I took another sip of my steaming coffee, scanning the front page of the newspaper. Nothing interesting had happened, aside from the moronic statements coming from our head of state.
"Ugh." I outwardly groaned into my mug, as Alex walked into the kitchen.
"Ah, another day, another victory." He sang as he came around the table. He planted a kiss on the top of my head, and went in search of coffee. "The never-ending road to cavalry—"
"Its destiny, babe. Not victory." I interjected with the right lyric, grinning at him. He stopped swaying his hips, and turned to look at me with a beaming smile.
"Yeah, it is, destiny that we get married." He wriggled his eyebrows, and winked at me.
"No, it's destiny that everyone in that movie dies." I joked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Well." He humphed, lifting his chin high. "Rude."
I chuckled, content filling me. That happened every time we bickered or bantered, it made me feel… at home.
He finished pouring himself a mug of dark coffee, and sat across from me at the table. His eyes were gleaming, and his smile was closed.
"I love ya." He said before sipping his hot coffee.
"You better, we're getting married." I laughed, folding my newspaper and placing it on the table's surface. "But, I love you, too."
"We're getting married." He repeated, his voice eager and full of wonder. "We're going to marry each other, John. I'm going to be your hubby!"
He shouted that last bit, fist-pumping into the air. I giggled at his endearing happiness, and couldn't help but shoot a large grin at him.
"Yes, dear, you will be my hubby." I agreed, taking another taste of my own coffee.
We sat in comfortable silence for the rest of breakfast, each doing our own thing. He was writing something on his notepad, a gift from Laf for Alex's last birthday. The two have been inseparable since, the notepad becoming a permanent fixture in Alex's life. I'd sent many angry texts to Laf in the months after Alex's birthday, complaining that he slept with the notepad more than he did with me.
I had abandoned my newspaper, and was internally planning our soon-to-happen wedding.
"John? What's got you grinning like a fool?" Alex's soft voice floated over the table.
"Mm, just thinking about the impending wedding." I replied, my eyes roaming around the ceiling in while I planned.
"Impending wedding? Christ, we haven't even been engaged two days and you're already thinking of that?" He laughed, rising from his seat to refill his caffeine need.
"You'll never be satisfied, huh?" I asked, raising my eyebrow and gesturing towards the coffee pot.
"Never." He smirked.
After he acquired more coffee, he came to stand behind me. Resting his free hand on my shoulder, I tucked my hand beneath his and gently squeezed.
"Any ideas you have for the wedding?" I asked, pulling the newspaper back to me and grabbing a stray pen from the tabletop. "A buffet, location, what kind of dress you want to wear, flower arrangements, guests?
"Wel—Wait, what was that middle one?" He cut himself off in lieu of a question.
"Location?" I repeated. "I was thinking we could have it in a park, then come back here with close friends to drink and celebrate."
"No, no, no, the other one." He moved from behind me to beside, and leaned his hip on my shoulder. His arm was wrapped around me, our hands firmly holding onto each other and sitting on top of my right clavicle.
"The other one… Oh! Flower arrangements." I eagerly nodded, excited about the botany I would have scattered about the party. "Yes, well, I was thinking Yellow Jessamine bouquets and Poinciana bouquets mixed throughout the setting, yeah? Since the former is South Carolina's national flower, and the latter is Nevis'! What do you think?"
"Yeah, okay, that's really cute and you're incredibly attractive when you talk flower to me." He exasperatedly agreed, giving a slight smile. "But, that's not what I was asking about. The dress? I'll be in my finest suit, no doubt. Hercules can wear the dress as my Maid of Honor."
"Woah, woah, hey, now. Hercules is going to be my Maid of Honor." I shook my head, narrowing my eyes at him. "You've got the Schuyler sisters on your team, you can't have Herc, too!"
"Psh, like Angelica is on my team. You guys love each other too much." He scoffed.
"Yeah, because we'd bond every time y'all did something stupid in high school." I explained with a grin. I amusedly muttered to myself, "And adulthood."
"What was that, babe?" He looked down at me, eyebrows furrowed.
"Hmm? Nope, nothing." I open-mouth grinned at him, loving when he missed my light jabs at him.
"Mmhm, sure, dear." He smiled, slightly shaking his head as he pulled his arms away from me and headed back to the counter. He grabbed the little sugar shaker and returned to the table, sitting across from me.
"Not sweet enough?" I asked, nodding to the shaker.
