooth voice already having a calming effect on me. “I wanted to see your face as I sang you the song, Bambi. I wanted to see the surprise, the shock, everything.”

“You just wanted to entertain yourself.” I told him. “You told me you were going to hold a press conference. You planned that song out. You planned the whole thing.”

“We can still have a press conference if you want to have one.” Landon tried appeasing me. Tension etched over his features and I wanted to wipe the wrinkles off of his face. I shook my head. We weren’t even in a real relationship and we were already fighting like an old married couple.

“I don’t want a bloody press conference! I think your proposal was already outrageous enough.” I told him, crossing my arms. I couldn’t push his eyes out of my head, when he looked into mine and asked me to marry him. If I had been in a real relationship with him, I would have probably dropped my pants because of that expression. It had been completely magical.

“There was one thing missing, though.” He said, gently taking my hand in his. “I tried to make it perfect for you. Wasn’t that the kind of proposal you wanted? Isn’t that the kind of proposal every girl wants? For someone to ask her in front of the world?”

“What was missing?” I asked him, ignoring the last part of his question. Maybe other girls might want that kind of proposal, but not me. In fact, I never was an attention seeker and Landon should have known that. But maybe it was better this way. Now that he’d asked me in front of the world, everyone knew about it. He wrote a song over it.