Are You That Desperate to Ask Her to Be Your Wife?

"Brother, what do you mean by that?" Connor asked.

"What do you think I mean? I'm proposing to her and asking her to be my girlfriend. Duh," he replied snarkily.

Connor raised his brow.

"And have you thought of the possibility that she might reject you?" He asked, wanting to slightly taunt his brother.

James reacted as if someone had just slapped his face.

His eyes widened.

"You don't think…"

Connor nodded.

"There's always a possibility, brother," Connor said honestly.

James stayed silent before walking to his bedside and slowly taking something from the drawer of his nightstand.

"What's that?" Connor asked as James took out a velvet box.

"That's not a ring, is it? You're not that desperate to ask her to be your wife or something, are you?" Connor asked seriously.

James sniggered.

"It's not a ring, brother. See for yourself," he said as he slowly and carefully opened the velvet box.

Connor gasped.

"Isn't that your mother's necklace that she gave you to-

James interrupted him.

"To give the one and only person who will someday own my heart? Yes, yes she did," he replied.

"Are you planning on giving it to the girl whom you just met a few days ago? Where's your reasoning for that?" Connor asked in disbelief, also quite shocked James brought the piece of jewellery with him to ZALE in the first place.

James nodded, staring at the necklace.

"It just feels right. She deserves much more, but I'm hoping it'll be enough," he admitted.

Connor stayed silent before grinning, walking over to his brother and giving him a hearty slap on the back.

"You must be really serious about this to give that priceless piece of jewellery to her. I've never seen you more serious and sure about anything other than studying and the goals you had when you came here. I'm so proud of you, brother," he said, grinning.

James smiled in return, but it quickly turned to a frown.

"I just need to execute the plan I have in mind," he grumbled.

"And what's this plan of yours?" Connor asked.

"I'm going to keep that information private as of now," James replied, refusing to disclose any information.

Connor sighed, but he knew he'd get nowhere if he continued pestering his brother for answers.

"Okay, I'll leave that up to you, but, go get her, brother. I've never seen you happier when you're with her, and I'm elated for you," he said before he retreated to his individual bedroom.

(Author's Note: Just to clear things up, in the male dorm, there are four bedrooms, as in, one for each occupant. Though, there are two bathrooms for each dorm. Okay, that's all. Returning back to the novel.)

Before he arrived, James stopped him.

"Since we're making this all about me and Emma's current relationship, I have one question for you, brother," James said curiously.

"Yeah, okay, shoot," Connor said, acknowledging his brother while at the same time wondering what his brother wanted to ask him about.

"Is there something between you and Lily?" He asked.

Connor froze.

James noticed that and spoke.

"I guess that's a yes then," he said as he smirked.

"Brother, what are you insinuating?" Connor asked, trying to act oblivious.

"Connor, you can't fool me. Emma's quite sure of it as well," he stated, as he watched Connor blush a deep shade of magenta.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Connor said as he turned to avoid James catching his nervous mannerisms.

"Brother, I know you're lying. Don't you rather come clean?" James said as he stored the velvet box in his suit's pocket.

"I rather not talk about it, James. I'm exhausted. I'm heading to bed. You better get some rest too if you plan on asking Emma to be your girlfriend," Connor said as he briskly walked away.

James, having nothing else to do, studied a while before he drifted asleep.

The very next day, Emma was confused when James sat far away from her during assembly, while Lily sat beside her, just as confused, but also focusing on how good Connor looked in a long-sleeved button-down t-shirt and jeans that gave him a crisp, clean, preppy look.

"Lil, do you think I did something to make him like this?" Emma asked worriedly.

Even though she had last interacted with him yesterday, she had already begun to miss him.

"Em, calm down. Maybe he's doing this for a specific reason. Who knows, maybe he's giving you some space after what happened yesterday," Lily reasoned.

Emma bit her lip.

She remembered how flustered she was when James had told her yesterday that she could always return his jacket whenever she wanted to, but now, she never knew she'd miss him this much even when she hadn't seen him in a couple of hours.

Seeing him from afar wasn't enough. But what she didn't know was that James too was having similar thoughts. He had originally tried to distance himself from her since his nervousness was exceeding new heights, and if he even got the chance to talk to her, he couldn't do so without madly blushing or possibly running away. The velvet box was stored in one of his suit's pockets, and he took it out and fidgeted with it as he panicked and worried over how he thought Emma was reacting to his current attitudes.

His head was clouded with thoughts.

'What if she thinks I'm mad at her?'

'What if she's worried something happened?'

'What if she thinks I'm ignoring her on purpose?'

He pushed his studies aside as he could only think of what he'd do and say when the time came to ask her.

It was as if he was in some kind of trance, and he successfully avoided Emma, which placed his plan into action. It felt like a few minutes to him, but classes had ended, and Connor was busy with some schoolwork, so he couldn't be any help.

His very first step was to talk to Lily to get her in the plan and get her as an ally. He needed to know how Emma felt before asking anything and Lily was the perfect person to ask.

Lily on the other hand, was extremely close to interrogating James for answers and beating the guy up.

Emma had spent all the time during classes sulking and moping, wondering and constantly asking Lily what she thought she did wrong, and if she was really that unlovable.

Of course, her teachers had noticed this, though they let her off the hook as she was one of their top students who had absolutely no problem answering any question of any difficulty.

But Lily was extremely shocked when she was pulled aside to a nearby corner when she was outside waiting for Emma while she was talking to one of the professors about something.

"What are you-

She stopped before narrowing her eyes.

"So it's you," she stated coldly.

James sighed at the sudden cold treatment.

"Okay, I deserve that," he admitted.

Lily scoffed.

"Do you even know how Emma's feeling? She's literally been moping all day, wondering why you're suddenly ignoring her. You better have a satisfactory explanation, James. This isn't cool," she told him.

James pursed his lips.

"Listen. I stayed away from her because I was, how do I put this. Nervous," he started off by saying, still quite touched Emma had felt that way.

Lily was muddled, even though she gave off a terrifying aura.

"Nervous? Why?" She asked.

As she asked that question, James took out the velvet box from his pocket.

Lily covered her mouth, stopping herself from screaming.

"You're not actually proposing to her to be your wife, are you?" She asked, just like Connor did.

James shook his head.

"Why does everyone think that? I'm asking her to be my girlfriend, not my wife. That'd be too fast, Lily," he explained.

Lily's demeanour warmed, and James took the opportunity to ask Lily the question he so very wanted to ask.

"But I did want to ask you something. If I did ask her, what would she say?" He asked curiously.

Obviously, Lily knew the answer to that question, but she wanted to keep Emma's answer anonymous, so she smirked before answering.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out," she quickly replied.

As soon as she saw James' expression, she raised a brow.

"You didn't just bring me here to ask me just that did you? What else is it?" She coaxed.

James looked around suspiciously before he told Lily his plan, also constantly reminding her to keep everything a secret from Emma as he wanted it to be a surprise.

A few minutes later, Lily was walking back to the spot where she was supposed to wait for Emma.

It was a while before Emma met up with Lily, unsuspecting of anything that was going to happen. While she had no idea of what was to happen, both Lily and James knew that this was the very start of Plan: Ask Emma to Be His Girlfriend.