Foolish Games.. (26)

I’m sorry it took so long! I’ve been spending so much time reading, totally lost track of everything else :x In my defense, uni starts on Sunday and I won’t have time to read then, or do anything since I did something very smart/stupid with my schedule. Not sure which yet, but yeah. In light of this lack of time-ness, I’ve decided to bless you all with a post (A) I'll try to post when I can, though! Enjoy, yeah? And comment, I had to re-write this twice *sigh* apparently, the teacher knew what she was talking about back in IT classes when she told us to save our work constantly, shocking.


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I tapped my foot impatiently as I stared at the clock over the whiteboard with avid interest. Five minutes left. Of all professors available, I had the great misfortune of being stuck with the one who refuses to leave one nanosecond before the time is up. Hate summer classes. Three minutes, thirty seconds. I picked up my pencil and chewed on the eraser, it's a horrible habit but having my ass glued down to a chair for an hour five times a week wasn't exactly a walk in the park either, my fidgety nature refused to allow me to sit still. I substituted the pencil with the pad of my thumb and gnawed at it. Two minutes, here we go. It's not as if I ever broke skin, all I was ever left with is a set of tiny indentations where my teeth have previously been. Very unattractive. One minute to go! I squealed a little internally and suppressed a smile. I synchronized my blinks with the passing of every 5 seconds. 55.. 50.. 45.. 40-

"Ghala, is there anything particularly fascinating on the wall?"

Twenty-nine pairs of curious eyes shifted in my direction, including Yousef's, who looked especially eager to hear my answer. I feigned confusion and he answered by periodically blinking his eyes at five second intervals with a clueless expression on his face. The class erupted in laughter and I felt a sudden rush of heat invading my face. Ass.

"I.. Uh.. My lenses were dry?" I ventured, hoping everyone would divert their attention elsewhere.

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow and I heard a few poorly stifled giggles. "You're wearing glasses." He flatly stated and waited for my response. More laughter. Great. Smooth, Ghala. Real smooth. It seems as though the floor never quite listens to me when I beg for it to open up and to suck me into an alternate universe.

"I.. Ah, what I meant-"

"Sir?" A male voice interrupted, "I'm sorry to interrupt but class is over and I have to get to my next one, can we leave?"

Yousef to the rescue. Did I mention how much I loved that man? A few voices echoed his request and I held my breath.

"Yes, of course. Have a nice weekend everyone." I sighed in relief, packed up my things and left class as fast as I could before he asked any more questions I couldn't answer. Or any I would answer stupidly.

I found Yousef leaning on the wall outside the classroom, "Your lenses were dry?" He asked in an amused drawl.

I felt a blush staining my cheeks again, "Don't you have a class to get to?" I asked haughtily as I walked past him.

"You're welcome." He answered sarcastically. "Where are you off to?"

"Book shopping!" I answered with barely contained glee, "Wanna come with?" I don't know why I even bother asking, I'm always greeted with horrified expressions when I offer.

"Believe it or not, I have better things to do than watch you sniff, fondle and stroke your books."

"I like the way they smell!" I defended indignantly, "And I don't 'fondle and stroke' my books, I feel the texture of the paper. Big difference." I concluded with a pout.

"The answer is still no." He said firmly.

"Whatever, your loss." I said as I childishly stuck my tongue out.

"Hardly!" He returned with a smirk.

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I walked determinedly past all the aisles of music, eager to get to my destination. My inner nerd emerged and performed several somersaults at the sight of all the books before me.

I picked up a romance novel and decided to test out Haifa's theory. She thought that as women, we were genetically programmed to open up romance novels and randomly find the "dirty parts". She always said it was a talent we intrinsically possessed. I soon found that her theory proved itself to be true and started giggling as I read on in interest.

I heard someone's coughing interrupting my concentration and I looked up to find a man staring at me with a raised eyebrow. Apparently he had witnessed my little giggling fit and was now looking at me questioningly. I blushed and raised the book back up to hide my face, hoping he would look away. I waited a couple of heartbeats and tried to subtly peek at him from over the book, I was greeted with his smirking face again and I quickly re-adjusted it to cover my eyes.

Now what? I suppose I could put the book down and walk away.. But no. I needed it to cover my face. The heat proved itself to be too oppressive at the beginning of the summer and on impulse, I ended it up getting half of my hair chopped off at the hairdresser's. Admittedly, not my brightest move. I missed it acting as a veil between me and everyone else when I needed it to. It would've been very helpful now, I wanted to get a better look at the guy in front of me and what better way to accomplish that than from behind a curtain of hair?

I chewed my lip indecisively as I debated my next move and decided to grow a pair, figuratively speaking, put the book down, catch a quick glimpse of him and gracefully walk away. As gracefully as my feet would allow me, that is. I put the book down and looked up, only to find him gone. How long had I been debating, anyway? Weird. I turned around to walk away and encountered a wall, or at least what I thought was a wall.

"How about you watch where you're going?" A deep, angry voice suggested.

The apology I was intending to offer vanished and was replaced by annoyance at the stranger's rudeness, "How about you-"

The rest of my response died on my lips as I met the stranger's eyes. It was the same guy from before, I would recognize that eyebrow anywhere, lifted cockily in the same questioning manner as it was earlier. What I hadn't been prepared for though was how attractive he was, or the swift change in my train of thoughts as I stared, quite unabashedly, at his face.

"You were saying?" He said impatiently.

"What?" I asked, finding my voice.

His smirk returned, "You were in the middle of what I'm sure you thought was a scathing retort before you looked up and decided to ogle me instead."

