Chapter 42 Droplets

Chapter 42 Droplets
Amrah: Droplets

“Where is he…?” I mumbled staring at my phone across the table.

It's been four days since he had pressed that soft kiss to my temple and asked if he was hired. And then left after promising to be back by the morning. He even took an advance payment! 

“He even…! I probably shouldn't have walked away from him. Is he angry I had walked away?” I bit my lower lip anxiously and picked up my pencil again.

“But, he said he would be back” I definitely heard that as I walked off.

I sat back from my sketchpad, rubbing my eyes. The contest brief was still glowing on my laptop screen, and half the notes I had scribbled down were now blurring together into nonsense from staring.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it closer so fast, but it was Daphne.

Daphy: Don't you dare forget tonight. Bruno will actually cry.

I huffed out something close to a laugh and typed back a quick ‘wouldn't dare’, though if I was honest, forgetting had crossed my mind more than once this week.

The first session of the contest hadn't gone as I wanted. I got second place when I had spent three weeks perfecting that structural draft, only for Arlan to win because his work was more in line with the judges' taste, according to the panel.

Only for him to pull me aside afterward to apologize.

“Why are you apologizing?” I asked feeling irritated and my facial expression definitely showed that.

He us do hypocritical with that smug smile of his.

"Idiot," I muttered again now, hours later, closing my laptop a little harder than necessary. 

“I'll wipe the floor with him next round."

I needed to unwind. And the party would be the perfect way to do that. I have Daphne after all, I trust her to spice me up.

But first… 

I picked up my phone before I could talk myself out of it. Fuck! I just wanted to hear his voice and probably make sure he is fine. He is my employee after all.

I called Zayd.

It rang. And rang.

No answer.

I stared at the screen as it had personally wronged me, my thumb hovering over the call button like maybe if I tried again, this time would be different.

"Maybe he forgot," I said out loud, to no one, and the words tasted stupid the second they left my mouth. 

Forgot?

Like he hadn't broken into my apartment for a conversation. Like he hadn't practically fought Edison in my living room for the privilege of guarding a door and claiming that he missed me so much when we met two hours prior.

He even kissed me hard like I was something he had been starving for.

I dropped the phone onto my bed and pressed my palms into my eyes.

‘Could it be he was just playing games? Like Chris?’

The thought slithered in uninvited and I hated how easily it found room to settle. 

Because what if I had made a fool of myself? Agreeing to anything he asked, melting the second his thumb touched my cheek, handing him what, exactly? My pride? My good sense?

I must have looked so cheap.

But he sounded so sincere. He had looked at me like…

"Fuck it, Amrah," I said it to the wall, biting back the tears that stung my eyes.

“Not now”

“Get ready to go crash the party and stop thinking about a man who can't be bothered to pick up his phone."

I packed for the weekend with more force than the task required after all, three days on Bruno's cruise boat didn't need me refolding the same sundress four times, but there I was, doing exactly that until Daphne texted that she was outside.

\-----

The party was loud as it should be, just what I needed to unwind and forget.

Celeste’s family had gone all out. From the string lights looping across the deck to a cake the size of about eight layers. 

Celeste was glowing in a slip dress and laughing at something Bruno had said. I hugged them both, handed over gifts, and let Daphne shove a glass of some bubbly strong drink into my hand.

"To not thinking about him” Daphne said, clinking her glass against mine. 

Of course, I told her. I needed to rant.

"I'm not thinking about anyone," I said, and downed the entire glass.

That was, unfortunately, a lie, and several drinks later it became an even bigger one.

By the time the party got hot and I felt the boat gently rocking beneath my feet probably due to the dancing crowd, Zayd had taken up all of my thoughts uninvited and impossible to evict. 

Every low laugh from a stranger sounded like his and every broad set of shoulders dressed in black across the deck made my stupid heart lurch before I remembered they are not his, because he wasn't here.

I slipped away from the crowd, phone clutched in my hand, my thoughts pleasantly (dangerously) loose from the alcohol.

Just one more try.”

I hit video call before I could think better of it, leaning against the railing as the phone rang once, twice—

And then his face filled the screen.

“Ukk!” I hiccup in shock. 

That is not his face, not at first. The camera had caught him mid-motion, low, and the first thing I saw was his bare chest, water sliding down over the ridges of muscle in slow, deliberate lines like it had all the time in the world to get where it was going. 

A towel hung low on his hips. His hair was damp, pushed back as he had just stepped out of the shower.

I swallowed.

Heat crawled up my neck and settled hard in my cheeks, and for one humiliating second, I forgot every single thing I had been upset about.

Then his eyes found mine and that slow, knowing smile started to spread across his face like he already knew exactly what he had just done to me.

"Amrah," 

I swear I'm melting from the inside because why are my panties soaked all of a sudden?