Crossroads

By LiLin

Chapter 6: Pictures of You

“Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have of them.” - Marcel Proust

RAYLIN

I absolutely cannot believe that I fell asleep. On him. Only to wake up hours later to find myself tucked into bed. I looked at the alarm clock blearily. No! My mind screamed in horror. I had only ten minutes to get ready for work. This had never happened to me before. How could it happen now? How could it happen at all? I needed exactly half-an-hour to get ready. Exactly! I reached blindly for my phone.

“VIPER!” I was on the verge of breaking down.

“WHAT?!” He sounded mildly amused.

“Can you drive me to work?”

“Sure. No. Wait, I mean, why?” His voice rang with confusion.

“It’s all your fault,” I told him in frustration and hung up before dashing into the bathroom. Five minutes later, my doorbell rang and I went out to open the door, holding my bag in one hand. He was looking at me quizzically.

“Wha…”

“Shut up!” I snapped, pushing him out the door. “I haven’t even put on my make-up and it’s all your fault because you didn’t wake me up before you left and I slept through the night and now I’m going to be late for the first time in my life and I’m never late!”

“Raylin…” His voice drifted right over my head as I began walking towards the elevator, still rambling away. He grabbed my shoulders tight. “Raylin! Calm down, it’s fine. Being late is human. You’re human.”

“I’m not!” I protested readily before realizing what he had said. I was human, I think. He began pushing me towards the elevator.

“I didn’t wake you up because you looked so tired. You can put your make-up on in the car and I’ll drive, right? Just because you’re going to be late doesn’t mean you have an excuse to act like Lucas. There’s a first for everything.”

I took a deep breath. He was right, for some unknown reason. “You’re pretty good at this.”

He shot me his favorite annoying smirk, “I know.”

Lucas called me five minutes after the car set off, “Raylin, darling, where the hell are you? I’m waiting patiently in your office so that I can tell you all about my weekend and you’re not here. It’s already three minutes past nine and you’re never late – “

“Luc, please, I’m on my way, I’m in the car, I’m trying to put on my make-up, I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up on him.

“We’re here, Your Highness,” Viper stopped the car and turned to me. I returned my cosmetics pouch to my bag and looked at him.

“Do I look okay?”

“You’ve got an eyelash here,” he laughed and brushed the pad of his thumb near my eye. I jerked back and watched his hand drop back down. He looked down sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Uh… No, it’s fine. Let’s go.”

The ride up to our respective offices was ridiculously awkward. He stepped out at his floor and smiled at me, “Lunch later?”

I nodded mutely and waited for the elevator doors to close before I took my eyes off his back. The moment I stepped into my office, I was cornered by the man whom I called a friend. He hovered behind me when I sat down wearily. Bending over, he slung an arm around my neck, “Tell me, why were you late? And how could you possibly put on make-up while driving? Were you trying - ” He got up and started to smack me lightly on my arm. “ – to…” Smack. “…get…” Smack. “… yourself…” Smack, smack, smack. “Killed?”

I pushed his hand away, “Viper was driving.”

“Viper? Viper?!” His voice rose a few octaves. His face came dangerously close. “You came here with Viper?!”

“I fell asleep last night when we were watching a movie and I woke up late for some reason, so I got him to drive me,” I explained.

“You fell asleep?! Together?! Oh my gosh! I’m going mad, I’m going mad, you fell asleep with him! On the bed!”

“On the couch! I fell asleep!” I regretted the day I ever opened my mouth to talk to him.

“You! Fell! Asleep! With! Him! In! Your! House!”

“I… I was tired, he wouldn’t let me go so I struggled and that wore me out, okay?” When his eyes widened, it hit me how wrong that sentence had sounded. Waving my hands slightly, I tried to reverse my mistake. “I mean, I fell on him and he was playing around.”

“Oh my goodness!” That was incredibly loud. He looked as though he was about to scream or keel over. I got up and hurriedly slapped a hand over his mouth. “Mmmpfgh! Mm mmm mmfght!” I had no idea how to translate that.

“Quiet!” I hissed. “Do you have to make such a big fuss? You know that wasn’t what I meant!”

