As she entered the room, she saw Nick. She smiled a little, as not to give away the fact that she remembered him. That could screw everything up.
"Hi," she said softly.
Nick couldn't help but smile. The soft was she talked was really nice.
"Hi," he said.
"Do you remember who this is?" Leigh Anne asked. Nick shot her a look.
"I think I do," Ariana said, extending her hand. "Nick, it's good to see you again."
"Same here," he said, shaking her hand. "You were brilliant out there. Really convincing.
"Thanks."
The both paused, looking at each other.
"I'm going to get something from the vending machine," Leigh Anne said. "Brian, wanna come along?"
"Why?" asked Brian confused. "You have food."
Leigh Anne didn't answer. She just grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room.
"Um, you seem pretty nice," Nick started. "And you're a good actress. I was wondering if you'd do something for me. I mean, you don't have to and if you do I'll pay you good and everything but maybe you won't but I'm really desperate, so," he paused to take a breath. "Do you want a job as my girlfriend?"
Ariana didn't answer; she was a little shocked.
"You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Nick explained everything to her. The horrible dates, how much he wanted a girlfriend, yada, yada, yada. It was a little strange spilling this all to someone he didn't know but it seemed okay. After he was done, he asked,
"So, will you do it?"
"Sure."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Why not?"
"It's just that some women don't like to be in the public eye all the time and you would be, because we have the MTV Awards coming up and you'd have to come to it with me and the fans might not be too happy, and if you get hate mail, I'll feel really bad. And you might have to kiss me sometimes and I mean, do you really want to kiss someone you're not attracted to?"
"Nick, calm down," Ariana told him. He was waving his arms all over the place and talking extremely fast. She grabbed his arms and pinned him it his side. "It will be fine. I'll be fine. Anyway, I've always wanted to go to a big awards show."
"Really? That's great."
The two of them just looked at each other. Then they burst out laughing.
"Well, this should be pretty interesting," Ariana said.
"Yeah. You wanna go out and get aquatinted."
"Sure. You know, Brian and Leigh Anne sure have been gone long," she said as they walked to the door.
"Yeah," agreed Nick. He opened the door and in tumbled the couple.
"Um, hi," said Brian, who was on the bottom.
"Bye," said Nick and then he and Ariana walked out.
