Tale In The Red Sand

Chapter Two

"I'll see you later!" Layla waved as she walked out of the front door, her baati swaying in the gentle wind of the warm afternoon. After spending a couple of hours chatting it up and gracing Hibaaq with her animated presence, it was time for Layla to return home, though only because her mother rang the house phone of the Cali residence and ordered her hasty return before dinner. "Don't forget about me, and share some of those treats with your sister, okay"! She remarked once a few feet away.

'Sister', meaning herself, evidently, as Hibaaq was an only child.

Hibaaq tittered. "Of course!"

Layla threw a thumbs up in the air before continuing down the sloped pavement to her own home. As she strode down, she inquisitively peered at the familiar black dodge charger driving up, soon recognising it as Adeer Warsame's car. Layla smiled as she viewed him in the driver's seat waving at her. Timidly, she waved back. She also noticed the hunched figure sitting in the passenger side, but the blinding sun assaulting her eyes wouldn't let her see above the stranger's broad shoulders.
...
Warsame drove with urgency, elated to see his mother and daughter after six long months. Except, this time he returned with a friend and a new business partner.

Ercole Rossi was a man with outstanding prowess. He met him through his own father's oil business in the middle east, amazed by his competence of understanding and dealing with business; after offering him a place in his own corporation entailing a high status, Warsame continued his annual travels with this young fellow.

The offer was totally genuine whether Ercole took it up or not, still Warsame was left astonished for he was so eager to go after only a few meetings with essentially, a complete stranger.

He was glad to have him nonetheless. Ercole was quite the closed off man and kept most private matters to himself, but Warsame knew enough to feel tremendous sympathy for him. He could tell he was a broken man in the works of healing, and in spite of being well off, depression still lingered.

Though presently, he could only pay attention to his beloved daughter, standing at the entrance of their home, widely beaming and waving at her father as he pulled into the gates. Warsame glanced over to a hushed Ercole his face buried in a tiresome looking non fiction book. Warsame sighed, nudging his shoulder.

"Isn't that boring?" He asked, grinning when Ercole dazedly looked up.

"It gets interesting the longer you read." Ercole shrugged, beyond jet lagged from the flight that seemed longer than the average hours it took to travel to Somalia. 'I'm really here, aren't I', He voiced inwardly, still in a slight haze of everything that transpired in the last few months, recollecting how he wound up here and yet had no regrets from his apparently 'swift and careless' decisions.

"We're home", Warsame pronounced, unbuckling his seat belt before briskly getting out. Ercole watched as Warsame pulled his daughter into a tight embrace, lifting her footing off the ground for a moment before settling her small frame back on it. They both laughed gleefully as they greeted each other.

Ercole ventured out of the car soon after. He took off his brown tinted sunglasses, pulled out his crumpled short sleeved shirt from out of his dress pants, and unbuttoned the first few buttons of it. The journey was rough as it was tiring, hence he looked like a shipwreck. Raking his fingers through his untameable hair, he made his way over to the conversing two.

"Is this the daughter, you couldn't stop talking about." Ercole mused as he curiously stared at her. 'She sure was a sight for sore eyes', he thought shamelessly.

Hibaaq grew flustered at his intense gaze as she looked to the ground, finding the gravelly concrete much more intriguing than it appeared to be.

"Hibaaq meet Ercole, Ercole meet Hibaaq, my daughter", Warsame introduced them. Following a hearty guffaw to a joke only he was clearly aware of as they both looked at him strangely.