“Gnnn mmm haaam mmmf!” Get your hand off!

“If I do that, will you shut up?” He nodded wildly. I removed my hand and settled back down into the chair and decided to make a fruitless attempt at getting rid of him. “I need to get started on my work now. Talk to you later.”

“No!” He crossed his arms and glared at me before a sly smile spread across his lips. “So, how was the movie with loverboy?”

“What loverboy? Who’s loverboy?” I retorted, switching the computer on.

“Viper is loverboy!” He cheered, beginning to hop around the room ecstatically.

“He. Is. Not. Loverboy.” I ground out from behind clenched teeth. “Will you get lost?”

“Oh, so you have some other name for him, then?”

“Yes, I call him ‘Viper’. Now go away.”

“Tell me all the sordid details. I want to know it all. Why was he in your house? Why did you decide to watch a movie? Why did you fall on him? Why did he decide not to let you go? Why did you struggle, you stupid bimbo. Man, I’d give anything to be able to lie on that chest of his. Why did you fall asleep? Why didn’t he sleep with you? Literally? Why…”

“Didn’t you want to tell me about your weekend?” I asked weakly, wanting desperately to drop my head onto my oak desk a million times. He shook his head, “Not anymore.”

“Later, okay? I need to finish this…”

“… I’m not leaving until you tell me everything!”

Somebody kill me now.

VIPER

It was a little disconcerting to see five slack-jawed female faces in front of me the moment I stepped out of the lift. It did not help either that they visibly cringed when I approached. That clearly ruled out the idea that they were swooning over my good looks. Haha. Kidding. I stopped in my tracks in annoyance, “What? Don’t stand there like dumb fucks. If you want to say something, then say it.”

“Was that… Miss Lachey?” One girl muttered in awe (her name might be Sarah). I raised an eyebrow. That was not what I had expected. In fact, I have no idea what I was expecting in the first place. I nodded slowly in response to her question. Where exactly was this conversation going?

Another girl, who looked like she was Tammy (or Phoebe), gasped, “You’re eating lunch with her?”

“Yes, I think,” I edged away warily, my eyes searching wildly for some rescuer in the form of one of my teammates. There were five sharp intakes of breath when their eyes widened some more. “Look, I’d love to stay and chat but maybe we should all get back to work.”

They all took a menacing step forward. A third girl spoke… I knew her name. Mandy. This was Mandy and she was asking me how I knew Raylin. And why would I not?! I wanted to yell in her face before Dana appeared like an angel and chased the girls away, “Leave the poor guy alone!”

I was about to thank her before she carried on with a grin, “Lucas says this piece of flesh is his.” While the girls silently slunk away, I imagined that my eyes were lasers piercing Dana’s flesh. After we had returned to the safety of our corner where the theme for this month’s magazine had already come together very nicely, I finally asked her.

“So, do you have any idea what that was all about?”

“Sure I do. Do you want coffee?” She replied nonchalantly, disappearing into the small pantry.

“Yes. I think I need some coffee.” I half-mumbled, wondering if she could even hear me. She emerged moments later with two mugs.

“Anyway, that girl you were in the lift with? Miss Lachey? Since the time she’s been working here, it seems like Lucas is just about the only person she has had a proper conversation with. Otherwise, she’s pretty much a bitch to everybody else.”

“A bitch?”

“Actually, no. She doesn’t even talk to anybody else except to talk about… I don’t know, ask if we have suits to file against anybody? She makes a good HR manager, though, I gotta admit. She’s doing great, and she does take care of our welfare.”

“… That sounds like her. So what’s all that got to do with me?” I was still quite confused about it all. Dana gave me an incredulous look, “What’re you? Thick in the head or something? Clearly because you’re talking to her, and those other people didn’t know you’ve been eating lunch with her these past few weeks. Almost two months, come to think of it.”

“I still don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” I mused. “She’s a nice person.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Dana replied dully, looking up from her mug and glancing around. “The rest are late, damn it.”

Straightening my back, I got up to return to my computer, “Well, screw them…” “No thanks?” “… and let’s get to work. We need to get the layout to the editor by ten and that leaves us with fifty minutes to do the last minute editing.”

