As we pulled up to Aria's mansion I took in the familiar Mediterranean styling, limestone columns, and grey brick shingle roof.
Braking sharply directly in front of the steps I shut off my car, and get out much to the shock of the valet.
"Leave it where it is" I say before turning to Olivia, "stay here for five minutes then make your appearance", she then nods and I walk up the steps towards the open French doors of the house.
Walking across the marble flooring I see Jennifer, Aria's mom, and Christian her father.
"Hi Adrian" Christian says from the kitchen.
"Hello Christian, Jennifer, where's Arianna?" I ask.
"She's out by the pool" Jennifer says.
I nod in appreciation before walking out the back doors that were almost twice my height.
Their backyard in fact their whole mansion estate was something you'd expect to be owned by a millionaire in Sicily it was massive with decorative hedges, large fountains, palm trees lines the pool area with Junipers wrapping the entire property, along with a pool that was a close second in size to my own house sized pool in the Hamptons.
In one of the mahogany weave lounge chairs, holding what looked like some fruity martini, was Aria in her favourite blue bikini.
"Arianna" I muse making use of my ability to control myself, and at the moment I was restraining from yelling at her.
"My name sounds nice from you Adrian".
"The advantages of being me" I mutter, before a steward walked over to me.
"Would you like a drink?".
"Raspberry sparkler with a lime no alcohol" I reply, and the steward walked away, right before Aria sat up, and removed her glasses to look at me.
"No alcohol, you're not going to be here for a long time".
"No, I'm not, mainly because I was curious what you remember from the party four days ago".
Aria looked vaguely confused before her mind came to realization.
"Oh shit" she mutters before looking at me, "Adrian I am so sorry, for what I said that night I was drunk and..." I cut her off keeping zero emotion on my face.
"Aria you knew I was going to tell her, and you couldn't not say anything for one more night" I say in monotone.
"Look I really do feel bad, I didn't remember anything from that night, I woke up here at home, so I never thought anything of it".
"I don't really care, that's part of this you don't reveal vital secrets regardless of if you were shit faced or not you should have enough common sense to know your limit Arianna".
"I'm sorry okay".
"Sounds defensive to me" Olivia says as she walks across the patio.
"Not to be rude but what part do you have in this".
"Because she was supposed to be the recipient of what you called out for all of LA's rich kids to hear and the only reason it's not big news is because I had it eliminated under a breakage in privacy laws" I say.
"Okay how do I make this up to you both?" Aria asks.
"I don't want anything, Olivia's the only one who may want you to do something".
"I just want to know why you said it, why in front of the future generations of wealth did you say something like that?" Olivia asked calmly, and keeping her composure under control.
That's my girl.
"I wasn't thinking clearly, and I really am sorry, I put you two at odds with each other because of my bad wording and timing, I'm sorry that I said what you were prematurely, and I'm sorry I did so in front of everyone. But it's also a testament that you two are together the way I had said it made it seem like it was worse then it was, and you two made it through I assume by talking it through" Aria says apologetically.
"Your forgiven" I state right as the steward returns with two raspberry sparklers.
"Which one's yours?" Olivia asked.
"I asked for a lime" I say looking at both drinks and noticing they both had one.
"So did I".
"I guess we just take one" I say lifting the glass from the tray, and sipping it cautiously since it was rather full.
"That was careful" Aria mused as she picked up her drink.
"My clothes are custom, I don't want it ruined" I say.
Olivia rolled her eyes but laughed, "billionaire's".
I just smirk at her, "you love me" I muse.
"Yes I do to the moon and back" she replies hugging me with a smile on her face which I return, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Aria smiling almost fondly at me and Olivia.
"Are you two going to stay for lunch?" Jennifer asks walking over to us.
"Livi?" I say looking down at my girlfriend.
"What is for lunch?" Olivia asks.
"Lemon pepper chicken" Jennifer replies.
"Alright, we'll stay".
I laugh knowing that Olivia will almost always order chicken at restaurants or ask me to cook it for dinner.
"Come on, Aria go get changed for dinner" Jennifer calls over her shoulder before we all walk up the back stairs to the patio, and into the mansion.
"I also need to change I've been in the same clothes from yesterday all day" I say gesturing to the wrinkled shirt.
"Oh certainly, it'll take Aria a moment to get changed anyway" Christian says smiling at his daughter.
How I miss the family dynamic of my parents.
As I walk off towards the entryway stairs Olivia caught up to me.
"Where are you going to get clothes".
"I spent the first three nights in LA here, in one of the guest bedrooms I have a few clothes here".
"Why the first three days?".
