"Your laugh makes my heart giddy."
...
He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.
I've been rereading Book thief and this part always hurts me. I wipe a tear that fell from my eye.
"Nairaaaaaaaaa!"
I see my brother standing in front of me. I drew poop on his forehead this morning when he was sleeping. I can't stop laughing. I stop laughing and then when I look at him, I laugh again.
He just glares at me.
"This is for giving Ayan my number without asking me. Now leave my room. I have to get ready to meet Siya."
He nods and purposefully leaves my door wide open. Brothers are so annoying.
I quickly read another chapter because there's still half an hour left before I meet her. I swap my pyjamas for ripped jeans and wear an off-shoulder top. I tie my hair in a ponytail and wear my white sneakers. I take my phone and purse and head downstairs.
"Mom, can you please tell Ansh to drop me at the mall?"
"Heck no," Ansh says with his mouth full. He's always eating something.
"Hey, that's my chocolate. Mom, he's eating my chocolate." I try to take my other chocolate that he currently has but he licks it all over. Gross. I make a face at him.
"Sweetie, Ayan is going to be here any minute. He'll drop you there," my mom replies. She's cleaning up the living room, setting the cushions rightly.
"What, why?" I whine. She's still making decisions without telling me.
Somebody rings the bell and my mom asks me to go open the door. Of course.
I huff and head to open the door.
He's standing there, leaning against the wall. He's supporting a black tee with blue-washed jeans. Why does he have to always look good?
"You have the whole car ride to stare at me, sunflower." I don't look at him. I know he'll be smirking at me. I ignore him and walk past him to his car.
The entire car ride is silent which is shocking because Ayan is always saying something. I glance at him and when he looks at me, I look away. It's hard to keep eye contact with him. It makes me conscious.
"Ayan?" I ask him. I'm fiddling with my fingers.
"Yeah." He reaches his hand out and takes my right hand in his and gives me a smile. That melts my heart. I look at him in shock but don't remove his hand. I don't want to.
I decide to look out of the window but my entire attention is on how his thumb is drawing circles on my hand.
"Naira, you were saying something?"
I think that's the first time he has not called me by some nickname. I smile slightly at that.
"I was just going to ask when are we going to reach the mall?"
"Oh, just another five minutes." I nod at him and we don't talk more after that.
When we reach the mall, I try to unbuckle my seatbelt but it's fastened tightly and I fail to do so.
Ayan moves his hand across the seat to unbuckle it for me. He's really close to me and that makes my heart beat faster. I avoid looking at his eyes. He moves away from me and I can breathe properly now.
"It's done. You can look at me now." He smiles at me.
"Your breath stinks!" I quickly say that.
He moves close to me again and lifts my chin up so that I'm looking at him.
"Girl, I can kiss you right now to prove how wrong you are." His stare is so intense. I'm a nervous mess. I want to hate him for doing stuff like this.
I push him away. "Gross. Stay away from me." I open the car door and start walking away from him. I can hear him laughing. That smug arse.
"I'll be here at 7 to pick you up."
I ignore him and walk inside the mall. I text Siya to come at the entrance. Soon, I see her coming towards me. I give her a big smile and hug her.
"I missed you, girl," she says to me.
"I wasn't the one who went on a family vacation for two weeks," I tell her. She just rolls her eyes at me.
Siya's husband Mark and her 1-year-old daughter Natasha are there with her too. I fistbump him. That's how we always greet each other. I pick up Natasha and kiss her cheek. Her eyes light up and she laughs at me. Awww. She's so cute. I tickle her nose and she keeps on smiling at me. I give her back to Mark. Siya kisses her goodbye and reminds Mark again to feed her and make her sleep for an hour. I'm sure she has already told this to him plenty of times today. I shake my head at her.
We spend the day shopping. Well, mostly she's shopping. I'm just looking around. After a few hours, we head to the restaurant and I order fries for myself. She orders two burgers and fries for herself along with coke. Yeah, the girl can eat.
"So how was the vacation?" I ask her. She tells me all about it. Also about the time when they all had to cut their trip to the beach short because Natasha pooped and Mark forgot to keep the diapers in the bag. I laugh at that. She doesn't ask me anything about Ayan and I'm grateful for that.
We go bowling for an hour after that and I lose terribly. I pout and leave the bowling arena.
Siya has to leave then to take care of the mess Mark has created at the house. We hug each other and promise to catch up soon. It's a quarter past 7. So I leave the mall and head to the parking lot where Ayan's car is parked according to his text.
I spot his car and sit inside. He starts to drive and I turn on the radio. He turns it off.
"You didn't shop anything?" He raises an eyebrow at me.
"No."
He looks surprised but then shrugs. "Remind me to take you to shopping someday. And did you eat?"
"Yeah, I had fries two hours ago," I tell him.
He nods at me, "You must be hungry now. You didn't eat much."
Why does he care? I scrunch up my eyebrows and say, "Not really. Drop me at my house. I'll have dinner in some time."
"No can do, babygirl. We have a date to go to."