Fortunately enough for the other three, they arrived within minutes with half-cooked apologies and we began vetting through the layouts for sixty over pages. I never did like magazines much. When I finally clicked the ‘send’ button to whiz the layout into cyberspace into the editor’s inbox, we all heaved a sigh of relief. Last month’s issue had been a great hit with the readers and comments had been flooding in complimenting our color choices. How odd – if I was ever a reader, I doubt I would bother sending in reviews about the freaking color scheme.

Why was I in such a cranky mood? Because Dana called Raylin a bitch? And what has that got to do with me? You’re angry, you big fat fluffy lovesick fool! Shut the fuck up.

Lizzie jumped out of her chair with a little cheer, “Life is beautiful and we can all slack off now! … Right?” She turned to me with a hopeful expression. I shrugged, as long as the editor liked the layout and did not demand for a change, all was good. And we could ‘slack off’ all we wanted until production for this month’s magazine was over. At this point, a shrill cry resonated through the office. We all stood up and turned towards the direction of the noise - none other than Lucas. He was gripping his phone tightly with one hand, the knuckles turning white with pressure and his face livid with rage.

My eyes widened when he came storming in my direction, arms flailing wildly in the air and hitting one of his dumbstruck members in the face. His furious expression was quickly replaced by one of devastation as he barreled into my arms and tried to drill a hole into my chest with his head. Or something. Disgusted, I shoved him aside, “What do you think you’re doing?” He promptly latched himself on me again with another painful wail.

“Oh my gosh!” He blubbered, looking as though he was about to burst into tears. “This is terrible, my honeybuns!”

“I’m not your honey…”

“The stupid freaking model that we hired from UAN Artistes is down with flu! And she can’t come for the photo shoot which is scheduled to start in a couple of hours, and the stupid agency can’t send me another one even though it’s all their fault and I would need to pick all the selected clothes again because I picked them based on that model’s size in the first place and if she’s not here we can’t hold the shoot and that means that production will be postponed but that cannot happen so I need to find another model but how the hell do I find another one in such short notice?!”

“Right…” I answered awkwardly, patting his back. “I can’t help you. Maybe you could ask Raylin for some ideas?”

He lifted his face from my chest and batted his eyelids slowly. His mouth fell open and he smothered me with another hug again, squealing, “That’s such a fantastic idea, I love you so much! Let me give you a big fat sloppy kiss!”

His open lips seemed to fall towards my face and in full panic mode, I pushed him forcefully. “No!”

He stumbled back before a silly grin spread across his face and he spun around dancing out of the room, “I’m going to dump Matt for you, you awesome human specimen! I’ll see you later!”

I turned back slowly to see Josh’s shell shocked expression. He raised an eyebrow,
“Are you sure there’s nothing going on between the both of you?”

A silent glare shut him up. I decided that I needed some sleep and returned to my seat, digging out my iPod from my bag. With my earphones plugged in and my hood up, I cradled my head in my arms and dozed off. I was certain it had barely been half an hour when George slapped my back. I sat up with a jolt and looked at him.

“Your phone’s ringing, boss,” he pointed to the vibrating object next to my bag. Thanking him, I removed my headphones and looked at the Caller ID. Raylin.

“Hello?”

“What were you thinking?” Her voice was calm and soft, but behind that docile sentence was a truckload of anger and incredulity.

“Wha… What was I thinking?” I stammered. In the short space of time that I had slept, I did have a very brief dream of her. Was she psychic or what?

“Don’t play dumb with me! You know what you did.” Her voice had taken on a more impatient tone. I really had no idea. “You told Viper to ask me to model for the magazine.”

RAYLIN

“I did not!” He sounded quite horrified. I glanced at a smug Lucas sitting on my couch. “Ray, I honestly didn’t. I couldn’t solve Lucas’ problem, so I told him to go to you.”

I narrowed my eyes, “And what was his problem?”

“The model from UAN Artistes can’t turn up today and they cannot postpone the photo shoot because production of the magazine will be delayed?”

