Chapter 7 She

• “What is her name?”
• His brows meet in the middle as he tried to decode my question, his head even tilts a little to the side in thought, and I found it cute, he had a little pout whenever he was confused, is it bad that I never want him to find out anything?
• “What?”
• I gesture to the cat still eating from the bowl, she hasn’t even come up to gasp for air ever since.
• “You haven’t introduced me to your cat.”
• The cute pout disappears and I try to hide my disappointment, I should have let him be confused for as long as possible. He has a little smirk on his face, he knows I am trying to change the subject, and he was going to play along, for now.
• “Crest is not my cat, she wanders here whenever she wants and leaves right after she has gotten what she wants.” he says this with a little shake of his head, like he was disappointed that she only came to him for food.
• I frown, the name Crest was unusual, and it sounded familiar, and I was sure it was important to me, my eyes wander up to find his looking at me intently, my mouth gaps a little from the intensity of his gaze, I watch his eyes flick to my mouth and then back up to my eyes.
• “I never bought the innocent persona act you know, I always knew, under all of that, there was a side you were suppressing.” he tells me.
• I look from him to my empty plate, my stomach swarm with spaghetti, I wonder if I ate too much.
• “You knew me before this time.” I say out loud, no question there, I wonder if he had seen all of my movies and if he was comparing me to the actress, and if he was disappointed, and wince at the thought.
• “And every time you came up on my screen, I wanted to do very nasty things to you.” he says this in the most sultry tone, that my head snapped up to meet his eyes, even with the lenses, I saw sincerity in them. Goosebumps spread all over my body, and I was not cold.
• “Like what?” I whisper, unable to tear my eyes from his own.
• A little smirk played on his lips, and a tingle run down my spine when my eyes are drawn to his mouth, I felt my entire body want to kiss him, everything inside me was drawn to his lips, i had never felt this way until now, I had to physically restrain myself from kissing him, locking my fingers together on my laps seemed to do the trick, only by a little.
• “That is what you will find out in the duration of the six months you will be spending here, let us not rush it all at once.”
• Heat was pooling between my legs and every other part of my body, I felt like I was set on fire, and he had to touch me everywhere to quench it. I shiver with the thought of it happening.
• Loud footsteps coming our way breaks the spell, I look away from him, blinking rapidly, and tugging at my parched throat, looking for a relief. He dropped a bottle of water in front of me without prompt. My fingers wrapped around the bottle and I chug from it gratefully, but I don’t look up at him.
• “In here.” he calls out to whoever it was with the loud footsteps.
• He takes my empty plate and puts it in the dish washer, along with all the other pots and pans he used to cook, I try to stop him, signaling I would do that as I was not totally shameless, but he doesn’t even look at me, his eyes were on the dishes he was stuffing into the washer.
• “You seriously need to get a life outside this kitchen.” a new voice says, joining us, startling me from how deep it was.
• My neck snap up to find the owner of the new voice, and I find myself craning my neck even higher, the male speaking was almost as tall as Abed, and almost as handsome, he would have been the most handsome man alive if Abed had never been born.
• “You with a life outside the kitchen seems to visit it even more than I do.” Abed says with an exhausted sigh, like he was tired of having this particular conversation.
• “Because there is no other place to find you, come back to work and I will not have to come inside here.”
• Abed snorts in response, but his back is still turned to the guest, who has not still noticed me from his spot high up there.
• Another person joins him, a female this time, she has a huge smile on her face as she steps into the threshold of the kitchen, and it is quite difficult to look at her as she is decked out in diamonds and they get caught in the light, blinding everyone who looks in her direction.
• “Heya!” she immediately jumps and latches herself on Abed’s arm,
• I am very ashamed to speak on what happened next, but I have to. The second she latched herself on him, I choked on my water, it got into my nose and everywhere, my eyes watered and my nostrils burned.
• “Stop thrashing around.” his soft, calm voice whispers to me,
• He had left her side, his arms were around me as he rubbed my back, that was more than enough for me to hack and cough like that, the soothing circles he drew on my back whilst he asked me to breath from my mouth had me leaning into him for more.
• “Rachel Greene?” the girl questioned, looking from the tall stranger to Abed.
• “You really did it...” the tall stranger says, watching Abed with a look that said he was against the idea... of me?
• When he was certain that I was not going to die any time soon, he stood upright, his hand still on my back, rubbing small circles and driving me insane. I meet his eyes and he must see confusion in them since he sighs before speaking,
• “Rachel, this is Clay Hallow, and Joanne Parker, everyone, meet Rachel Greene.”
• Clay gave me a resigned smile, before stretching his hand out to me in a friendly shake, but Joanne slaps it away before I thought of taking it. He doesn’t look away from me, but he tucks his hands back into his pockets, Abed mutters something about damned switches under his breath, but doesn’t say more.
• “Ab here doesn’t like to say it, but I am his best friend, in the entire world, we were even born in the same hospital at the same time, which means he tells me everything.”
• Okay... claiming territory. I did not know male best friends did that, but I also knew nothing about any form of friendships.
• “Nice to meet you, any friend of Abed must be a wonderful person.” My etiquette for award ceremony went ahead of me, and I want to take it back instantly.
• Clay nods, and Joanne snorts, I look up at Abed, he rolled his eyes at Joanne but says nothing in response.
• “And I am collared to Clay here, but I wanted Abed to be our third, and he went behind my back to get you.” She spat you like I was disgusting.
• Collared? Third? What does that even mean?
• “What is wrong with me?” I find myself asking, already not liking this Joanne character,
• She gave me a look like I was dumb for not figuring it out,
• “You are white!”
• “Joanne!” Abed warned, his voice went from calm to having a whiplash effect.
• “You are half white, a zebra in fact.” I say in defense, that was what I noticed first as soon as she came in, but I was not pointing out our differences until she did.
• Her eyes narrowed but she stomped out of kitchen without a word, Clay rolled his eyes at her but followed behind. I turn to Abed, expecting a reprimand for speaking out of turn to his friend, he had a small smile on his face.
• “You handled yourself well, I am glad.”
• I swallow,
• “They didn’t want me, yet you still chose me.”
• He shrugs,
• “What they want is inconsequential, I have always ever wanted only you.”
• That had me wondering, how long has he known me exactly? And why don’t I know him?