"Remember how I left at night it was ten PM when I landed, so I spent the night here, then I went to a party the following night and stayed here, then felt like shit the following day. The fourth day I went to my house" I explain.
"Okay that makes sense" Olivia says before we got to the second floor, and went down the hallway that led to my room.
The room was more like a high class hotel suite with it's own living room, and a separate sleeping area with a grey marble bathroom.
"I feel like I'm back in the Shangri La in Paris" Olivia muses as I walk over to the closet, and pull out a pair of the four sets of clothes in the closet.
"This is about the size of the guest bedrooms in my house, the new Secondary Master which you've never used is my old bedroom".
"I have slept in that bed though".
"That is true" I say, folding the extra clothes before changing my shirt to a typical black one, before taking off my jeans, and pulling on some faded black one's. "Alright we should go downstairs, wouldn't want to keep them waiting".
"I'm hungry too" Olivia says, before we walk out of the room, and head downstairs with me placing the stack of clothes on the bottom step.
Walking into the dining room I sat down on the side of the table before the staff began to set the food onto the table.
Once we all had covered our plates in food mine being chicken rice and peas we all began eating.
"So Olivia how did you and Adrian meet" Jennifer asks making both me and Olivia glance up at her.
"We met at school on the first day of October" Olivia says.
"Hmm... well Thornbrook is an excellent school bankrolled largely by the rich of New York and only accepting the wealthiest and best, so you must have come from some form of wealth, what was...".
"Olivia's a scholarship student at the school, she's probably the smartest one there" I say in my usual flat tone.
"A scholarship student. When did Thornbrook start that?" Christian asks seeming undeterred by my harsh tone.
"Twenty-eighteen, they accept one for various achievements" I reply.
"What achievement were you brought to the school for?" Jennifer asks.
"Academic" Olivia says slicing her chicken into neat squares.
"I like to think she earned her way into the most elite school in the US, instead of bought into it" I say.
"How did you buy in" Aria asks.
"Record of being an Academic acceller, and I went to St. Regis until I was eight I then went to Rosemburg before going to Thornbrook at thirteen and giving a donation along with name dropping to get into the school" I say.
"Doesn't every student have to give a donation?" Christian asks.
"Yes but that doesn't guarantee, your name has to hold enough weight to even be considered then they go through and find out if the parents are good people and if they're not their children can't get in".
"That's sad, being denied a direct shot at an Ivy League University just because your parents aren't good people" Jennifer says.
"The principle the apple doesn't fall far from the tree is applied when considering students" I say.
"Does that apply for scholarships?" Olivia asks.
"Yes, your mom's a nurse so that would be easy acceptance, public service".
"Oh wow, what is the acceptance rate?" Aria asks.
"Four percent" Olivia answers, "I found that out when I got in that I was one of the two thousand students that were considered.
"Oh wow" Jennifer says.
"Anyway, this is excellent" I say having finished my plate.
"That didn't take long" Christian says.
"Yeah, I just seem to eat fast" I say while holding Olivia's hand under the table as we both had been eating with one hand.
"You always do" Olivia muses.
"I have a 'why waste time' mindset" I admit.
"That's obvious" Aria laughs.
"She's right Mr. Ten Over the speed limit" Olivia teases.
"Alright both of you leave me alone" I say glaring playfully at them both.
"Okay, okay" Olivia says raising her free arm and smiling at me.
I love you too much to be upset at you.
"What do you have planned for this week?" Aria asks looking over at us.
"I'm taking everyone out of state in the next few weeks" I say standing and carrying my plate to the kitchen.
"Oh that sounds nice, where?".
"Wyoming".
"I've never been there you'll have to take pictures or something" Aria says.
"Maybe" I say, "I sometimes will go places and forget I have a phone for messaging people, often it's just for music" I say.
"That's true" Olivia confirms also putting her plate in the kitchen, which I move into the dishwasher.
"Are you two heading out?" Christian asks.
"Yeah we probably should, our friends might send out search parties if we're gone too long" I say.
"Well thank you for stopping by, and having lunch with us" Jennifer says.
"Your welcome" Olivia says giving her a smile before we both walked to the entryway to put on our shoes.
After a moment we then walked out of the house and down to our cars.
"Time to go home" Olivia muses.
"Yeah, Riley will want to know every detail of the past four days drive as slow as you can" I jokingly comment as I get in my car.
"I'm driving as fast as you so that's determined by you" Olivia calls to me before my door closes.
We then start the cars, and drive away out of Bel Air towards my home in Summitridge.
Back towards home.
Okay I didn't know if I would finish this chapter today but well i apparently did. Please leave your comments and thoughts below, also vote and share. Anyways
Peace✌