Until Alex

CHAPTER THREE: TO PRETEND OR NOT?

It was very weird. It could be assumed that I had spent almost half my life drinking coffee at Loulou Coffee Cup on my own. When I still lived with my father, it provided me a sanctuary from the stifling atmosphere of my house, and that daily tradition had stuck even after I moved out two years ago.

I usually enjoyed the peace that only early mornings could provide. Today, however, I felt the loneliness creep over me like an invisible cloak. After I had finally sanctioned an approval for the lover boy, I was not expecting Alex to join me like he’d been doing for the past three weeks. That didn’t explain the feeling of such abject solitude which assailed me, and I would have wept in misery had I been the sensitive type.

What grotesque magic had he woven on me that I was starting to actually miss him? I was the kind of person who strove to live independently, the desire to get away from too much engagement always rampant. It stumped me to discover that he had managed past such terrific defense.

Just as I was about to castigate myself, someone dropped on the opposite seat, and I opened my mouth to tell him off. I was used to being approached by the local leeches since a lonely girl at a coffee shop was considered pretty much fair game to the lowest of scums.

 However, the perfect ‘O’ of my mouth remained frozen when I realized who it was. Alex Harrington. I could not help myself, I squealed in surprise.

“Alex?! What are you doing here?” I was unable to hide the fact that I was flabbergasted and unexpectedly thrilled at his sudden presence. Like a typical girl.

He shrugged, his large shoulders flexing over the movement in slow motion. “I’m not in the habit of ditching my friends.”

“Is that a dig?” I challenged with a huge smile which almost encompassed the entire lower part of my face, recalling how I’d refused to tag along with him for his first date for moral support.

“Not at all,” he replied with his usual charming disposition. “You just looked like you needed a friend and that’s where I come in.” He winked at me and signaled the waitress for his usual black coffee, allowing me ample time to recover from my shock, or wait until my fluttering heart settled.

When his drink arrived, I wrinkled my nose at the unappealingly black liquid. “I wonder how you can drink that stuff,” I commented. “It looks horrible.”

Unperturbed, he sipped his first taste, looking at me over the brim, swallowing with extra appreciation before answering. “Black coffee has its benefits. For one, it is said to improve performance.”

My eyes popped open in wonder. “In bed?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

His delightful chuckled suggested that I had played right into his hand. “What a dirty little mind you have, Arianna!” he observed wanly, although his dimples were proof that he was having a good time at my expense. “It improves performance during workout.”

Knowing that I had turned into crimson red, I glared at him menacingly. He merely laughed again, that rich genuine texture which flew across my ears with its alluring enjoyment.  “Sorry,” he conceded sheepishly with both hands in the air, and I could not hold a grudge.

Grinning back at him, I pushed my thick tortoise shell specs up the bridge of my nose, trying for a casual poise as I stirred my coffee. “No offense taken. So, what kind of sports are you into?”

“Jiu jitsu.”

I was impressed. “Classical or Brazilian?”

It was his time to gag in awe. “BJJ. Please don’t tell me you’re into the same thing,” he queried, his eyes full of anticipation at the mere concept.

My spontaneous laughter resonated vibrantly throughout the small café, and I saw Genevieve send me a furtive look out of the corner of her eyes. It was so atypical of me that I must have given the poor waitress the shock of her life.

“No,” I focused my attention back to Alex, aware that my cheeks were flushed with excitement. “I would love to, though.”

He practically beamed with approval. “Really? I’ll see what I can do about that. You’re full of surprises,” he remarked, his thick eyebrows furrowing together in a perfect wavy pattern.

Trying not to overanalyze his comment, I wondered whether I should pursue or drop the subject. What did he mean by that cryptic remark? Was it a good thing or did he consider me a whammy?

Finally, I gave up my ruminations and went for the bold question, shutting down my scrammed brains before I cowered. “Why do you say that?” I queried, striving not to sound too coquettish but failing miserably in my attempt.

His thick eyebrows wove into that perfect pattern as he looked at me speculatively. “You’re quite different from the high school version I know of you,” he finally replied offhandedly. “For one, I would never have tagged you as a sports person since you refused to sweat during the P.E classes.”

I cringed at his subtle insinuation that I was a spoilt princess, but inwardly appreciating the fact that he was giving me a chance to explain myself instead of judging me. Like the others did.

The truth was that I was indeed as vacuous as he was making me sound – I loathed getting messy in front of the others in case they mocked me. Or at least, I used to hate that. After a certain level of maturity, I figured that what others thought of me hardly counted, conjectures under any form would sprout anyway.

Resisting the urge to scowl a second time, I furrowed my eyebrows in concentration to search for a plausible answer, a bead of sweat breaking through my hairline as I struggled to come up with an intelligent riposte.