"Coffee can never be too sweet, John. It's impossible." Alex lightly scoffed, prompting a chuckle from me.
"You're fantastic." I softly told him, laying my neglected newspaper back onto the table's surface. His eyes moved from his coffee cup to my eyes, my smile growing larger at his handsome doe orbs.
"Who? Me? Nah, I think you're the fantastic one, John Laurens." He grinned his dorky grin, transforming right back into his lovesick teenage-self right before my eyes.
We stared at each other for another moment, taking in the other's appearance, before contentedly turning back to our stuff.
My eyes would occasionally drift up and over my newspaper, spying on the boy with the coffee. He was in his own world, and you could clearly tell he was checked out of reality by his features.
His eyebrows would furrow, then unfurrow, then one would rise, then the other would lower, then they'd pop up together. They always did that when he was creating a conversation in his head, or imagining what to say to Jefferson or Madison next time he encountered one of them. Usually though, there'd be a lot more hand gesturing than facial expressions when he was thinking of those two.
His pink lips were pursed for the moment, but they'd been moving a few seconds ago. His commercial-like white teeth grasping his lower lip in contemplation, and releasing his lightly-marked flesh over and over again.
Damn, he's got some nice lips.
"John?" Alex interrupted my thoughts before they moved away from PG, and I glanced up at him.
"Yeah, hon?"
"You good? You looked a bit lost." He tilted his head, mimicking a confused Husky.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just get lost in your looks sometimes." I reassured, laughing at his sudden blush.
"I-I… Goddamn it, John, I almost went a full hour without you making me blush!" He fake scolded, his lips quivering as he fought the urge to grin.
It only took a second of silence for us to burst into laughter, relishing in the comfortable air afterwards.
"Okay, okay, we've got actual shit to do." Alexander breathed, easing his laughter down to low chuckles.
"Of course, right, so who did we decide on for our flower girl?" I turned serious, looking him straight in the eye. His lips began to curl before he reprimanded himself, sporting a stern look instead.
"Definitely Peggy, she looks fantastic in a yellow dress."
"Oh, absolutely, she'd be perfect. Oh! Maria can be her Assistant Flower Girl." I grinned, proud of my idea for the couple.
"Aw, that'd be adorable!" Alex ardently agreed. "And they can have the same kind of dress, just different colors! Maria would, obviously, since it's her color, be in red and Peggy would wear yellow. Ooh, I'm getting excited!"
"Yeah, I can't wait to tell them our ide—Oh my god."
I froze.
Alex froze.
We stared in shocked silence at each other.
"We… we haven't told anyone we're engaged yet." I uttered, in absolutely awe that we'd forgotten to tell people.
Hell, we'd gone an entire day yesterday just basking in our happiness. We spent an entire day forgetting to actually announce our engagement.
What the hell? And then we just went to bed and woke up this morning, made some coffee, made some wedding plans, and forgot our friends. Again.
"Jesus Christ, John, what… what do we do?" Alex quietly asked, his brown eyes piercing mine. "We can't just tell them, 'oh, yeah, we got engaged two days ago, anyways,' like, what the hell? They'd be furious! I can't believe we forgot to tell them…"
"It's, ah, it'll be fine, okay?" I haltingly reassured, anxiously thinking about telling them.
He's right; they'd be furious.
Especially Theodosia. Oh my god, she'd be pissed, and I do not want an angry pregnant woman to have all that hormone-infused rage directed at me and Alex.
Also, if she's pissed, then her husband is going to loathe me.
Aaron and I have finally reached a point where we're kinda friends; we don't hate each other all that much, but we're not sleepover-having besties yet either. But all that work will go straight to hell if I upset his wife.
Or… Oh, my god. Angelica's going to kill us.
She's the one that will actually, physically murder us.
We're never going to get married; either we'll be killed by a psychotic pregnant woman, or by a woman who has been a Navy SEAL for over five years.
"No, it won't." I amended my earlier statement. "We're in so much trouble, Alexander."
A/N: I AM SO SORRY! I haven't updated in forever, and I feel like a horrible person. I was in the hospital for a while, and couldn't write, due to zero resources and my will to write being completely gone. But, hey! I updated! That means something... Right? I really hope you guys liked this chapter, I might keep going with this, it's a fun story. :) As always, I super appreciate reviews and hearing from my readers! Thanks so much for your patience :D Also, I've had a few reviews asking about smut and I'm just gonna say this... That's not my cup of tea. Sorry. :P