Can I Be Your Mrs?

6: Her Safe Haven

"Come on! Please!" She whined and stood on the track, "Why don't we just go into the elevator, the 9th floor isn't somewhere we can easily take the stairs for. And we're going to be late if we do. Please?" She felt like he was doing this on purpose, to shoo her away from him, but there was no way she was giving him that chance.

He turned to look at her, and there was a hint of a smile on his face which he masked up expertly. "Do you have to take the elevator with me? Why do you always follow me? Go to the elevator and I'll take the stairs. And for being late, you have a boss, I don't."

She stared at him for some nanoseconds and when she saw that he was really into the staircase thing, she gave up and her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine, I'll take the stairs too." He didn't even wait for her answer when he began taking the stairs but he could feel her presence by his side and certainly, her burning gaze on the side of his face. He knew that she would be sulking for maybe an hour or two, reason known to her but today, he knew he was one of those reasons. He made her take the stairs to the 9th floor.

"But you know you can always let it out, right? No one will judge you." She said out of the blue moon, and he wondered if she was on the phone or something. Because, what was she talking about?

He stayed mute, and she knew she had to speak again for him to reply to her, that's if he wanted to. "Your smile, I know you did that on purpose. I mean, you did this on purpose and you wanted to smile so bad when I whined because, to you, it felt like mission accomplished. Right, boss?" He had to chew his inner cheek to avoid a chuckle or smile out of his lips. She had never called his name outwardly, but he had realized that whenever she wanted to be sarcastic with him, she called him boss. That was her way of showing that she was angry at him and can probably kill him if she got the chance to.

He shook his head because if he didn't give her a response, nothing could stop Jalilah from ranting his ears off until he would likely go deaf. "What does that mean that? Why can't you smile in front of me? Do you ever fully smile?"

He ignored that, because to him it felt like she hit a nerve, and she did. Even though he knew she wasn't doing that to hit a nerve. And he thought about it himself, 'When was the last time he genuinely and fully smiled?' It had been so long that he couldn't even remember the last time he did that. But one thing was certain, ever since Jalilah came to this company and they began working together, there were times he wanted to laugh, times he wished he could chuckle and there were times he wanted to smile so widely that she would likely take a picture of him. But he restrained himself from doing that because it felt odd and weird and he just didn't want to do it.

"This is the worst punishment I've ever received in my life, we're just on the 5th floor." He was so deep in his thoughts that he had forgotten he was together with her until he spoke and he turned to look at her. From the looks of it, she was indeed tired, but he didn't know how he was enjoying this, was it because taking the stairs gave him more chance to think, to clear his head?

"You should've told me beforehand! I wouldn't have worn these heels!" She whined loudly and sat down on one of the stairs, lifting her abaya a little that it revealed her feet carefully stacked in her heels, he quickly looked away.

For a moment, she looked up with a whiny expression and a pout on her lips, "Will you please wait for me to rest a bit then we can continue? This is exhausting me." Slightly, Yazeed shook his head and the next thing she saw was his retreating back walking ahead.

She took off her heels and held them in her hands before she followed him, "I don't even know what to say to you! Wait for me!" She half yelled and matched his pace. He turned to look at her and the first thing his eyes got in contact with was the heels she was now holding and he looked at her bare feet.