The Alpha: Claiming His Enemy's Daughter-Chapter 1016: SIDE STORY (ETHAN): AN IDEA

"What the hell?" Lou approached the table where Ethan and Redmond had started to drink. "You start without me?"

Ethan and Redmond gave the merchant a nasty look. Both of them looked annoyed with his tardiness. He should have been here two hours ago, but he only showed up now.

"What with that look?" Lou sat down on the third chair between Redmond and Ethan, as he took a bottle, unscrewed it and gulped down the liquid inside. "I always like this drink! So, what is the plan?"

Ethan groaned.

"Nothing has decided yet." Redmond nodded at Ethan. "He freaked out with all the ideas."

"What a coward," Lou scoffed, which rewarded him with a glare from the gamma.

"I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked you guys for help with this," Ethan groaned. He must be not thinking straight when he asked these two morons about how to ask Aliana for a ceremony.

Well, people knew that they were together, but Ethan didn’t feel it was fair for Aliana to not have any ceremony. He wanted to make it official, but to ask her to do the ceremony with him, he wanted that to be a memorable moment.

Now, Ethan could see how wrong he was since the very beginning when he chose these two as his advisors.

"Fine, I will leave then." Lou and Redmond said in chorus, as they stood up, but Ethan immediately stopped them.

"No! I have paid for the drinks, you have drink too many bottles. You need to at least give me an idea or two!"

"I only drink this one! I will pay you back for this one bottle." Lou fished out his money, but Ethan shoved it down his pocket.

"No. There is no return." He glared at the two of them. "Look, no one will go home until I have a great idea how to do it."

"Just ask her to do that stupid ceremony." Lou looked annoyed, but the two of them sat down again. They even ordered more food.

"Plain and simple." It was a rare occasion for Redmond and Lou to be on the same page.

"No! I don’t want it to be plain and simple. I asked you two to be here to think of something memorable." Ethan frowned at them. "You really didn’t have any experience with woman, did you?"

"Wow! It’s so rich coming from a guy who has been crushing for one woman since his teenage day!" Redmond mocked the gamma.

Of course, they knew about this.

"Seriously, if I have to count how many women I have been with, it could match your age," Lou said proudly, even though recently the only woman that he was stuck with was Nala.

And as for Redmond, of course, you could tell he had been frolicking around when he was still the warrior of the Blue Moon pack.

"Oh, shut up." Ethan glowered at them. "There is nothing to be proud of that. There is no need to settle score between friends."

"Friend?" Redmond and Lou made a face. "We are not friend."

"If we drink together, we are friend," Ethan said lightly.

With that, Redmond and Lou put down their bottle. They didn’t want to be called as friend. An acquaintance was more than enough. Not friend.

"Geez. Are you going to die to be called as friend?"

And then, someone approached them. It was the beta, Jace happened to be around and he saw the three of them.

But the closer he got, the more he realized that they were pissed of something.

"What is it? Are you fighting?" Jace asked, he took a seat between Ethan and Lou.

"We are not fighting." Redmond furrowed his brows, with Jace’s question, he felt like a child.

"Not yet," Lou added.

"I wonder, if the two of you were fighting, who do you think will win?" Ethan asked Redmond and Lou randomly, it seemed he was already a little bit tipsy now.

"You will never find out who wins because one of us probably will kill you first," Lou replied, grinning from ear to ear because he managed to piss the gamma off even more.

"I shouldn’t have joined you all." Jace shook his head.

"Too late." Redmond nodded at Ethan. "You need to help him."

"No! He is her brother!" Ethan complained. "Don’t tell him!"

"What? Are you talking about Aliana?" Jace gave his attention to Ethan.

"How do you know?"

"Do you think, how many sisters I have?"

Redmond rolled his eyes and then stood up. "I will take my leave."

"No. You have not yet offered any idea." Ethan protested.

"I have. Plain and simple, straightforward and blunt. That’s my idea." Redmond reminded him. "I have two five years old. I need to put them to bed."