“Thanks Viper, I’ll talk to you later.” I hit the end call button before he could say anything else. I glared at the blonde man in the room and contemplated hurling my cell phone in his face with the flawless complexion. He held up his hands in defense.

“There is nothing more I would like to do now than to kill you,” I told him calmly instead. “Viper told me an entirely different story.”

“Oh it’s not different!” Lucas grinned cheekily. “I just gave you a watered down version and told you that I needed you to model for a day!”

“And you also told me that it was Viper’s idea because he wanted to see me in a swimsuit.”

“I thought that would persuade you more,” he shrugged, a dejected look crossing his face. “Oh please, Ray, you can’t expect me to delay the entire production, can you?”

“There are more than a hundred girls around the entire Pierce Holdings office! Find someone else.”

“They’re not as pretty as you, my love,” he whined, moving to kneel beside me and prop his chin on the desk. I rolled my eyes. “You would look so hot in a swimsuit and you know it. You could earn lots by modeling, but your brains would go to waste and this is the perfect chance for you to show the world how hot you are.” He nodded vigorously before wincing when his chin slammed hard into the table. “Please?”

I sighed, “I can’t, you bimbo. I have so much to do today. I need to look through the salaries of all the people in the branch, decide who to recommend for promotion and decide who else to recruit. I don’t have the time for a modeling shoot, especially not when you want me to wear pieces of latex that barely cover my flesh.”

“Flesh that you totally should bare,” he quipped. “Besides, you looked through those salaries two days ago, and you already have a list of who to recommend and you haven’t even finished holding the interviews for all the applicants and you made that intern cry.”

I gaped, “I did not!”

“You did. Sarah told me!”

“Isn’t Sarah the girl you told me about from your department?”

He gave me a look that clearly suggested that he thought I was stupid, “There are two ‘Sarah’s. One from my department and one whose desk is right outside yours. Are you really that anti-social?”

“Look,” I sighed. “I’m not doing it. It’s just not my cup of tea and you know I hate being in the spotlight.”

“But Ray….” He pouted and laid his head on my arm.

-

I stared incredulously at the dark red latex swimsuit that Lucas held up, a Cheshire-cat grin painted across his face. Slowly, I shook my head. He ignored my glare and thrust it into my arms. I held it up, observing it carefully. It was a halter-neck, the back left bare probably low enough to expose my bum-crack. Thank goodness the front was covered-up enough. I sighed again, trudging dejectedly into the changing room. The things I did for my friends, really. Especially when the aforementioned friend refused to leave your office for two hours straight. Barely two minutes later, the same friend rapped on the door impatiently.

“Come on out, darling. I want to see your hot body in that sexy swimsuit. The photographer’s waiting with his giant camera.” More impatient knocking. I struggled to tie the halter-neck properly and tugged at the bottom miserably, hoping that it would cover more of my flesh. “Raylin!”

“I’m coming! Just wait, will you?” I snapped back irritably, throwing the door open. He fell right through with a surprised gasp and straightened to look me in the eye. A humongous grin crept across his face as he began dragging me towards the green screen set up in the middle of the room. Blinding lights were burning my eyes and I squinted, shielding my eyes with my hand. The photographer was a bald man in his early thirties who looked like his dog just died. Narrowing his eyes at me, he started making some odd gestures. Feeling slightly alarmed, I turned to Lucas for help.

“He wants you to remove your hand. He can’t take the pictures like that,” Lucas whispered. “He doesn’t like speaking much. He usually gets his assistant to do that but she just went off to buy him coffee. Oh, there she is.”

A chubby girl burst into the room holding a Styrofoam cup and panting slightly. She put it down on a nearby table and gave me a friendly wave, “The model, right? Awesome, Ralph is about to start snapping pictures now so I need you to tilt your head towards that fan over there…” The ‘fan’ she spoke of was hurling large blasts of cold wind upon my bare skin and I could feel it erupting into a million goosebumps. My hair began billowing and ‘Ralph’ nodded in satisfaction. Chubby Girl stepped back and gave me a good once-over.

“Okay, now lean back slightly, squint a little… No! You’re squinting too much! Just a little bit. That’s right. Put your arm up and pretend to shield your eyes from the sun. Remember, the backdrop is the Bahamas so try to look pretty and sun kissed.”

