Like Chalk And Cheese [Completed]

Butterflies and a lot more

He was home the next day on Saturday, said he needed to luxuriate in his life and for once not work like a machine. Giving special consideration of course, to the effective communication with the attendees of the dinner last night, he was relieved that the matters would only go uphill from now on.

He had returned home a few hours after midnight and since I could barely keep my eyes open, I had  dozed off on the couch at one point before he was home. My eyes opened in my room though, but this time round I wasn’t angry or flustered, rather sung giddily till the night.

In the afternoon, when the sun was at its peak, I found him bathing in the pool as the water shimmered under the daylight. I skipped out, my fingers clasped behind my back and stood a few feet away from the pool and stared brazenly at his toned body through the waves that his muscles worked against. Then clearing my throat before he could catch me in the act, I walked to the edge of the pool.

“When did you learn how to swim?” I asked as I crouched down.

He paused and arched his body to look at me, water dripping from his hair. “It came naturally.”

“It did?” I asked solemnly.

“Hmm.”

“As it did to Wajiha.” I muttered and added when he gave me a blank look. “Agha Ikram’s daughter.”

“Are you going to watch me swim, Warda?” he asked while looking me in the eye and I flushed.

“I-no,” I spluttered and then rushed with the words before running away back into the house, “I’ll bring you some lemonade.”

I went to the kitchen, pulled open the cabinet and took out a glass and poured water into it from the dispenser. Squashing some lemons I emptied their juice into the glass and once I’d plopped a few ice-cubes into the liquid too, I strode out into the backyard once again.

I’ll be honest, I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I just felt a little out of my skull, a little merry and dozy.

His eyebrow shot up at my sight as he straightened up from his reclined position where he floated on the water.

“Lemonade?” I said with a cheesy grin splitting my face and extended my arm to hand over the glass. “Enjoying in the pool, playing with water under the sun, you wouldn’t want to miss a cold beverage, would you?”

“Thank you.” He said, peering over the rim of the glass as he took it from me and brought it up to meet his lips. He took a sip as I watched him expectantly, waiting for him to comment on the drink I’d made for him. “It’s great.” He remarked lazily with a smile once he’d brought the glass down and moved away in the water. “I thought you liked to swim too.”

“I do,” I emphasised, “But I don’t want to, because it reminds me of Wajiha. Since we were kids, we’d always associated swimming with Wajiha. Like if you’re talking about swimming, you talk about Wajiha too, without even being aware of it.”

He chugged the entire drink down and asked once he’d swallowed. “Why don’t you like being reminded of her?” As he spoke I reached the edge of the pool, leaning forward a bit and stretching my hand to take the glass back from him. Though as I opened my mouth to reply, my mind got distracted and it forgot that I had my feet planted at the edge. Subsequently, I took a step forth and as my heart sank, so did my body. I dropped into the water, plunging deep and deep down as every inch of me got soaked. Panic-stricken, I flailed my arms and legs with as much force as I could muster to bring myself up and out, but the movements only sent me further down before a hand gripped my arm tightly and pulled me outward, and then Agha Hasan’s arm came around my waist. I wheezed and coughed as air rushed into my lungs and blinked furiously to remove the moisture away, all the while he kept repeating ‘it’s fine, cherry’, over and over again. Once I’d calmed down and could open my eyes, I saw, as heat shot up to my face, that my wet body with my drenched clothes clung to my skin was up against his naked one. Losing my cool once again, my mind tried to grope around for something to say to distract myself from the current predicament.