Redmond then left the three of them.

Lou grimaced. "That’s why I don’t want to have children, they are really pain in the ass. Can’t they tuck themselves in?"

"So? What is this about?" Jace eyed Lou and Ethan. As a big brother, of course, he wouldn’t let this matter slide lightly.

=================================

"Why do you have to drag me into in this too?" Redmond complained, he glared at Lou, but the merchant glared back at him.

"If I have to suffer, I need to drag as many people to suffer along with me," Lou replied.

"Can you both be quiet?" Ethan chided the two of them. He didn’t know what he was thinking when he got them involved in this important mission.

After some begging and bribing, finally Jace could give him a great idea about this moment, but of course, he didn’t make it easy for Ethan. He only wanted the best for his sister and at some point, Ethan felt like he was asking Jace for the ceremony instead of Aliana...

"How dare you to tell me to be quiet when I was the one, who found these fireworks in the market?" Lou glared at Ethan.

"You have to pay for me to do this labor job," Redmond chimed in.

"Oh, shut up," Ethan growled. But then, far away, he could see Aliana walked toward them. "Stay here and waited for my sign."

The idea that Jace gave to Ethan was actually pretty simple. Aliana liked firework, thus he proposed to make the firework only for her, while they had a picnic in the open area at night.

"I can’t believe I agree to do this," Lou groaned.

"Yeah, me too." Redmond clicked his tongue. "I will leave once I am done with the firework. I don’t want to watch something that I will remember for the next few years."

Meanwhile, Ethan approached Aliana with a big smile on his face. He looked very excited for their dinner date.

"I cook for you!" Ethan declared. Jace told him to cook for his sister, because Aliana loved to see someone’s effort, well Ethan knew about that too, he knew all the thing that Aliana liked and disliked, but he was too nervous asked for validation too much. "Come, sit down. You need to try it."

"Is that safe?" Aliana sat down and stared at the food that Ethan cooked.

"Are you teasing me?"

"No. I am serious."

"Don’t worry, Lou and Redmond had tried them and they are still alive."

Aliana laughed. "I don’t know if I have to be happy for that or not."

Meanwhile, not too far from them, Lou and Redmond, who heard that groaned at that woman.

"Should I shoot the firework at her instead?" Redmond asked.

"Please do. I will cheer for you."

On the other hand, Ethan and Aliana had their wonderful diner together, laughed and teased each other, while Lou and Redmond bored themselves to death to hear their cheesy conversation.

"I feel like I am going to die."

"I have nothing, but money."

"I have nothing, not even money."

Lou had put some spell around them, so Aliana wouldn’t be able to smell their scent, thus she didn’t have any idea that there were other people here.

And then finally, the signal from Ethan. The two of them scrambles to light up the firework and be done with this torturing job. They shouldn’t have agreed with Ethan’s request in the first place.

"Firework?" Aliana was surprised, she smiled at it. "What occasion is this? As far as I knew the king and the queen don’t have any special occasion."

The night turned so bright and the colorful sparks studded the dark sky. This was the most beautiful firework that Aliana had ever seen. Of course, it did, Lou took so much pain to buy it.

"Do you like it?"

Aliana grinned at Ethan and then laughed. "This is not an attempt to propose, right? This trope you see in novel is overused. It won’t work. It’s so cliched."

Ethan felt like he was going to have a heart attack when he heard that. Aliana then giggled, as if she remembered something. "What is it?"

"This is something that Jace would do to his chosen mate if he would have one in the future. This is how he planned to confess to her."

Aliana was too mesmerized with the firework, until she failed to notice Ethan’s face turned ashen. Only when the firework was done, she turned to look at Ethan.

"What happened? You look upset."

Ethan groaned. "What do you think to be the only child?" He asked.

Meanwhile, the two people, who were in hiding laughed silently, until their stomach hurt when they realized about the fact of Jace’s idea.