I gasped as his offensive, and quite correct, summation of what just happened. Nothing like the embarrassing truth to catch someone off guard. I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing the accuracy of his rude reply. I will deny it until my dying breath, I vowed.

"Don't flatter yourself." I managed to spit out. Not the most creative comeback but I decided to add a little eye-rolling for dramatic effect and walked away triumphantly. Ha! I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I heard him talking again.

"You might want to take your wallet and phone with you," he said as he gestured to where I forgot them atop the books, "unless you were planning on paying for your books with your more of your witticisms." He added, sarcastically.

"Bite me." I practically snarled as I picked up my things and silently cursed my absent-mindedness.

He laughed mockingly, "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

My face turned a few thousand shades of red as I plugged in the forgotten earphones I had hanging around my neck to block out anything else he had to say, and walked away. I took my iPod out of my pocket and pressed play as I replayed the scene that just happened and by the end of it, I was practically shaking with anger, embarrassment and at the same time, I had the strangest urge to laugh! How bizarre.

I put the compelling stranger out of my head and devoted all my energy and attention to finding books. Forty-five minutes later, I was happily humming as I walked out of Virgin Megastore and headed to get some coffee. I had a long night ahead of me.

I ordered my drink and had to repeatedly assure the waiter that I wanted three extra espresso shots. You work in the coffee business, to think you would've seen it all by now. Or at least sampled the coffee and knew that it was bland, I needed the three shots for it to have any effect at all.

I leaned against a wall as I waited for my order to be up. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket and took it out to find a text from Khaled. I smiled as I replied excitedly, he booked his flight back and was coming back next week with a "surprise". I tried to get him to admit what it was but my attempts were futile, not even Mya would help me! I was hoping she would take pity on me and ease my curiosity, no such luck.

"64!" The short Philipino woman called. I picked up my drink and walked towards the exit, trying to balance my drink, wallet and heavy bag of books in one hand while texting Khaled back with the other.

Needless to say, the spilling of my coffee on a poor, unsuspecting stranger was more than inevitable. And to my extreme misfortune, the stranger just happened to be the same guy I had bumped into before. Would this qualify as a good enough entry to post on www.fmylife.com? I wonder.

I gasped in horror and he let out a loud expletive. I hurriedly put my stuff down and attempted to wipe the huge, obvious stain off his white shirt as I apologized profusely. He groaned in frustration as I only seemed to be helping it spread all over the place.

"Are you going to make a habit of this bumping into me thing?" He demanded, furiously.

His anger only fueled my own, I was already berating myself for my inattentiveness and he only made it worse.

"I already apologized, now stop pouting like a baby and get over it! There's no need to be rude and insufferable." I ground out.

"No need to be rude and insufferable?" He echoed my words and looked up at me with incredulity emanating from his eyes. He grabbed the napkins from my hands and took over the task of drying himself off.

I closed my eyes and sighed in exasperation. Let's try this one more time. It was going to physically hurt to be nice to someone so rude, but I suppose it was my fault and I owed him a proper apology. This blows.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I should've been paying attention to where I was going and I promise I'll make it up to you. I'll pay to get your shirt cleaned!" I offered as I took a better look at the damage, "Actually, on second thought, how about I just get you a new one?" I offered as I smiled at him.

He looked at me like I was crazy, shook his head in disbelief and turned his attention back to his shirt. "You're not buying me anything."

He said it in a way that suggested that women weren't allowed to pay for anything. I opened my mouth to let him know what I thought of his chauvinism but apparently he wasn't done shocking me yet.

"But," he paused as he threw the napkins in the nearby trash can and came back to face me, "I do like the idea of you making it up to me, though."

I was almost afraid to ask how but curiosity got the best of me, "What did you have in mind?"

He lifted a corner of his lips in a half-smile at my hesitancy and simply stated, "Have coffee with me."

Now it was my turn to question his sanity. "What?" I asked, completely baffled at his suggestion, "Why?! You haven't had one nice thing to say to me from the second you opened your mouth and now you want to have coffee with me? Are you out of your mind?"

He opened his mouth to talk but I cut him off with a warning glance, "I'm not done yet! Why on earth would I have coffee with you? Why would I even consider it! I don't even know your name. Besides, you're rude, obnoxious, arrogant-"

"And you have absolutely no sense of coordination and you don't quite know when to shut up." He interjected with a genuine smile that left me just a tad bit speechless. "All you've done is prove that nobody's perfect. Even me with my alleged arrogance. Now how about that coffee?"

Maybe I was still stunned by his invitation or his smile, I really couldn't say. And if anyone were to ask me, I don't know how I'd explain my reaction, but before I knew it, I found myself nodding and agreeing to his ludicrous suggestion.

"Good. Not here though, their coffee tastes like piss." He declared as he walked and motioned for me to come with him when I stood still. "Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf okay with you?" He asked as I joined him.

"It's fine." I replied quietly, not sure of what to make of this turnabout in events, "And could we do without the vulgarity, please?"

He shrugged in a noncommittally and we walked side by side to the parking lot in silence as I contemplated how surreal the situation was. I didn't normally do things like this, I'll admit to being too impulsive at times but that rarely ever bordered on stupidity. And that's exactly how I was acting now, stupid. Going to get coffee with a complete stranger. But then again, I've been doing a lot of uncharacteristic things lately.

We reached the parking lot and went in separate ways to get to our cars when he suddenly turned around again.

"It's Fahad, by the way." He called out.

"Huh?"

"My name, it's Fahad." He clarified.

"Oh!" I bit back a little smile, "I'm Ghala."

He inclined his head a little in acknowledgment and turned around to make his way to his car. I then let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding in, made my way to my car and smiled, this time without any restraint. Hmm, Fahad.