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to see me sweaty,” I ultimately delivered in a self-deprecatory drawl, lifting my lips in an upward tilt.

Instead of retaliating to my puerile joke with one of his smart ones, he frowned at me with a serious expression. “Which is even more fascinating because your appearance has changed so much during the last two years.”

My fake smile vanished in a jiffy, as I felt discomfited at his observation, understanding that it was no casual remark. To his credit, Alex was not doing it on purpose, he simply did not engage in phony relationships like my other rich friends. Even Tiffany sometimes did not bother to probe into so much details about me, preferring to leave me alone when I migrated into my dark moods.

Alex, on the other hand, was completely different on that level; he did nothing superfluously when he was into someone, he preferred making a deep connection.

I knew what he was referring to, of course. In high school, I donned the sartorial version of the glamorous doll, without a hair out of place under any circumstances. As soon as I’d finished school, certain friends beginning to evanesce and I started realizing that my appearance hardly counted, resulting in me paying scant attention to my picture-perfect image, except of course when I was putting public appearances.

Trust Alex to put me in a tight spot about that.

“I… Let’s just say that I realized that there was more to life than physical beauty,” I concluded awkwardly.

“So, now you’ve suddenly transformed into the woman who wouldn’t mind being seen sweaty in public?”

The way he said it, with his sexy bedroom voice sending sultry grooves over me, immediately triggering in my head a depiction of myself stark naked, dripping with sweat after a raunchy session of s*x. W.I.T.H H.I.M.

I gulped. Hard.

Horrified, I tried to summon my next breath with an equanimity that I was far from experiencing, my heart jackhammering inside my chest like I had just ran a marathon. What the hell was wrong with me? I’ve never in my entire life experienced a full-on, wild s****l fantasy in the middle of the day.

Well, I was a normal woman with certain… ahem needs, but I’ve never had naked fantasies about a living man before. Not one in the flesh anyway. Maybe Tom cruise when I watched Top Gun. Certainly not one sitting right in front of me with whom I was supposed to be having a decent conversation!

Trying to get a grip on my wayward thoughts, I opted for a semblance of a smile even if I knew it came out wobbly without even having to look into the mirror. Say something intelligent! my mind screamed at me.

“I’ve been running for the past three years,” I eventually managed to croak, my voice coming out raspy like my mouth was filled with sawdust.

Alex treated me to one of his scrutinizing stares, during which I struggled not to squirm like a schoolgirl before he finally sighed. “It’s so difficult for you to open up, isn’t it?”

 It was. I would never reveal the reason why I’ve given up on my perfect appearance, why I never showed my real face to the world.

I shrugged. “Some things are private,” I admitted, knowing that I’ve given too much away in that one single sentence. “So, are you happy about finally bagging a date with your dream girl?” I beamed at him with positive alacrity, not caring that I was overtly changing the subject.

Pretending was the easiest part. But on the other hand, it helped me focus on the salient fact that he was currently interested in someone else. Given the way we were interacting mingled with my burgeoning fondness for him, his concern could muss my head making me fall for him. Heads over heels kind.

It was his time to lift his shoulders in a casual uplift and I was glad of the reprieve that the shift of attention provided me. That reconnaissance he had subjected me to, although innocuous, had left me speechless and extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure.”

Indignation filled me at his brief answer, and adrenaline pumped into my system without me having time to digest the heavy dose. Did he really think that after railroading me about my change of appearance, he would get away with three words when it was him time to be honest?

“Oh no! You’re not getting away with that brief answer!” I exclaimed in outrage, with the impression that my face was flaming with passion yet again. It seemed to have become a frequent occurrence for me to react so heatedly around him, when usually it required a lot of effort form my interlocutor to perturb me.

Even if I knew he was deliberately toying with me to snap me out of my shell.

He leant towards the table, the gesture subtly menacing and deceptively calm. “This goes both ways, honey,” he drawled lazily. “I can be as evasive as you and we’re both gonna walk on eggshells if that’s what you want.”

I scorned at him noisily. “Fine!” I snapped angrily, the words gushing out due to the unsolicited emotion. “My mom is a plastic surgery addict…and…,” I paused awkwardly, willing him to pick up some cue about how uncomfortable he was making me, but the ferocity of his gaze did not diminish by even one spark. I watched sunlight play with the color until the green dappled in dark concentration.

I sighed. Heavily.

“Let’s just say that it’s getting worse. There’s always something about herself that she wants to improve. Always. Sometimes, her nose is a little too tweaked. Or her butt is too small.” I sighed again. “I don’t even remember her original face anymore.”

His shrewd eyes continued to pin me with his gaze. “Have you ever been under the knife?”

