I proceeded towards the table and a miserable dinner and quietly took my seat on one side of the table. He took the other and exactly like I thought, there was an awkward silence. I continued looking around anxiously until my eyes finally rested on Adrian's royal blue cufflink on his shirt sleeve. I kept stupidly staring at it until the waiter finally brought us the menu. I had definitely lost my mind.

I wished that five years at Cambridge University had taught me how to sit through an awkward dinner date.

Wait! What?

VANESSA, IT IS NOT A DATE. STOP CALLING IT ONE!!!

I felt a tap on my hand and I came back to the reality. Adrian pointed towards the waiter. The poor guy had been waiting for me to tell him what I wanted to eat and I was just sitting here ranting. This was not how I decided to choose the menu but I would still go through with it for the sake of the party. I didn't have much of a choice, did I?

"Linguini salad and Italian meatballs, please.", I looked through the menu and said.

"It will be a Rigatoni for me."Adrian said.

The waiter nodded and left. Adrian was typing something on his mobile and after a minute or two of more silence, I lost patience and asked, "Are we going to just sit like this, till the dinner comes?"

"You have other plans?"

"Actually I do. Why don't we have a random conversation like civil human beings."

Adrian set his mobile down and after thinking for a while, replied "Ok. Ask me a question."

"Umm...how is Nate doing on the party planning?"

"Good enough. We are sending out invites tomorrow morning and calls to media houses have already been made."

"Great. Your turn."

Adrian smirked. Oh! This never goes well, does it? I knew what it was going to be about-Rebecca!

He asked," What is it between you and Rebecca?"

"I KNEW IT!", I said slapping my hand on the table. People began to look at us so lowered my voice while whispering an apology, "I knew you were going to ask that. How predictible can you be?"

He just sat back in his seat, still smirking, waiting for my reply.

"You want to here a short version or the long story?", I said giving up.

"We have got plenty of time, don't we?"Adrian said.

Ok! Here goes nothing...

"I was studying at the prestigious Horace Mann School. It was my junior year. I was a straight A's, no nonsense kind of student."

"A nerd.",he stereotyped me.

"Nope. I was an extrovert and had a lot of friends. I was just not a Saturday-night-party-kind of kid."

"Then?"

"Then I met Rebecca, the popular cheer leader. Cliché, I know. She had won our sophomore year homecoming queen and prom queen title. I guess that is why she went on to be a model. She was in this group which had some four guys and five or six girls. There was this guy in it, Jacob on whom I had a serious crush on for a good three years."

"And you still didn't tell him?"

"That is where the problem was. Rebecca, though she was dating a thousand people at that time, had a crush on him and I didn't want to create a scene so..."

"You were afraid of her?",Adrian asked cockily.

"No but she was the most popular girl in school and getting into a competition with her could get me in trouble."

"So you were afraid of her."

"Are you deliberately trying to get onto my nerves?"

"No!",Adrian said raising his hands in mock surrender.

"Then let me speak. You stop interrupting me."

"Ok. Go on..."

"Now, my friends one day finally decided to spread the word. They told "that girl" of our class who could never keep a secret safe. Soon it became a hot gossip and both Rebecca and Jacob came to know but me being me, I still kept quite about this. Soon after, we had our winter formal. I was expecting to go with my friends as usual but Jacob asked me to be his date!", I smiled, reminiscing.

The waiter returned with our starters and we began eating.

"So then...", Adrian asked.

"Then what? We began dating and as I expected , Rebecca was livid and tried damn hard to break us up. She flirted with him when I was around, was extremely mean to me and when one day, we went to a concert with all our friends, she tried to kiss him. Now, I try my best to stay away from drama until...someone gets on my bad side."

"I know that.", Adrian nodded his head in disapproval.

The sauna, right.

"I slapped her across her face, in front of everyone!"

"Wow!"

"Don't be so happy already. She tried to make my entire senior year miserable for that. She made a meme on me saying that I was a "Psycho Girlfriend" But good news, we left for college soon after, somewhere where she would definitely not be so it was all good then.", I said, wrapping it up as much as possible. I knew that this wasn't all but why does Adrian have to know?

"You still hate her, huh? "

"Yes. I don't forget people who mess with me.", I smirked.

"The bill, please.", Adrian said, motioning towards the waiter as he stifled a smile.

"This didn't go as bad as I thought it would.", I smiled.

"Trust me! I myself am surprised."

"We should do this more often."

Adrian shot me a look.

"I mean the talking part, not the date part.",I said trying to explain but failing miserably.

Adrian smirked, "You do realise that this wasn't a date."

"Wrong choice of words. What I meant to say was a candlelit dinner. "

One word...Awkward!

Adrian nodded, a smirk still lingering on his face as he took out his card to pay but I stopped him, "We'll split the bill."

"No, I am paying."

"Why? Because I am a girl.", I said narrowing my eyes while making air quotes.

"No, because I have a membership here and get a discount and because I pay on all my dates."

"Adrian, let me rephrase you. It is not a date!".Now was my turn to smirk.

"Poor choice of words. And it is your turn."

"My turn for what?", I said as we both got up.

"Ask me a question."

"Okay! How many girls have you been with till now?"

"I can't really say. There are too many to count."

"In an year then?"

"Umm....minimum three per month. You do the math."

"Holy shit! Counting Rebecca, it's 34!"

Adrian just smiled smugly.

This guy!

We told Mrs. Smith about the food that we wanted to order for the event and I apparently had to come here the next day too, to choose the decoration. We walked down to Adrian's Lamborghini and as we hit the road, he said,"My turn to ask you a question."

"Ok!"

"When did you and Jacob break up?"

Uh oh...

"We had a five year long relationship. We broke up about three years ago!", I said trying to keep a straight face as all the memories came rushing back...

😀