I gratefully put my arm up to block the lights from robbing me of my vision and waited for more instructions. There was another flash and I suddenly realized that Ralph had taken the photograph already. He pointed to the changing room and I was hustled away. Lucas dumped two pieces of sky-blue cloth into my hands and squealed softly, “Good job!” I rolled my eyes at him and disappeared into the changing room before proceeding to squeeze myself into the miniscule bikini. Technically, it was not as small as I expected, but it still made me feel extremely exposed and bare. After making sure that it covered all the right spots, I wandered back out. There was a flabbergasted explosion of noise coming from Lucas’ direction and I turned to see Viper, whose face had turned a rosy shade of red. He was pointedly avoiding my gaze and hissing vehemently at Lucas.

I smiled wryly and gave him a quick nod, which he probably did not catch, before returning to Chubby Girl’s side. She attempted to arrange my limbs in some artistic fashion but only succeeded in making me irritated and grumpy. Sighing, she returned to Ralph and exchanged a few whispered words with him. He gave me a condescending stare and for the first time in almost one hour, he ordered, “Kneel down. Put your knees further apart.”

“Are you serious?” I snarled incredulously, folding my arms and fixing him with a glare. He simple raised an eyebrow, and I supposed I was to take that as a “yes”. I glared at Lucas instead, “I’m not doing it.” Behind him, Viper looked positively furious.

“Oh Ray, just do it for the magazine. There’re only about, fifteen more outf– ” He broke off and slapped a hand over his mouth. “That just dissuaded you further, didn’t it?” I nodded. “Oh, Ray, sweetie, please?”

I sighed and uncrossed my arms, sinking down to the ground with an unpleasant expression, only to be told to “put that arm there”, “put the other arm there, no there, no there” and “lean forward and look sultry”. I simply could not do it. Finally, Ralph left his camera with a huff and began to position my arms into position. He stood back up and gave me a glare that was almost good enough to match my own, “Don’t fucking move.” As he walked back to his camera, he murmured, “I can’t believe I have to bear with you for another few hours.” I was tempted to remove the chunky white bangle from my arm and toss it right at his head.

Countless photos and flashes later, I pulled my office clothes back on and stalked right past the people crowded around the laptop. Lucas waggled his fingers before my face to catch my attention and flicked his eyes over to the guy behind him. Viper looked more and more mutinous as each picture appeared. I vaguely wondered if I should go over, but decided against it. A gruff voice from right in front of the screen uttered, “Hey, you. The model.”

I faced Ralph, who had obviously been the only rude enough to refer to me as “the model”. He had a disgruntled expression and ground out, “Good job, actually. The pictures turned out pretty nicely.”

“Do you really mean it or did Mr. Gay Ass over there put you up to it?” I asked, giving Lucas a pointed look. Ralph furrowed his thick brows and mirrored my actions, crossing his arms and staring me down.

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, little girl.”

I was about to retort back at the ‘little girl’ insult but I bit back my words and simply inclined my head slightly, “Thank you then, old man.”

VIPER

“Quick! Hurry down to the photography studio right now!” Lucas hissed urgently into the phone. Before I could respond, he decided to hiss one more time for good measure. “NOW!”

“What? Hello? Lucas?” A dull beeping tone came in response. I sighed, stuffing my phone into my pocket and getting up from the table where my team members were playing cards. They looked up in unison.

“Where are you going?” Dana and Lizzie chorused, waving their cards in my face. They looked at each other and laughed. Girls.

“Her Royal Highness Princess Lucas has called for my attention at the photography studio,” I replied drily, walking off. “I think I might be beheaded if I don’t follow his orders.” A trail of laughter followed me as I entered the lift and hit the fourth floor button. I managed to find my way to the photography studio with the help of a kind cleaner who pointed me in the right direction by stabbing fiercely at my feet with a mop. “You stupid boy! I just mopped that section!”

I caught sight of Lucas’ blonde head amidst a couple of make-up artists and hairstylists, judging by the mascara wand and hair straightener they were brandishing. Walking up to him, I hit him on the head. He whirled around and pulled me into a hug which I attempted to writhe away from. I opened my mouth to ask why he had called me down but he held a finger up to his lips and pointed at a door not too far away.

