Natasha and Riley sat in the private room, waiting for her Uncle to arrive. As soon as school had closed, they took a taxi to the restaurant, not wanting to get there any later than 5:00pm which was the time they agreed on. But now, it was thirty minutes past 5, and her Uncle had still not arrived.
Natasha was beginning to get worried. This was unlike her Uncle, he was the type to keep to time. Did something bad happen to him? No way. Maybe something urgent came up, so he decided to stay back.
She picked up her phone from the table and gave Riley a reassuring smile as their eyes met, and Riley returned the smile.
She called her Uncle, it rang, but he was not picking. There was no need to panic, he was probably in a meeting and had silenced his phone, totally normal. She tried a few more times, and gave up when he still was not picking. She tried Adrian's number and he picked on the first ring.
"Hey Nat."
"Hey. Are you with him?"
"Boss?"
"Yeah, my uncle."
"No. The last time I saw him was this morning."
"Any idea where he is?"
"No. But just so you know, he left town this noon around 3:00pm."
"Oh!" She was a little bit taken aback. He asked her out, and now he was no where to be found, and he wasn't even bothered to give her a call.
"Thanks Adrian."
She ended the call and placed her phone back on the table. She looked at Riley who had been staring at her ever since she tried calling her Uncle. She took a deep breath as she opened her mouth to speak.
"Riley."
"Yes."
"My Uncle might come here later than we expect. I just heard he went out of town, so he might probably just be driving back to town. Do you want us to wait or should we order something to eat first?"
"Why don't we wait a little bit more. Who knows, he might arrive any moment from now."
"Hmm."
They sat there, waiting, just taking sips from their drinks. The wait was long and tiring.
'Thank goodness we are in a private room, if not I would feel so awkward, haha, that's even if I would wait for so long.' Natasha thought to herself as she took another sip from her drink.
*****
It was a few minutes past six, when the door opened from the outside, and walking in was a huge man, probably in his early thirties. Natasha looked at him and so did Riley, but they both had different thoughts going on in their heads.
'Of all the ways I imagined him to be, this definitely has never crossed my mind.' Riley thought to himself.
The man in front of him was not only huge, his long curly hair which rested on his shoulders complemented his beards. Even though he looked handsome in his own way, even though all he had on was a casual black t-shirt and blue jeans on a black sneakers, and just a wristwatch to add. This still was not what Riley imagined. True, the man looked tough, and he also had imagined Natasha's Uncle to be a no nonsense man, but ever since he got to know that the man was a nature lover, he assumed the man would have a soft spot. Even though he expected the man to look tough, he didn't expect the man to look this tough. He was a hundred percent sure that the man was a business man, but this one looked more like a mafia boss.
"Natasha." the man called her to wake her up from her daydream.
Natasha blinked her eyes repeatedly and only looked worried the more. The man in front of her was not someone she saw often. The first and the last time she saw him was two years ago, when she and her mother rushed over to check on her Uncle, when they got informed that he was involved in a car accident. This was the man they had met in his hospital room. The first time she had met him was when something bad happened to her Uncle.
'Please, don't tell me he's been involved in an accident again, please.' she prayed silently as she intertwined her fingers.
His deep voice made Riley shiver all over, while it made Natasha scared something bad had happened to her Uncle.
He sat down, ignoring whatever expression was written on the kids' faces. He signaled the waiter. He menu was given to him. He chose three dishes in the menu, making sure they all were spicy foods. He passed the menu to Riley.
"Place your order." he said as he stretched it to him.
"I'll have the same as you." Riley said and gently pushed the menu back to the man.
He gave Natasha a glance, but soon directed his attention to the waiter.
"Serve the same, for three."
Riley took note of that glance, but didn't bother questioning why the man didn't ask Natasha for her preference, since he was sure that the man would know what his niece loved eating, since they were very close.
Very close?
Yes, they were. According to Natasha, she was close to her Uncle. So what was with the look on her face. She seemed angry. Angry? No. Worried? Can't tell. Scared? A bit.
'What on earth is going on here?' he screamed in his head.
Food was served, and Riley immediately regretted his decision to have the same as the man. He was not a fan of spicy foods, but he decided not to say a word, lest the man sees it as a waste and ends up hating him for wasting food.
"Where is he?"
Hearing Natasha ask such a question, he became confused. What exactly did she mean? If this was not her Uncle, then who was this person in front of them.
"He said you should eat a lot and take home with you. He won't be returning home today, he has quite a lot of work to deal with."
Really, that was it. Exactly no way would Natasha see the uncle she so much adored and have such emotions on her face. So it was because the person who joined them was not her Uncle. He let out a sigh of relief, he had been so tense and afraid that a single mistake would trigger off the man that he had unconsciously held his breath.
Natasha's racing heart finally settled. She finally picked up the cutleries and was going to eat when she noticed the man stand up. The very first thing she took a proper look at was his bowl of soup which was empty. How could he drink such a hot soup within such a little period of time.
"I'll take my leave first."
He didn't wait to hear if she had anything to say, which of course she had. She had quite a lot she wanted to ask him and also say to her Uncle. Why didn't he just give her a call to have her know he would no longer be joining her? Why did he bother to send someone when he could have just called or texted her? And even if he was gonna send someone, which he did, still yet, why didn't he send someone she was familiar with? Why someone who only made her think he had bad news to share?
But well, too late, since the man did not give her a chance to talk. Or, maybe he did give her, but she was the one who didn't say more than what she had said.
She looked at Riley, to explain things to him, and she was a bit startled to see him staring at her.
"Oh shit! What's with the face?"
He softened his gaze, but didn't look away.
"OK, fine. He's not my uncle. He's some, uh, I don't even know. Funny, right?" she chuckles "I've only met him once in my life before now, and when I had met him, it was not on a good occasion, so I kinda got panicked, thinking something bad had happened again."
Riley could only nod his head as he continued eating, which he could not do properly since it was too spicy for him. This, Natasha took notice of. She had been so engrossed in her own thoughts, that she forgot about Riley for a while.
"Don't force yourself to eat what you can't eat."
"But it's gonna be a waste if I don't."
"Then would you rather harm yourself?"
He dropped the cutlery and picked up the cup of water.
"Do you want to spend the night at my place?"
"Why would I?"
"You might get to see my Uncle tomorrow morning."
"It's a probability, you don't know for sure if he is returning during the day or night."
"Just come over, there's quite a lot we need to talk about."
There was no arguing with her on this. And it was not like he would not like to spend the night there, if anything, he would love to spend the whole school year there.
"Fine, just let me take care of some things."
"What things?"
"I have to persuade Richard to cover up for me."
She looked at him with a questioning look, then it suddenly dawned on her.
"Oh my! Don't tell me your parents don't take lightly to you sleeping out?" she said while holding back her laughter.
His face suddenly went gloomy.
"Not really, they don't even care. I just like to assume that they would." he said with a sad smile.
Natasha didn't need anyone telling her that she had touched a sad spot.
"Hey buddy, why don't we first get you something mild to eat, you'll give a call to Richard on our way home, how about that?" she said with as much positive energy as she could gather.
"Sure. We should get some takeaways first, then I will give him a call when we are in the taxi."
"Let's get going then."