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An engagement party. A damn engagement party.
Hell, Aaron could have gone without the whole village turning up at the last minute. He only had about 10 minutes to prepare himself for the onslaught of congratulations.
Apparently it was supposed to be nice surprise. Well it wasn’t.
His and Robert’s ideas of ‘nice’ clearly differed from one another. He’d been very much grateful for the warning from Adam, it gave him a little time to think of worthy payback.
If he had wanted this he would have told people himself, they would have got the party started without any coaxing. Anything to show how they ‘liked Robert, honestly’.
He scowled at Robert who was stood in the doorframe of their bedroom, suit and tie all neat and presentable, the epitome of a smug asshole.
“Go away” Aaron muttered, crossing his arms in front of him, causing unnecessary creases in his shirt.
Rather than doing what was instructed, Robert just stepped into the room instead. Just pushing it.
“Aw, don’t be like that!” his fiancé stuck his bottom lip and pretended to sulk, but it was clear to anyone with eyes that he was just desperate to stop himself from laughing.
“If I had wanted this, I woulda asked” he flattened his blazer down and shimmied past, not stopping to do or say anything else short of bludgeoning Robert to death.
~
As far as parties went, Robert had seen and experienced much better than this.
But strangely nothing could compete with the importance of it, he’d worked so hard to get everybody he could think of to come.
Not that it was appreciated all that much, not from the scowl he’d received as the guests had entered.
But now things were in a swing, the small thrum of the music in the background proving to bring life to everything. Everyone and their cousins, at least as far as the Dingle’s were concerned, were quietly mouthing words to familiar tunes or tapping their feet along with whatever the beat was.
Robert was hovering, or ‘creeping’ as Victoria liked to call it. He wasn’t sure which conversation to dare interrupt even though he was the one who threw the party in the first place. Everyone seemed quite content with mooching around in their collective hoards and only making movements to the buffet or toilet. Not that they were mutually exclusive, only the best caterers were hired for this.
Even though he seemed not to want the party in the first place, Aaron seemed to be working his audience like a professional. Causing plenty of laughs and nods of agreements with whatever he was saying.
Damn, the happy look on his face made Robert want to pull him close and not let him go.
That’s why he arranged it in the first place, because despite all the protesting, Aaron wanted to show off his engagement band to anyone and everyone who walked in his direction. He wanted to bask in the happiness of their soon to be planned union.
When an almighty belly laugh filled the room, Robert suddenly felt the need to know what the hell was going on. Everyone else seemed to carry on as they were, nibbling on finger food and sipping wine like it was all that was left to drink.
As he approached the small group that had gathered, Aaron’s voice went straight to his ears, despite the muffling of the people between them.
“And it was so cute, it took him the whole morning to realise that he had make-up on” Robert could already feel his cheeks heating up, he knew where this story was heading and if he didn’t stop it soon he would have to go into hiding for a year.
He budged his way through and caught his fiancé’s attention straight away, who took a short moment to fix him with a glare, as if it were his fault.
Okay so it was a little, he kind of deserved the humiliation for springing a party out of nowhere with no warning.
“You need to stop telling that story now” Robert wasn’t angry at all, just a little embarrassed, it had taken a small child to point out the mishap that day and it was mortifying.
Out of nowhere Aaron put his hands on his hips and locked his eyes on him.
“Come over here and make me” there were a couple of small giggles from the still gathered crowd, who seemed utterly impressed with such a comeback.
Robert didn’t quite know what to do, because now there was a definitive smirk on Aaron’s face.
“Are you sassing me?” he hissed out, trying to keep the drama to a minimum, which totally wasn’t going to happen.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, there’s only one way of finding out, ain’t there?” that was an informal challenge if Robert had ever heard it.
~
From where Aaron was stood it looked like Robert was having some sort of existential crisis.
He didn’t know the words were going to come out until they just did.
Finally as if receiving a literal and figurative kick up the ass, Robert took a few steps toward him and closed the distance between them.
“How much of that story were you willing to divulge, hm?” he heard the words but they didn’t really register because there was a gentle hand smoothing circles over his wrist.
The sensation was wonderful, distracting. But things couldn’t continue for too long, not with people’s eyes boring in on their backs.
“Oh, I was only going to go as far as the ‘kick me’ sign” Aaron muttered oh so nonchalantly, eyes looking up to meet Robert’s eyes which maintained their strict focus.
Their fingers looped together almost instinctively together.
“No need to scar children or ruin our reputations” it was so quiet when Robert spoke that he struggled to hear him, but he just about managed it.
Aaron let out a small laugh and nudged his nose against his fiancé’s.
“What reputations? I already seduced you and made you the local villain” they were both smiling now, making light of what happened at the beginning of their relationship.
Someone coughed and Aaron nearly head-butted Robert as he swerved his head around to find Chas just stood there with an incredulous look on her face.
“Anything else you would care to share about lover boy?”
“Not right now, don’t think his ego could take the hit” he felt his hand get squeezed, and it made everything so much better.
Maybe a party wasn’t such a bad idea after all…