“Am I supposed to stare hard enough so a genie will appear and grant me three wishes?” I remarked sarcastically, turning my gaze to said door. It opened, and out came Raylin. Raylin, wearing nothing but a freaking blue bikini, was looking around looking lost but composed. A voice in my head commented that she might the only human who could master both looks at the same time, but the other voice in my head just expressed its shock in the form of incoherent exclamations which I reproduced out loud. A little too loud, as it seems, for she turned to our direction. Too. Much. Skin. Panicking, I avoided her gaze and began cursing Lucas in every language I knew. All the cursed guy did was to smile serenely and keep his eyes on her, and her very exposed body.

I thought the whole world had closed in on me when I finally returned my attention back to the green screen where Raylin looked sufficiently unhappy enough to bite down on her lips. Unfortunately, that action only enhanced her sudden aura of sexiness and I was on the verge of breaking down. Some girl was trying to make her interlock her fingers behind her head. The photographer looked as though he was getting more and more exasperated as the minutes ticked by. Finally, the guy spoke. And I did not like what he said at all.

“Kneel down. Put your knees further apart.”

What was this guy thinking?! Only Lucas’ hand on my shoulder restrained me from springing at him and ripping his head off. That was my Raylin he was talking to! My… Good friend… Whom I cared greatly about. Raylin was shaking her head adamantly and sniping back at him, but stupid Lucas managed to persuade her anyway. I groaned when she sank to her knees and my mind was screaming “Murder him! Murder him!” when the bald man touched her wrists. And her knees. And her hand. And told her not to move. An arm slid around my shoulder and five manicured fingers patted me comfortingly, “There, there, sweetheart. Don’t get jealous. Ralph isn’t trying to molest your little girlfriend.”

I gritted my teeth, “Lucas. I am not jealous...”

“Lies!” He giggled airily, beginning to trace circles on my bicep. I shrugged the arm off but it came right back.

“… And Raylin is not my little girlfriend.”

“Yet,” he sniggered and tried to move his arm down to my waist.

“And I swear to Satan that if you don’t remove your hand right now, I will make sure you never have sex with Marc ever again.”

His arm disappeared in a flash. In fact, his entire being disappeared from beside me. I noticed him descending upon a grumpy Raylin with an armful of pink silk. She snatched the clothes away and disappeared into the changing room. Lucas came skipping back, a look of glee upon his face, “The girl loves me.”

The make-up artist fluttered past me to dab an emerging Raylin’s face with powder. She was wearing some white bikini this time with a hot pink dress that split from her navel downwards. I pointed at it and turned to Lucas, “Hey, what’s the point of making her wear that if she’s going to have to show everything anyway?”

“Impatient to see it all, are we?” He teased. I socked him in the arm. “Ow! You asshole. It’s the color combination, you colorblind graphic designer. Seriously, an art student like you should know better than that!”

Now, the hairstylist was tucking her hair behind one ear and stuffing a giant pink flower behind said ear. Lucas sighed and leant against me, “Oh just look at how ugly she looks like that. If only she would wipe that insolent scowl of her face, she would be an angel descended from Heaven.” He shot me a sly look that I clearly saw. “Heaven, y’know. Like, the place with white clouds and fluffy pink feathers.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.”

“Killjoy,” he chirped back. Just like that, I spent a few hours watching her changing in and out of skimpy outfits and controlling the urges to, a) kill Lucas for making me come here, b) kill the photographer for snapping at Raylin and making her do weird poses that drove me insane and c) kill myself for wanting to jump on Raylin and make out with her. Of course, that last option was meant to be kept a secret. At long last, Bald Man, or ‘Ralph’, as Lucas referred to him as, wrapped up the session and Raylin returned to the changing room once again, throwing me a relieved look as she went past.

Lucas frowned, “Why are the two of you exchanging flirtatious glances in front of me?”

I decided that the best response to his retarded question was silence. Angela, the girl who had been fussing over Raylin at the green screen, waved us all over with an enthusiastic, “Come look at the pictures!”

