Page 20 of Storm
Weakly I muttered,
“He laughed and...”
She did not let me finish, and said pointedly,
“You said he was smiling amusedly. There is a big difference between laughing at someone and smiling at his or her antics. He might be staring at you in adoration for all we know.”
An involuntary blush crept on my face and I turned my eyes away from hers.
I knew she was right and it had crossed my mind too. The fact was, I had not felt so offended by him on the thought that he made fun of me. In fact, it was because...well, I liked him.
For the first time in life, I really noticed a guy. I liked Aariz more than I should, and that pissed me off. Which I took on him, so that either he does something bad and puts me off liking him even in the slightest, or my heart stops thinking about him due to my forced anger.
This thought had me stunned. Like the guy? Seriously, Sani?! You like Aariz. As in, like like? Love kind of like! That too, just after meeting him for the first time tonight?!
I wished someone would shake the red, girly, perky feelings out of my heart, because I believed love at first sight was the stuff of dreams. Actually, the conspiracy of writers, who by showing us rainbows of happily ever after, from stories of love at first-sight made us believe in fairytales and crap. Made us dream of falling in love on just meeting someone. So that they can sell their novels and movies, we would crave for, to dream more such nonsense!
But I am smart. I can’t fall for someone just because he looked steamy and yum. Just because, he had his drowning deep stare focused on me. Just because his winks and chuckles made me sigh...Quite literally! Still, I do not know the guy. ‘I cannot fall for him!’ I should be repeating this enough times to myself. Then I would believe it. Yeah...I am just so smart, while he is an idiot to laugh at me and ruin his chance on a hot catch like me. Hah!
Shortly, Zee arrived with the car and I decided to forget the whole thing off. It was not as if I was going to meet Aariz again.
Successfully I had closed the topic and pushed it off my mind, until Umber came to my house the next day for a casual visit.
“It was so great meeting up with everyone last night, wasn’t it?” She gushed as we discussed the party, sitting in my bedroom.
“Yes. I had a blast! It was fun.” I responded agreeably.
“About that, we have thought of something.” Umber said in awkward stumbling tones, making me feel something was fishy.
I urged her to go on, and she murmured not quite meeting my eyes,
“We...uh...all of us actually. We have decided that from now on whenever we all meet, we'll invite Aariz as well.”
“What?!” I gaped at her, completely stumped.
It made her confident and she went on selling the idea,
“What’s wrong in it? In such a short while, he became a part of our group. It was because of him that we were able to windup Zidaan, which we have never been successful at before.”
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I tried hard to come up with a possible argument, but could not think of anything.
Giving up, I nodded,
“True. But, wouldn’t it be wierd having him between us cousins? Won't he feel odd as well?”
“Zee is not all of yours cousin, just mine. Yet he hangs out with us all the time.” Umber shrugged smiling at me relaxed.
“It’s different. Zee is our friend.” I said earnestly.
“I know. And I’m saying Aariz can be too.” She chuckled, “It wasn’t wierd last night. So why would it be next time? Don't worry. Anyway, it’s not mine, but everyone's idea. None of them thought it’d be awkward at all.”
Smirking at me, Umber's smile turned mischievous as she added,
“Coming that from you is odd actually. Seeing, you were the one except Zidaan, with whom Aariz was most comfortably chatty. His eyes were on you the whole time.”
It made me blush. Remembering my mantra—‘I can't fall for him. I do not know the guy!’ I stuffed down the little flutter that had started in my heart on hearing her words.
I made an annoyed face, trying to get practical here and stated firmly,
