Dear Z,

Chapter 9

Dear Z,
Riddle me this.
A man as strong as you, never once wanted a woman as strong to be there with you.
Why?
Were you never in love?
Were you waiting for someone that you did love?
Or did you simply give up and want to be all alone?

• • •
Zaid

Tuesday Afternoon

I sip my whiskey with great difficulty as I watch Rose slide towards Liam. Her hips moving. Her hands touching his arm. She was on the hunt.
Her demeanor was bulletproof, predatory and had a no-nonsense appeal about it since she strolled into our garden.

My eyes raked her outfit, wanting to burn it. A brown leather skirt and sheer black top. Why in the world did she wear that to a Haldi ceremony? Who wears something like that to a ritualistic ceremony? Shit, I sound like my father.

I shouldn't care what she wore. Even if it was specified that an authentic Muslim attire was preferred. Lord, I sound worse.

I finger my hair, the sleeve of my black kurta bunching up my arm. Okay, I am being a hypocrite. My mother forced me to wear this. The kurta isn't my style. Really anything authentic isn't my style but something about the way Liam zeroed on her legs with strapping heels that seemed endless made my blood pressure drop.

She walked in only a few minutes after I came back from getting my drink fixed and standing in the corner. We were out here with the sun gloriously shinning through the cream colored canopy tents which had been put up the night before. Luckily, the sky was bright with no evidence of rain. The forecast stated it but for some damn reason, I wanted it to rain. Rain so hard that I could watch that top drenched to the bone and see those-

"Looks like our Rose has taken a liking to Liam Henderson."

I grow alert as Wade stood closer to me, inspecting the same scene out in front of us.

"Won't last long." I tell Wade, who also had a scotch nursing between his fingers.

"Didn't you go out on the air with Liam?" Leonard my other cousin, out of nowhere pops next to me, sipping a flute of champagne before Wade had a chance to comment on my rather odd statement of opinion.

"We were in flight school together and then we did three year sea duty. That's it. I haven't seen him since then but he is brought up a lot in conversations with the Sergeant." I reply curtly.

"Yeah but that's a lot of years together...", Wade chimed in.

I slanted my eyes at him. "Doesn't mean we were best friends, man."

He raised his free hand in surrender. " Alright, cool it. Anyway, he is friends with Archer. Poker buddy of his. That whole gang of his are his poker buddies."

I tsked. I like Archer but that does not mean I have to take a liking to his friends. Especially Liam. When we were deployed to the fleet squadron, we were flying on regular basis and with the untamed and reckless Liam Henderson, it puts him at odds with me.

When I fly, I'm cool and collected. I don't rally with risks. This is lives that are at stake. I can't muck around like Liam and that's why we were at cross roads but that's been ages ago. However, it's been reported to me by my dear father(note the sarcasm) Liam's changing attitude and his improved respect for life out in the air has taken up fame to the old geysers. I honestly don't give a fuck. If anything, I'm happy he has grown mature. It would have opened to a road of an unlikely friendship but
I had the one friend Bake and...no, I can't think about this right now.