Instead of oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over her poses, which she actually looked natural in, and the “lovely outfits selected” and her “striking gaze”, all I could see was skin, skin, and more skin. Saying that her body was a dream would be a total understatement. If that was a dream, I was quite certain I would never want to wake up again. Shit. When did I become so cheesy? I screwed my eyes shut wearily. I could feel a headache coming on, definitely. I heard Bald Man suddenly calling out to her, replacing her name with “the model”. He was actually praising her for the photos, albeit in a gruff voice. Of course the photos were good. The model was her, what more could he expect?

Somebody’s soft voice suddenly floated into my ear, “Looks like something in your pants wants attention.”

It was all I could do not to smash Lucas’ head into the nearest hard surface. One day, I was either going to be charged for murder, or he was going to be charged for pissing me off to the point of explosion. I decided to walk away from him and towards Raylin. She looked up and smiled, “Hey, what’s up? What’re you doing here?”

“Lucas.” One word was all the explanation that was required. “So, dinner?”

-

She faced me with a curious expression on her face in the booth. We were at a Chinese restaurant, sitting in silence because the chatter surrounding us was too overwhelming to try and hear each other over. The food was taking a long time to arrive, and I was close to starvation. I raised an eyebrow at her expression. She laughed, beginning to say something. All I could see and hear were her lips moving and noise filling my ears. I shook my head. She leaned forward.

“You… Face… Assed?”

I frowned, “Are you trying to say that my face looks like an ass?”

She sat back, looking shocked, before bursting into laughter. Getting up from her seat, she crossed over and slid into the seat next to mine. I leaned down to hear her better, “I said, during the photo shoot, you looked really uncomfortable and your face was perpetually red. Were you embarrassed?”

“Embarrassed?” I parroted, wondering what I was supposed to tell her. She looked at me expectantly. I decided that it was better to lie than to confess that I had been jealous. “Well, yes, kind of. I mean, the least I’ve ever seen you dressed in is a tank top and shorts.”

She grinned, “So why did you look so angry when Ralph asked me to make those poses?”

“Angry?” I repeated once more, my eyes darting all over the place. There was no way I was going to stare into her eyes and get sucked in. Damn her, she simply had to stop looking at me like that. “A… Angry?”

“You looked murderous,” she shrugged, before sliding away. I debated between grabbing her wrist and sitting on my hands. “I was just asking, don’t get too uptight.”

“I… I was angry because…” I fumbled with my words, deciding at the last minute that it probably wasn’t the right time to tell her that I was angry at his body contact with her. “I was angry because he, ah, didn’t have the right to order you around like that.”

She grinned, turning back to face me, “Awww, how sweet.” We fell back into a comfortable silence.

“Do you know – ” “Actually, I – ”

We blinked in surprise. I figured that I had to be a gentleman, “Erm, ladies first.”

“Do you know that I don’t usually laugh or grin so much around my other friends?” She blurted out suddenly, her eyes downcast. “I may be closer to them, but I’m not as… Carefree. I’m usually being annoyed by Lucas and having lame lines thrown at me from Leila.”

“That’s… That’s nice to know.” I stuttered, feeling grateful, surprised and bemused all at the same time. I knew it was hard for her to express her inner thoughts and I thought that I should definitely feel honored.

“So, what did you want to say?”

“I… I… Actually, I wasn’t angry or embarrassed. It’s just… I was…”

“Jealous?” She supplied helpfully, a small smile playing on her lips. I leant back in shock. “I know.”

“Was I that obvious?”

She leant in closer, “Quite, I would say.”

I grinned, “Well then…”

I kissed her. And prayed that my balls would still be intact by the time the kiss ended.

A/N: One more paper to go and my examinations will be over! Whoots! As a form of celebration (for myself), I decided to post Chapter 6. (: I promise to start on Chapter 7 immediately after my last paper! Look, progress in their relationship! Again! -jumps around- Even though I am the author, I'm getting a little annoyed by their wishywashyness, gosh. I know I haven't been updating in quite some time, so if there are still any readers left, review plzzzz? :D

Just click the button here. XOXOXO!