“No,” I admitted frankly, without even bothering to evade the question this time. I was gradually learning that with Alex, there was no point avoiding his direct interrogation, it wouldn’t serve anything. “I was tempted once, then I thought of how my mother’s face puffed just after and I passed. Years later, I recognized her addiction for what it was, eventually realizing that beauty was relative.”

“So, that was why you dropped the fashion bimbo look and served a more natural one?” he queried, casually darting a look in my direction.

“I stopped attaching importance to my looks. It just did not matter anymore. It saved me one and a half hour,” I grinned foolishly at him, irrationally pleased with myself.

“So, you used the time to run instead?”

I nodded avidly, thrilled at his perceptiveness. His pragmatic rationality matched mine – I was a black and white kind of girl. No grey areas.

“Quite a drastic makeover I’d say,” he drawled lazily, and I cringed with embarrassment as his eyes glazed over me in assessment. “But rather commendable,” he added with a trace of admiration, evaporating my sourly disposition and I toned it down to susceptibility on my part.

Unable to help myself to bask in his praise, I smiled at him with unfettered appreciation, certain that my eyes had taken a stormy hue with a flushed heated color penetrating my cheeks. I was acting like a besotted dork – the very brainless type which used to make me roll my eyes in exasperation when girls would croon around guys like him in open admiration.

“Thank you,” I offered shyly, then sobered instantly as the realization dawned that he’d managed to deter me from getting an answer about him, instead digging in my closet to unravel all my dirty secrets.

To top it all, instead of irritating me like it should have, it exhilarated me! The fact that he wanted to learn more about me, that he cared about me, even if it was for an ulterior motive delighted me. How pathetic was that?

“Your turn?” I confronted without giving him time to shirk away from the conversation, enjoying it when he frowned at me in puzzlement.

“My turn for what?” he queried, the note of wonderment in his tone undeniable, even if I would never have doubted his authenticity as he did not possess a fake bone in his body. His hard-macho body. His broad muscular body.

Alright, stop! I screamed at my inner line of thoughts, putting a screeching halt to them. What in the name of Heaven was wrong with me? I’ve never experienced such a raw frenzied desire to jump on someone, to feel him close even if it was only to sniff in his masculine scent. Completely crazy.

“Your turn to share your feelings,” I turned the table right back at him. “You don’t look elated at the prospect of your incoming date,” I observed wanly, trying not to allow myself to hope that it could be true.

He shrugged, his broad shoulders merely lifting as he twirled his coffee, seeming fascinated by the dark liquid. It was only seconds later that I realized that he was just trying to hide his awkwardness. I found his reaction cute – so cute that I felt an actual toe-curling reaction from the thrill I felt.

Oh lord, I was in deep trouble.

“Uhhhhm…I don’t know,” he hesitated one second too much to appear as casual as he would like. “I guess it’s not too encouraging to be considered as a squeeze in. I was just hoping that Tiffany would be a little more enthusiastic about dating me. Instead I feel like it’s a hurdle for her.”

He let out a laugh which made my insides freeze – it was none of his genteel or unfettered version I had grown so accustomed to and which I adored. It was restrained and forced.

Unfortunately, I knew this game - this game of putting an armor to hide from the outer world was all too familiar for me. Pretending to be tough because it was what was expected from a person rather than showing the real stakes. In case they made fun of you or discover their weak points.

It broke my heart to discover that Alex – my Alex could also sublimate his emotions rather than indulging in them like he was used to. It also made me angry that three weeks with me and I was already transferring my fakeness to him – to the only genuine person I’d ever encountered.

But things were getting muddier when I was with him. Feelings I had long assumed to be dead were resurfacing with a vengeance leaving me raw and exposed. Something I wanted to avoid at all cost – something I did not want to consume me especially when he was the forbidden fruit.

It sucked big time.

I had always believed that idiosyncratic sentiments were something I could control – I had lived a placid existence long enough to have tamed me to avoid emotional entanglements. Experiencing it hit with full force was something I was unprepared for and which left me quite breathless and reeling from the effect.

“Don’t worry,” I mumbled under my breath, too concerned with my disorientation to placate him with my usual flippancy. “I’m sure everything will work out fine.”

That flatly delivered, I felt even more miserable and vulnerable, wanting to flee the coffee shop without looking back at him again. My survival instincts were kicking in – they knew that if I walked into the trap of falling for Alex Harrington, I might never recover from the shock.

He looked at me then probably searching for some sincerity in my vacuous words, and for once in my life, I could not entirely hide my feelings. Heaven knew what he read in the smoke storm reflected in my eyes, but his expression took on a look of complete stupor – one that suggested that he’d discovered something elemental.

The urge to flee became prominent, and I stood up without even paying for my coffee, clutching my bag tightly in a fist ignoring him when he called out my name in that smooth chocolate tone, and practically dashing towards the exit without a backward glance.

It would be a wonder if he didn’t think of me as a psychopath!