hi guys! This took forever mainly because the term at school is just ending and I've had finals and suchlike. I think I must have uploaded the last chapter on autopilot and then just forgot about this story completely, LOL! I didn't think about it at all! So thank you freeziepop for the reminder! It sure was a shock to my system to get a review alert in my e-mail haha.

freeziepop also says, "I guess two people can be so completely wrong for each other that they somehow work", and I wonder...is there anybody on EARTH who would actually be "right" for either Adam or Delilah? ;) (afterwards staple this to your scantron which must be in no 2 pencil!)

thanks for reading!

25 Roadrunner

What kind of people got married that young, anyway? Low-class heathen, who tried to sue each other for assault and got verbal lashings from Judge Judy.

"I'm not that young," said Adam. "Jessica Simpson was younger than I am when she and Nick Lachey got married."

"They're divorced."

"And a Jonas Brother recently got married."

"I don't think anybody is going to mistake you for a Jonas Brother."

"And then there's Harry Potter," he continued. "Harry Potter must have been quite young really when he married Ginny."

"Harry Potter...?"

"You read Harry Potter, didn't you?"

"Well, sure, but...can you really make the comparison."

"I don't see why not," he said. "Harry Potter is bursting with good role models..."

He kissed her in the bathroom and she said, "Ouch."

"Is my face scratchy?" asked Adam, feeling his jaw.

"Yeah, but it's okay," she said. "It's a natural exfoliant, for radiant skin, you know?" He laughed toothpaste in her eyes.

He kissed her again and uttered romantically, "Come on, I'm great in the morning."

"Be still, my beating heart," she said, but he was right. Adam could access her orgasmic response better than she ever could, and when she thought about that it was sort of gross, but life went on as it always had. The world didn't stop because of the undignified slap of flesh.

Delilah had never had a boyfriend before or even been on a real date, so she had no idea what Adam was expecting from her. She told him that she had never cleaned a toilet or cooked anything of higher investment than toast, and he told her that he had never shot an animal or operated a lawnmower.

"You're rich now, Delilah," he said as his cell phone rang on the nightstand. "You can pay other people to do everything dull."

She meditated on this as he looked at his phone.

"Guess who it is," he said. "I'd hoped he'd died of shock. I wonder how he found out."

That was a joke, or something: Adam had gotten a couple of dewy new Rocket grunts to be witnesses. Of course his father would have heard about it.

"Why shouldn't it have been a religious ceremony?" Adam asked his father. "I'm C of E, and that's your doing. Delilah's not a citizen, so of course it was common licence."

He was so smug she wanted to hit him. Instead she got up and started to get dressed.

Among many other undesirable characteristics, Adam had a bit of a temper. After not very long he hung up on his father and sighed. Then he came over and leaned on the bathroom doorframe. His hair was glossy and soft and it hung in front of his face.

"What are you doing today?" he asked her.

"Publicity photos," she said. "I told you yesterday."

"So you did," he said.

After a pause she asked, "So do you think you're misunderstood?"

"What?"

"Misunderstood," she repeated. "I feel like a lot of people are going to say, 'You married Adam Harlow, that famous big jerk? Is he just misunderstood? Is he nice when you get to know him?' And I'm going to have to say, 'Well, not really...'"

He laughed, and came into the bathroom to contemplate his reflection. "There are some individuals whose understanding I would find humbling and rather offensive."

She laughed.

"Enemies," he said. "They're a comfort, aren't they?"

His face looked pale and stark in the wan light of the overcast morning.

"Disapproval," he said, "may be the price of autonomy. It only depends on market value."

She was seized with a tremendous sadness that brazen, unblushing Adam could speak so bleakly.

As she was eating breakfast he dropped a magazine on the table. "Picture of you," he said.

She pulled it closer to have a look as he sat down. It was her in her turquoise Manolo Blahniks standing with Lance and a made-up story about how they were trying to have a baby. "Why do they even bother?" she wondered.

"Obviously people like it," he said indifferently. "Somebody got paid to write it."

She wondered if maybe she was being insensitive, considering the kinds of horrible things people said about Adam all the time. But she thought those were quite a lot easier to believe. Indeed the better she got to know Adam the more she thought the tabloids would never truly do him justice, that no amount of snappy puns and gratuitous bolding could ever quite live up to his unique brand of crazy.

They both fell quiet, trying to listen to the hushed conversation behind them.

"Ask her for her autograph," a woman whispered.

The girl started to whine, "But I don't want..."

"Go ask her, don't be silly, go on."

A little girl appeared next to Delilah. "Can I have your autograph?" she asked.

"Sure," said Delilah. "What would you like me to sign?"

"Oh, God—" The mother showed up, looking flustered, and handed Delilah a page she ripped from a leather agenda. "Here, sorry about..."

"No problem," said Delilah, looking through her purse until Adam handed her a pen. The woman obviously recognized him and gave him a polite but very strained smile; Adam raised his eyebrows like Draco Malfoy or something, and she averted her gaze. The daughter looked very bored. "And who is it for?" asked Delilah.

"Jen," said the woman quickly, putting her hand on the girl's head. "You're such a fan, aren't you?"

The girl didn't say anything.

In the car Adam complained, "Nobody ever asks for my autograph."

"Aww, why not?"

"It's not easy to be a despicable cur," he sighed. "People don't like you."

Adam probably was more famous than Delilah, who was mostly well-known within the sphere of her job. Adam's celebrity was a bit more mainstream.

