Babysitter Cougar [COMPLETE]

Bonus Chapter - page 2

After kissing my sister goodbye, I return to the house and march across the living hall. I glance over the girls for quick monitoring and find Saloma sharing toys and plushies with Fatima, suggests that they are getting along well.

I exit to the backyard to join the remaining crowd consists of just Nick, Zahida and Saint by the lounge corner.

I secretly feel that Zahida and Nick are actually Saint and I from an alternate universe. Because we are somewhat so alike.

Besides bearing similar physical resemblance to one another, Zahida and I are plain jane, bubbly, outgoing, unfeminine, who loves our boyfriend jeans and hates anything with heels and stilettos. She lost her parents to an accident, so she understood my grief better than others.

Nick and Saint on the other hand, are similar in many ways. Both of them are Hazaras (except Saint is half-blood), a couple of reserved men who prefer a small meaningful clique, the only child in the family, both have daddy issues, and they are well-groomed metrosexuals who are suckers for Apple brands.

Saint looks up to Nick like a big brother he never had. They both met by the smoking corner at Melinda's reception and had instant chemistry after a few talks about their origins, cars, and passion for Real Madrid. They have been hanging out on most weekends ever since.

But there's something familiar about Nick that I can't seem to discern. He is a Mancunian but I don't recall seeing him in Manchester before. Perhaps his Jaguar had roamed around my Rusholme neighbourhood on several occasions.

The humid Malaysian weather had made Nick to occasionally pulls up his long sleeves for comfort. And I sporadically caught portions of disturbing tattoo images of lacerations, piercing, dragons' clawing, and thorny twigs on his arms that he tries to hide.

"So, what did I miss?" I ask while taking a seat next to Saint. Nick is gawking at Saint over something Saint just said.

"I told him about my encounter with a floating head at our TWIB camp out last week," Saint declares smugly.

"Can you really see things or are you just imagining it?" Nick asks disbelievingly. I can tell Nick isn't a ghost believer and tries to put around with logical reasoning.

"I can see them but not all the time," Saint clarifies. "Only on occasions where it really wants to be seen, I think."

"It's a good thing I didn't join that camp out," Zahida snorts. "If I see any of them, I'll pass out."

"That wasn't your first time seeing it?" Nick probes, already into the topic.

"Nope. I had a few encounters at my office whenever I stayed back late. Sofia knows this, she heard unknown screeching sounds at my workstation past 10.00 at night," Saint elaborates. "But the creepiest one I had when I was in Ballsbridge. I took out the trash at 2.00 in the morning when a pale gaunt womanlike creature with messy hair and hollow eyes gawping at me, on all four by a fence near the dumpster."

"Are you sure it wasn't a hungry junkie?" Nick reproaches as he detaches the cigarette from the corner of his lips and flicks its ash onto the ashtray.

"No, bro. It was partially levitating and its off-white garb was hairy and bloodied," Saint defends his stand.

"Wait! I think, Chris saw something like that at Nick's warehouse," Zahida suddenly chips in.

"He did?" Nick turns to his wife, wide-eyed.

"Well, something like a hairy creature. I wasn't sure exactly what Chris saw but it was at late night. He was loading deliveries for the next day and confronted with a hairy creature with sharp claws crouching on the roof of the lorry―"

"Chris?" I interjected. His name suddenly brings to mind.

"Chris was Nick's staff. Nick used to own a shipping company in Manchester, ShipGoUK. Chris works there," Zahida explains.

"Wait, you're Chris' mafia boss?" I turn to Nick.

Images of Chris' long forgotten face suddenly triggers me like data recovery, exciting and overwhelming at once. Nick's tattoos fit well to Chris' description. So, Chris has been telling the truth after all.

"Yeah, I was his boss," dumbstruck Nick gives a safe answer to my sudden random query. He is furtively confused by my sudden claim of him being a mafia.

"Who is this Chris?" Saint asks suspiciously.

"Chris is my ex-boyfriend back in Manches..." my excitement dies down when Saint's face contorts with apprehension at my unsanctioned remark. He would give me that expression whenever I break any of his codes which I think, I just did.

"Wow, it took you two and a half years to remember me, but you recalled your ex-boyfriend in split seconds effortlessly. This Chris must be very important to you," Saint says wryly.

I open my mouth to response, but the sight of Saloma storms out of the house topless with only her yellow knickers on distracts us.

"Abah! Leia is crying. She break my lightsaber, so I hit her," she cries out to Saint.

"Oi! Have you no shame?" Saint gets up and hoists her into his arms. "Where are your clothes?"

"No clothes! It's hot!" she yells back.

"I had the aircond set to Dublin's temperature. What do you mean, it's hot?" Saint quizzes.

"Abah, fix the lightsaber now!" she demands, squirming in her dad's arms.

"Say please," Saint orders, taking her in.

"Peeez!" she obeys.

I follow behind but Saint reprimands me to stay with the couple. "Go ahead and talk with them about Manchester. It helps to put your memory back in place."

I exchange glances with the couple in astonishment. We aren't really sure if Saint really meant it or was being sarcastic again.

"Is he okay?" Nick asks after Saint went into the house, genuinely concerned for him.

"I guess so. He does that sometimes," I answer diplomatically.

"Why don't you cheer him up? He only succumbs to your coaxing," Zahida suggests, planting the bromance code in our heads.

"I better check up on Fatima as well," Nick snub out his cigarette and pushes himself up from the lounge chair. "I'll join you ladies later."

           ☘️⭐💋🌸🌺☘️

Once again thank you for reading 'till the end. I really appreciate it! ❤️😘🥰😍

And noticed that Nick and Zahida as cameo in it? Well, they are characters from my other book A Hopeless Pursuit. I just imagine them as a married couple here. They don't have to be married in A Hopeless Pursuit. Winks! 😉

I also wanna promote my new remake book A Hopeless Pursuit - ZJ x Nick Edition. It is basically A Hopeless Pursuit but shorter version, so you don't have to be tortured to read 100++ parts 😰😣😖of it. I will link it up on the comment here --------------------------->

Until then, I'll see you again at A Hopeless Pursuit - ZJ x Nick Edition!

Xoxo

💋❤️❤️💋