When In Rome
Chapter 18
Fiona groaned loudly as Adam's cell phone rang early in the morning. "Turn it off," she whined.
He rolled over to answer it. "Hello?" he asked, not looking at the name on the display.
"Dude!" the voice on the other end of the phone said.
"Eli?" he asked, sitting up in bed. "Dude, it's two in the morning."
"What? It's eight."
He sighed. "We're six hours ahead of you," he reminded him.
She turned to look at him. "What's wrong?" she mouthed.
He shrugged, listening as Eli spoke on the other end of the phone. "You got engaged?"
"Oh, you saw that."
"Yeah. Dude, everyone saw it. You guys are joking, right?"
"No, it's not a joke." He bit his lip, looking at Fiona. "We're really engaged."
"Wow," Eli said simply.
"Yeah. Look, man, I'm gonna be home in like two weeks, can we talk about this then?"
"Sure. Um… congratulations?"
"Thanks. I'll talk to you later." He sighed and hung up his phone, his head falling back onto his pillow.
"Hey, at least now you don't have to tell him."
He sighed again, looking up at the ceiling. "Awesome."
She bit her thumbnail, moving slightly closer to him. "Do you think Drew's gonna tell your mom?"
"Doubt it," he told her. "I'm not there to get yelled at, which would mean no show for him. He's at least gonna wait until we're back home."
"I'm sorry, baby. I really didn't think it would blow up like this."
He shook his head, turning away from her. "It doesn't matter. It's stupid."
Adam woke up, turning to put his arm around Fiona, but she wasn't in bed. He opened his eyes and found a short, hastily written note leaning against her pillow.
With Holly J. Back later.
He let out a breath and began getting out of bed to get dressed, when he noticed something on her nightstand. He leaned across the bed to pick it up and looked at it. Her ring.
"What the hell?" he wondered out loud. He left the bed and pulled a pair of jeans on and quickly left the room, knocking on the door to the right of theirs.
"Is Fiona here?" he asked without missing a beat when Holly J opened the door.
"I don't see how that's any of your business," she said, blocking him from entering the room.
He blinked. "None of my…" he trailed off, shaking his head. He looked into the room and saw Fiona sitting on the bed. "Fi, what's going on?"
She didn't answer him, keeping her head down.
"Fiona," he said, but she didn't look at him. He quickly slipped past Holly J and entered the room.
"Adam, just leave her alone," Holly J told him as he walked to the bed.
He ignored her, sitting next to his girlfriend. "You forgot your ring," he told her, holding it out to her.
"Thanks," she mumbled. She took the ring from him, but didn't put it on, holding it inside her closed fist.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head. "It's stupid," she spat at him.
He blinked. "What is?"
"You tell me," she said, suddenly turning to look at him. "Us posting about our engagement online or the engagement itself?"
He didn't move for a moment, trying to make sense of what she'd just said. "What?" he finally asked.
"This morning. You said it's stupid. What's stupid, Adam? Or is it me? Am I the stupid one?"
He opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head. "Fi, I…"
She shook her head. "I don't want to hear it." She put the ring back in his hand and swiftly walked out of the room.
"Where are you going?" he asked, quickly standing to follow her.
"Declan's," she said simply, walking quickly ahead of him.
"Fiona, wait a minute." He ran to catch up with her and grabbed her arm.
"Don't touch me," she told him, pulling her arm away.
He grabbed her again, this time pulling her to a stop. He moved her against the wall, pinning her against it, holding both of her arms tightly. "Talk to me," he pleaded.
"Let me go," she said, her voice shaky with tears.
"No." He hated being so physical with her, but he didn't know how else to get her to talk to him. "Fiona, please."
"You don't want to get married."
He released her but she stayed where she was, her head down. "What?"
"You don't… you said it was stupid."
He shook his head. "No. No, Fiona, I want to marry you."
She still didn't look at him. "Maybe it is stupid. Maybe… maybe we shouldn't."
"You don't mean that," he whispered, feeling like someone had just knocked the wind out of him.
She shrugged, finally looking up to meet his eyes. "We're so young, Adam."
"So what?"
"So… a lot of marriages end in divorce. I'd rather just nip this in the bud before it goes that far."
"Where is all this coming from? That's never gonna happen," he told her, shaking his head. "We're not like every other couple. We're us." He shrugged quickly before continuing. "We're weird."
She laughed and wiped a tear off her cheek.
He slowly lifted his hand to wipe another tear away. "I am so in love with you, Fiona. You're it for me. I don't care if I'm 16 or 60, I'm always gonna love you. I want to marry you."
She smiled and leaned her forehead against his. "I love you," she whispered, leaning in to kiss him softly.
"Does mean we're ok?" he asked, pulling away just enough to look at her.
"Yeah. I declare this fight officially over."
He smiled and reached into his pocket. "Then do you want this back?" he asked, holding her ring up.
She held her hand out. "It's bad luck for me to put it back on."
He slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her hand quickly. "No more taking it off."
"Never," she told him, shaking her head.
To be continued…
AN: random fight is random. But completely necessary. This freak out has been building up inside Fiona for a while now, she just needed Adam to say something wrong while he's half asleep so she could take it out of context and lose her mind. Just one of those things he'll need to get used to.