For her entertainment he reenacted the time he shot an editorial at this particular studio: "Are hyou ze stupidest model in ze vorld? Vaht are hyou sinking? It vas shit! Vaht do hyou do in ze dressing room for all zees hours, masturbate and sink of ze vays hyou can vaste anozer chunk of my life?" He paused. "Well, that was true, that was. So all I could do was yell and stomp about. As it turned out, he liked the passion."

She laughed. "Typical..."

Modeling, Delilah was learning, was about posing in a way that maximized a person's looks and charisma, and conveyed the art director's intentions. That was why Adam's photos were always so visually striking—he could manipulate his face and body to make the most of his arresting attractiveness.

She hurried into the dressing room for five minutes to change between sets, stopping for just a moment to pet Farley, who was curled up on her clothes. She stepped out of the dress she was wearing and adjusted her rather serious underpinnings. She reached for the photo schedule to see what she had to put on next when she heard the snap of a suspender being unclipped by stress; as she fixed it her Pokégear beeped horribly, and when she reached for that an earring fell out.

It was a text message from Adam. She opened it, wondering what he could possibly want.

i just put on your eyeliner and it looks good

"Are you kidding me," she said out loud, throwing it unceremoniously back into her bag and crouching down to look for the earring.

It was a different sort of modeling from Adam's. Delilah did celebrity pictures. Delilah did glamour; Adam did fashion. Delilah's pictures weren't art. They were marketing. People went out of their way to accommodate her on shoots; Adam said models were miserable from rejection and from being spoken to like seven-year-olds, that the only respect afforded them on set was for their skin—"so at least when you get slapped in the face it's with Crème de la Mer," he said.

When she got home she was tired and kind of aggravated but she had to immediately start getting ready to go to a benefit event for an animal charity, only to hear the infernal ring of her Pokégear as she was getting dressed.

"Pokémon League Saffron Offices, calling for Miss Delilah Peerenboom. Miss Peerenboom, will you hold for Mr Driscoll?"

"Yes, of course," she said, trying not to sigh. The League season was starting soon and she was busier than ever.

"Delilah?" said Mr Driscoll's crisp voice. "I know you're busy, Delilah, so I'll get right to it—we've had a thought here, and wanted to know how you'd like to battle Blaine Augustine, of the Cinnabar Gym."

"Oh, sure!" she said, very glad it wasn't another social function where everybody meets people they already know and pretends to have fun to raise money. "That sounds fun, I always liked him."

"Good! We'll sit down with him and arrange a date, then."

"Oh, by the way..."

"Yes?"

"I should probably tell you...that I...got married...?"

"You what?"

"I got married. I just thought you'd want to know."

"To whom?" He sounded extremely confused.

"Adam Harlow."

"What?"

"Adam Harlow. I married Adam Harlow, the other day."

"Wh—I didn't even know you were dating," he said, bewildered.

"We're not..."

"I—well—are you pregnant?"

"No."

"All right, well I suppose it's your business, skipping off to Gretna Green or what-have-you," he said, regaining his capable and professional tone.

"I hope I didn't just create some kind of PR disaster..."

He laughed slightly shakily. "Not to worry, just gave us a bit of a shock for a minute. You could sail to Cinnabar, you know, the Aqua is going through Cinnabar and the Seafoam and Sevii Islands in June. If you'd like a honeymoon."

"Oh, yeah, the cruise ship," she said. "I'm allowed a guest, right?"

"Of course," said Mr Driscoll. "I was surprised you didn't bring one last time."

She suddenly felt kind of inept. Of course she was allowed to bring a guest. Who went on a transatlantic cruise alone? Well, she did...and she'd had fun too...

In the bathroom she asked Adam, "So how long do you want to be married?"

"How long do I want to be married?" he repeated slowly, applying a layer of shaving oil. "That's a difficult question to answer, isn't it?"

She was busy with her make-up so her response was just a monotonous, "Uh-huh..."

"Well...I'm contrary by nature...so I at least want to be married...as long as people think we're heading for divorce," he said, distracted by his shaving rituals.

"Uh-huh..."

"But if you ever want a divorce...of course you need only tell me...but it's only marriage...it's not like it matters...it doesn't mean anything..."

She smiled on a surge of sudden fondness for him, and she went to the benefit with that image of him in her head, shaving his face with a cigarette in his mouth. She knew that they probably expected her speech to be the spoken equivalent of the horrible pamphlets activists handed out on the street with pictures of miltanks shoved in crates to make them tender, and stories about how McDonald's ground up fluffy baby torchics to make Chicken McNuggets, and the vast overuse of words like "vivisection". So naturally it was an immense disappointment, as measured by the unbelievable laughter she got for a lame throwaway joke about her bringing Adam because she loved animals.

"I'm glad you're Champion," a woman told her afterward as everyone pretended to like each other for charity. "You're such a good speaker, and you're so pretty."

"Well, everyone needs a hobby," said Delilah.

She laughed. "I do mean it, though, you've got beautiful hair."

Adam broke in to wreak social carnage by saying, "I think you've got nice hair, it's a very pretty colour."

The woman grimaced and patted her hair self-consciously. "Oh, it's awful," she said, "it's all greasy today."

Adam lifted an eyebrow. "Darling," he said, all chilling sarcasm, "do you try to tell me you've got better taste than mine?"

She looked taken aback. "What?"

Adam drew himself up haughty and beautiful like a flamenco dancer. "I have a vasty education in looking good," he sneered. "I do think I know what I'm talking about."

Shortly they both walked away in a huff. Clearly Adam had never been so insulted and the woman seemed to feel the same way.

"So much for healthy self-esteem or press respect after this," Delilah said to nobody but her wine glass and her career.