Chapter. 43

“Look, erm, I get that you are just doing your job? But can I just please look around for a bit first and let you know if I need any help?” He blinked and looked baffled by her request. She took his stupor as the opportunity she needed to back away. She turned to make her escape in earnest, only to walk into someone’s back. “Oh I’m so sorry I-you?” Diana couldn’t believe it. It was Mr sexy grin. He turned around and his blank expression blossomed into that trademark smirk as he recognised her.

“Ayal.” He chuckled and returned a tablet he was looking at to the show desk. He used both hands to push his long ebony black hair behind his shoulders and brought them to rest on his hips. “Hello again Diana. Good morning.”

“Morning.” Diana flustered and folded her arms. “Sorry for bumping into you.” She smiled and tried to walk past him. Ayal turned once he was level with her and waved his hand towards another counter.

“You said you were between cells at the moment. Is that why you’re here? To get a new cell?”

“…yup.” Diana cleared her throat and struggled to take her eyes off the handsome man to look at the cell phones. “I erm, I was going to call you today after I got a new phone to set up using that pass you gave me. So I can see the place. Because I want a job.” Wow I sound like such a dork. Diana chuckled at herself and mentally shook off her nerves. She was 18 and didn’t exactly have the experience a teen her age had of being social and the dating scene. Ayal was drop dead gorgeous, he knew it, and she was reluctant to admit that his charm did work on her.

“Great.” He put a hand on her shoulder. It was a platonic move, and yet her cheeks flushed. “Well I’m not exactly tech savvy, but I have this one.” He pointed to a smart phone in the middle of the display case. “See?” Ayal pulled the same model phone from the back pocket of his jeans and offered it to her. “If you want to play with mine for a while I don’t mind.” He pressed his thumb to the top corner and it unlocked for her.

“Wow really?” Diana accepted the cell with both hands and smiled up at him. He kept his hand on her shoulder and his mahogany brown eyes were so warm as he looked at her. “Erm, thanks Ayal.” Diana chewed the inside of her cheek as she swiped and tapped her way around the menu for a while. Just how long am I allowed to do this, and is there a way I can snoop with him watching me? It was very pleasing to find his wall paper was a waterfall and not a lewd wallpaper shot of scantily dressed women. So he isn’t one of those guys. He also didn’t have many apps on the phone apart from the default ones. Contacts, gallery, camera, text and a couple of search engines. Oh? What’s that?

Diana wondered if she could get away with opening the app with a symbol of a tree on it. It had ten notifications in the corner of it. Is it some sort of social media or messaging app I’ve not heard of before? “What’s this?” She decided to just ask and looked up at him curiously.

“The family tree.” He moved his hand from her shoulder to her lower back as he leaned over to use his other hand to tap the app for her. “It’s a messaging app. One of the family is a tech guy and he made it. He’s something called a coder or a programmer or something?” They both chuckled at his shrug. “You’ll have to download it so I can send you flowers.”

“What?” Diana snorted. “I thought you said it was a messaging app?”

“It is.” He cupped his left hand around hers on the phone and moved his thumb to tap on the screen. He opened up family tree and went into a chat group called ‘Spa-tastic’. “See?” He opened the emoji tab and instead of faces it was cartoon flours that moved and danced. He sent a sunflower with sunglasses on it and waving one of it’s leaves into the group chat. Several more posts immediately followed of various flowers and plants from the rest of the group. Diana had to giggle at a suggestive pair of melons jiggling on the screen.

“A friend of yours?”

“She wishes.” He rolled his eyes and held Diana to his side. “She’s not my type though.” The look he gave her was very clear. Ayal thinks I’m his type huh? She was intrigued, of course, but knew it could never be more than flirting. 1, she might end up working for his family. That wouldn’t bode well if they dated and it ended badly. 2, she was a witch and didn’t know enough about herself and her past to be at peace with herself, never mind trying to be close to another person. A person she would have to lie to on a daily basis. “I’m told this phone has a bump function. We can literally bump cells to exchange contact information.”

“Are you sure you don’t work here?” Diana found herself giggling and blushing like a normal 18 year old woman under the attention of a devastatingly handsome Casanova. Sure we could never be a thing, but the attention is nice.

“I’m sure.” Ayal nodded and waved his left hand at the sales assistant to get his attention. “But I’ve always been good and knowing what a person wants.”

“U huh.” Diana didn’t protest as Ayal took over and took point with the sales assistant. There was a lot of ‘my man, we can do better than that for the lady can’t we’, and ‘let’s come to an agreement on the best deal for everyone here. She doesn’t need an extended warranty, but drop the cost of the unlimited data and we could talk?’ All the while Diana felt the heat from his hand at her back shoot straight up to her cheeks. She took the opportunity of the two men being engrossed in bartering to sweep her deep brown eyes up at her knight in denim armour. His long hair looked very soft and very tempting to run her hands through. In fact, all of Ayal was tempting. He was tall enough that if she wanted to rest her head at the crook of his neck all she’d have to do is lean into him. His shoulders were wide and his hips narrow like a racing snake. Perhaps he was a professional swimmer? He looked lean and his thighs powerful enough to propel him through the water at speed… Oh Lord this guy is really hot. She gulped and mentally yelped when she looked up at his face and saw he was smirking down at her from the corner of his mahogany eyes. Crap he caught me staring?!? Again! Diana chewed her lips together and made a point of looking to her right and the opposite direction to Mr Sexy grin.

It wasn’t long before Diana was handing over Anna’s card to pay for the device, and the peppy sales assistant got to work setting up the cell phone for her. Ayal leaned with his left forearm on the counter and tried to play off the fact he was more interested in her than whatever the sales assistant was twittering on about. Diana was doing the same, and they were both peering out of the corner of their eyes at each other. He doesn’t seem to be leering at my chest or anything. I mean, I’m not wearing anything revealing. He can’t see any cleavage through my turtleneck and my jeans aren’t too tight either. If anything he seems to be staring at my face?

The sales assistant went into the back of the store to get her a phone case. This left the two of them alone and hyper aware of this fact.

“This is new?” He reached up and stroked some of his fingers along the length of her ponytail. It fell off his hand and she felt the weight of her hair falling back down like a tug towards him.

“New compared to the one other time you’ve seen me?” Diana mocked him with a raised brow, only to blush as he moved to stand behind her. “What are you doing?” Ayal didn’t answer her. He circled his thumb and finger of his left hand around her hair tie and flush to her head. The right hand worked the hair tie free to release her hair. “Erm, excuse me?” She tried to turn her head but took hold of either side of her head to make her face forward again.