He'd been such a gentleman, Naina wondered if his grouch persona was just like a resting bitch face.
Maybe he had resting grouch face syndrome.
Her black eye's swollenness had decreased, but it was still a brilliant purple. She resembled a half panda.
"Naina! We got a problem with the caterers," Dexter, her assistant, said, breaking up her thoughts about Ian's face.
She suppressed a groan. Events weren't considered a proper one without problems. She hurried over to fix it.
The Tri-Cities Ladies Luncheon was just one huge gathering place for older, wealthy Caucasian ladies. Sometimes Naina would see a few Latino or Black women, but a majority of the ladies there seemed to be high-flying socialites.
The caterers seemed to have forgotten that they were working with older, white ladies and did not bring an abundance of bland finger foods. Hurriedly, Naina, Dexter and the rest of the staff made sandwiches, all while her other workers gave routine updates on what was happening outside.
When it finally ended, the caterers gave her the leftover food.
"Old hags didn't want them. 'It's too spicy, are you trying to kill us?'," the guy said in a very bad falsetto. "If you'd like, you guys can have them."
Naina and the rest of her team looked through the food. There were so many yummy finger foods, she'd need an extra freezer just to keep some of it.
There were jalapeno poppers and tandoori kebabs, delicate cookies and bite-size cakes, yummy hummus dips and chips.
Laden with food, she wobbled back to her car, gently put them in and sat down, tired from the weekend.
When she got home, it took quite a bit of piling and balancing, but she managed to get everything into one huge stack. She waddled up the steps while penguin walking to make sure nothing tipped or fell over
Now the hard part: how to get her keys out?
"Shit Naina, need help?" a guy said.
Dominic Mariani stood across from her, his own key in his hands. He knocked on her door without waiting for her response.
His hair had been cut short, but still a little long on top. The evening sun, painting brilliant flashes of pink and orange across the sky, lit up his eyes and freckles.
"So...can I ask how you got so much food?" he asked. No weird, crawling drawl with Dominic. She wondered why Ian only had it.
She wiggled a little; the tray of poppers were threatening to tumble. "Caterers gave me and my team the rest of the food, so we split it up."
Lauren still didn't come to the door. Dominic shrugged and turned to Naina. "You got your keys?" he asked.
"Front pocket of my pant." She turned towards him and lifted her hip.
In a heartbeat, he reached and pulled out the key, and opened the door.
Lauren was sitting on the couch. Loud music hissed from her headphones and she looked up at them in complete and utter surprise.
She didn't have her makeup on, and her hair was a huge mess. To say she was surprised was an understatement; if she'd been any older, Naina thought that Lauren would've died from a heart attack, considering the look on her face.
Without saying hi, Naina hurried away to the kitchen to put away the food.
And so she could hear the conversation play out.
"Hey Lauren," he said, sounding a little odd. "You didn't hear the door?"
She sounded like she was whimpering. "Sorry, my music was really loud."
No more like I'm a hoe that hates helping out my roommate. Naina was sure that Lauren had heard the door; if she'd known Dominic had been there, she would've run to open it.
He shrugged. "You doing anything tonight?"
"No. You?"
"Café stuff. Was wondering if you'd keep me company?"
Her face brightened so much, Naina wished she'd brought sunglasses with her. Granted, she wouldn't be able to wear it over her own glasses, but it'd block the excitement that Lauren was radiating. "Let me get ready!" she exclaimed.
He laughed a little while she scampered to her room. Shaking his head, he looked at Naina. "She doesn't need to get ready for this does she?" he asked.
Naina didn't speak. She didn't trust herself to say something nice about her former friend and settled for shrugging.
As she put the appetizers and cakes into bags, she heard the door open and close, signaling the others left. Silence filled the apartment as she crossed it and locked the door.
In the fridge, her marinating chicken sat front and center.
She'd completely forgotten about wanting to make Chili chicken. The now completely red meat beckoned to her. She'd already bought all the ingredients too: soy sauce, green onions, green and dried red chilis as well as bell peppers.
It'd take a couple of hours just to get the chicken fried and good to go.
And then there was the whole ordeal of waiting for it to cool down and package it away.
She could handle it; she had a day off tomorrow.
After changing into a tank top and her loose polar bear pajama pants she got to cutting the onions, bell peppers and chilis.
She blasted her favorite song on her headphones. Murmuring out the lyrics, she danced (more like swung her hips from side to side), and soon, the kitchen was filled with delicious scents of frying chicken, smells of chilis, onions and bell peppers sautéing, and her mouth was full of sweet, bit-size red velvet cake.
As she backed towards the sink, she collided with a wall that hadn't been there before.
A very warm wall.
Her heart rate skyrocketed through the ceiling into the darkening sky. Breathing hard, she turned around. The door had been locked; she'd made sure of that when the other two had left.
She grabbed the spatula in front of her and whirled on the intruder.
Ian grabbed her hand, stopping her an inch before the cooking instrument would've hit him right on the chest. A small smile played on his face.
Lauren and Dominic were laughing in the living room. Naina wished she could've crawled through the tile floor into the dirt below. She ripped the headphones off of her ears and turned back to the chicken. The curry was almost done; after the chicken soaked up the soy sauce and the bell peppers caramelized a bit, she'd turn it off.
The other two were still giggling. Sighing, Naina turned the curry from bottom to top. Leave it to Lauren to let Naina do something as stupid as dancing in front of two good looking guys.
"You got good moves," Ian murmured.
"Shut up," she whispered. The laughs in the living room were still so loud, they sounded like gongs going off in her brain.
"No really." He turned away from her and she heard him say, "Shut it! Why the hell are you two laughing that much? It's not that funny, you know?"
The others immediately shut up. She heard murmuring and then a door slam.
"Are they still there?" she asked softly.
Ian moved away from her and shook his head. "Nope. Went to her room."
"Good." She switched off the stove and spooned a few pieces into a bowl.
"Need help?"
She sighed raggedly, holding back some tears. "Yeah, find the biggest shovel you can, so I can dig my grave. I want Deme to make a speech at my funeral. Don't invite Lauren to it," she growled.
"Funeral? Why?"
When she glanced at him, he had an amused look on his face.
"You tell me. I thought they wouldn't be back till late and started cooking. Then the whole dancing thing and me hitting you. Why were you even standing there?"
His smirk faded, replaced with something that looked a bit sheepish. He fiddled with his fingers. "She told me to, said it'd be funny," he muttered.
"And you take orders from Lauren..." she mumbled. Figures. Men listened to Lauren easily.
"I'm sorry, if I'd known you would've been embarrassed, or that those two boneheads would've laughed that much, I wouldn't have done that. You seriously can dance well."
She didn't know whether to trust him or not.
~~~
Let me know what you think! I can take all kinds of feedback and once again, thank you for taking time to read my story! :D