Attached Strings √

Chapter 30

He was smoking - hard.

I had never seen Paul smoking before and I didn't even know he smoked. I didn't like what I was seeing. He was pulling so aggressively like his life depended on it. It was as if he was dumping all his problems into that single pull.

Paul was angry. Or was he stressed? I couldn't tell. While I was busy trying to decipher Paul's emotions, I hadn't noticed that he was actually looking at me. Our eyes met and he tried to hold mine to his but I quickly broke the eye contact. With just looking at my eyes, Paul was able to see how I was feeling and I didn't want to give him that power. That is why I broke the eye contact. He threw away the cigarette and approached me. Anyone could see that Paul was not okay. Sadness had clouded his features.

Run, Chloe, run.

No. I was not going to run away from my problems. With that, I stood up straight, chinned up and waited for him to get to where I was standing. I was strong and confident (on the outside) and nothing could get to me. Not even a guy cheating in a fake relationship.

Finally he stood in front of me. "Hey," he greeted shamefacedly. His voice was hoarse due to smoking.

My appearance had not faltered. I was still confident and strong.

"Hey." I spoke and my voice betrayed me. It sounded foreign to me. It was so low. It must have been from the crying.

"How have you been?" He had the audacity to ask me that question. Seriously?

"What do you think?"

He looked at the floor but I had managed to catch his eyes before he did. His eyes were wet and they blazed with guilt.

Paul's POV

"Chloe, I'm really sorry that you had to see that."

She stared at me. I took that as a sign to continue, "that girl meant nothing to me. We didn't do anything, I swear."

"Yeah and that's why you were playing her your guitar, right? Because she means nothing to you."

So that was what she had been upset about. The fact that I was playing those girls my guitar.

"No!" I answered.

"So that's not it? There's another reason? Well let's hear it."

I sighed and began to speak: "When those girls got there, Luke and I were already playing my guitar and he insisted that we carry on with the music." She still did not believe me. I was not lying. Luke was the one who was playing the guitar first and Chloe walked in when I had just taken it back from him.

"We were playing a game where he'd play a song and I'd have to play it better than he did," I tried to make her understand. She just raised her eyebrow and gave me the must-I-believe-that-shit? look and, honestly speaking, I was not expecting her to believe me because she had never seen Luke playing the guitar before and I was sure she was not even aware of that information.

I remembered that we had shot a video of Luke playing and I showed it to her.

At seeing the video, realisation dawned on her face. She had finally realised that I had been telling the truth. "Oh," was all she said. Before I could speak, her brows drew together and I knew I was still in trouble. Chloe would never let me off the hook that easily.

"Wait, who shot the video?"

What did I tell you?

"What do you mean?" I inquired, just to buy myself some time. "I mean, who was the one holding the phone and shooting the video?" She'd replied quicker than I had expected and I decided that there was no way out of this one because she was aware of who else was in the apartment with us. I knew how much this hurt her and I couldn't bare to be the one saying it so I kept quiet.

"Well?"

Silence.

She eyed me suspiciously.

Pregnant silence.

Recognition dawned on her face.

Very pregnant silence.

"Wow," she muttered. With her lower lip trembling, she squeezed her eyes shut and a tear ran down her cheek.

"I'm sorry."

"Paul, stop saying that. It is annoying." She was full blown crying at this point. "You know," she sniffed, "I'd actually thought that you'd stopped bringing girls over."

She thought so?

This brought up the one question I'd been meaning to ask her. "Chloe, why are you so worked up about this? We're only in a fake relationship."

From the way she looked at me afterwards, I knew I shouldn't have said that.

"You're right," she let out a humorless laughter, "you're actually right. This is a fake relationship after all and no one is supposed to be giving a fuck about the other and what he/she does with his/her own time. The only thing that I should be concerned about is pretending in front of your parents because that is what I get paid for."

I was glad she was not talking of pulling out of the deal but I had not meant it that way. I wanted to speak and explain this to her but she beat me to it.

"You want a fake relationship, Paul?" She set her lips in a hard line and lifted an eyebrow.

I didn't like the way she was asking me. Her tone was vacant of any emotion and it didn't sound like it was coming out of Chloe's mouth.

"Oh, I'll give you a fake relationship."

She stormed off. What had she meant by that? I didn't know what she meant but I knew it wasn't a good thing for me and, as a result, I was worried.

A/N: Now let the games begin! What do you think Chloe meant with that? Hit me with your comment and, of course, do vote - please.

Til next time!

-Nikita.