Marriage by Law-One Shot

Have we met?

This is my entry for Marriage by Law One Shot Contest.

Dedicated to Mysterious_Writer 

***

"Ivory!"

"Ivory!"

Adrian.

I groaned, why is that insufferable fool making so much noise in the morning? It should be a sin-

"Ivory, look what I found!"

He shoved a photograph in my face.  What. Did he seriously wake me up just to take a look at a photograph? I rubbed my poor sleepy eyes while I slowly sat up to look at his major discovery at this ungodly hour.

What was so special about this photograph? Isn't it just a picture of a few young childr-Wait, isn't that me? Where would Adrian find a picture of me?

When was this even taken?

20 years ago

"Smile, children!"

"Ivory! Look here!"

There were a few children standing by the dining table, none looking as enthusiastic as the well dressed woman taking a picture, or well, attempting to take a picture.

All Ivory could think about while her mother was yakking about how their smiles were not bright enough and how they were not standing properly was the nice smelling candles at the corners of the room. If she could just move slightly towards the left, she could take a whiff at the candles. Why were they taking a picture together? She didn't even know who these boys were. Well, she thought she heard her mother say something about them being the children of some guy her father worked with.

"Well Darling, that was one brilliant shot. Food's ready, shall we go for lunch first? Kids," Finally, Ivory's father came to save the day. It may seem to others that Harold Hiddleberg was simply calling them for lunch, but really, he was putting a stop to a picture session that would continue to drag on if without intervention.

He winked at young Ivory who was beaming gratefully at him and ushered the children to their seats. Unfortunately for Ivory, not even her father can save her from this next problem she was going to have.

Ivory thanked the server unwillingly for putting her worst nemesis right in front of her while she groaned inwardly. Shrimps and calamari, she could just swallow them quickly, but such a huge piece of fish, it was literally impossible to do it. She dug around her plate, wondering how to get rid of it. Could she just dump it under the table? Or should she accidentally fling it across the table to the big bully who pulled her ponytail just now? At least her mother didn't get her nanny to feed her, or worse still, feed her herself.

Darius sat at the table, amused by the girl sitting beside him. She looked so troubled one would think she was solving a very hard math problem. He figured that the fish on her plate was that very hard math problem, did she not like fish? She had been playing with her food since food was served. He looked around him, the adults were chatting among themselves, the servers were standing quietly behind them, Adrian was nowhere to be found, as usual. He decided to help the poor girl out, though he would miss her cute troubled expression.

"Here," He stretched over, wanting to swop their plates. He hadn't really touched the ribs on his plate too since he was watching her play with her food the whole time. He lifted his own plate off the table and shifted hers over to his side, but before he could place it down, someone snatched it away. He turned, fuming as he saw that familiar back running away, laughing. He expected the girl to do anything but what she was doing now, laughing with that cousin of his.

Present

"Look, that by the left is you, then beside you is Darius, and I'm the one beside him!"

"So we have met? How old was I? I don't even remember when or where we took this picture!"

"Look here, it had to be some event we all went when we were younger,"

Perhaps I should ask Dairy about it, I'm sure he would have some recollection being four years older.