8.2
"Seriously, Blair. Chemical weapons? Do we really need all the hoopla?” I ask. I think my voice might have gone up a full octave. “You know this is nothing. Let's not be completely ridiculous here."
"This is not nothing. This is protocol, ma'am,” Blair asserts, her tone forceful. She looks at me, her expression entirely devoid of humor. “Someone flew a drone into your backyard with a plastic inflatable object attached that could be carrying anything – chemical weapons, drugs, a bomb - ”
“A bomb?” Adriano yells. “Why would I fly a bomb into the backyard of a hot girl I want to bed? Seriously, who the hell are you?”
I cock my head to the side and look at Blair, raising my eyebrows for emphasis. "Does my neighbor look like a criminal mastermind? He doesn't even know who I am, Blair."
"You shot my freaking drone!" Adriano shouts.
Did he just say I was hot and that he wanted to bed me?
"What the hell is going on?" a familiar voice calls out, and I look up to see Nathaniel Ashby materialize at the end of Adriano's driveway a few yards away.
Everything is so chaotic that I don’t have time to process what the hell Nathaniel is doing in my neighbor’s driveway – because said neighbor is currently being frisked by my security detail. This incident is really not going to go over well with the homeowner's association, who I had to assure that there would be no security issues related to me living in this neighborhood. Up until now, there had been none.
"What the hell did you do? Why are you being arrested?" Nathaniel asks, focused momentarily on Adriano, who’s being placed in handcuffs. Then he looks up at me, and his eyes go wide.
"What are you doing here?" he and I ask each other at the same time.
"This ain’t the first time I’ve been in cuffs, if you know what I mean,” Adriano deadpans, still not taking any of this seriously. “Wait, how do you two know each other?"
"I met Georgina at the event the other night," Nathaniel says, his eyes never leaving my face.
"Wait a second. This is the girl you paid a hundred thousand dollars to grope?" Adriano asks, his jaw dropping.
"What?!" I squeal. "You told him you paid money to grope me?"
Nathaniel holds his hand up. "Wait, wait, wait. That is not what I said happened. At all. I said I groped you, but I didn't pay anything. I mean, before I groped you."
I put my hands on my hips. "Oh, so you just told him you groped me for free, then?"
"Aw, shit. This isn't coming out right at all," Nathaniel says, groaning loudly.
"What do you mean you didn't pay anything before you groped me? You paid something after?"
"I paid to delete the photos, not to grope you!" Nathaniel says loudly. "I don't think you're a hooker."
"Thanks for not thinking I'm a hooker," I reply sarcastically. "You paid a hundred thousand dollars to get those photos back?"
I don't have time to think about that before Adriano interrupts. "You said you groped an ugly chick, not Hot Neighbor!"
"An ugly chick?" I blurt.
I look back and forth between the two of them, my heart pounding in my chest. How pathetic am I, thinking two hot guys might be interested in me, when they're clearly both clearly insane?
"I didn't call her ugly!" Nathaniel bellows. "You're the moron who assumed that the President's daughter was ugly."
"On second thought, Blair, the whole testing for chemical weapons thing is totally fine with me," I huff, crossing my arms.
"Wait. You're the President's daughter?" Adriano asks.
I should be so pissed off right now. After all, I think one of these guys called me ugly, the other might actually think that I'm a prostitute, and in a minute there will be bomb squad guys crawling all over my yard. Then I'm going to get a call from my father, and I'm going to have to explain that my neighbor, who has the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy, flew a drone with a blow-up doll dangling from it over my backyard.
But instead of storming off, I just stand there staring at the two men, who are clearly pissed off at each other. Then I glance at Blair and David, who are taking this whole event entirely too seriously. I can see the news reports already: "President's Daughter and Her Sex Drone! Live at Eleven!"
I can’t help it. Laughter begins to bubble up in my chest, overflowing as I try to stifle it by putting my hand over my mouth. There's nothing I can do to contain it. The entire situation – not even this situation, but all of the past encounters I’ve had with Adriano Jackson and Nathaniel Ashby – is ridiculous. But this most recent incident takes the cake. It is absolutely the most insane thing that's ever happened to me. So instead of answering Adriano's question, instead of saying, “Yes, I'm the President's daughter and this is a situation I can't be involved in,” I start giggling. Loudly.
Like a crazy person.
