Hey, it's me again, with an update :) It's a pretty long chapter but the storyline called for it. Pull up a chair, grab some tea and settle in. Also disclaimer, I don't speak Arabic so if any translations are wrong my apologies. Feel free to leave the correct translation in the comments.
"Where have you been?" Natalia asked Lima as she let her in through the door.
"Church."
"You went to church?"
"Yes."
"Lima, need I remind you that you're a Muslim?"
Gabe sniggered into his coffee cup.
Lima rolled her eyes. "It's the same God," she said in a duh voice. "Besides I've always wanted to go to a Black Sunday Service in the South, and yes it was the life-changing experience I thought it would be. Thank you for asking."
Natalia laughed at her friend's antics. There was never a dull moment with her around.
"Do you want to go to the Farmer's market?" Natalia asked. She was doing Gabe a favour by grabbing some groceries, he'd invited some friends round and they were going to grill some meat in his backyard. The weather was a lot warmer after the storm and it felt more like a British summer's day than just before Thanksgiving.
"Yes, my American experience continues!" Lima stated excitedly, grabbing her purse.
"Here, take my truck. There's a dirt road leading up to the market and I'm not sure your car will make it."
Natalia's face softened, she sidled up to Gabe using his forearm to draw him nearer to her.
"—And that's my cue to leave, I'll be outside," Lima shouted.
He pulled her into his arms, pressing her into his wide chest, swaying with her side to side. Natalia closed her eyes, and felt warmth spread through her. Her skin still fizzled when he touched her. It would never get old. He kissed her forehead, the bridge of her nose and finally her mouth, before he let her go.
"I want to live in your relationship," Lima told her once they were in the car.
"Like sister-wives?"
"No, like an adult child you've adopted."
"I'm —"
"I thought I was joking, but I'm actually not."
There was a second where they just stared at each other before they burst out laughing, they laughed so hard Natalia had to pull up the hand break because her legs were shaking and unable to hold the footbrake. Lima had that ability to make her laugh until her chest hurt and her cheeks ached.
"You're so dumb! I've missed you."
"I've missed you too. Have you thought of coming back to Dubai after this?"
"I haven't thought that far ahead to be honest." She must have had a panicked look on her face because Lima immediately changed the subject.
"So what are we getting from the Farmer's market?"
"I'm not sure Gabe asked me to get some meat to grill, typical man he didn't mention anything about sides."
"We can make an executive decision then."
"Not you, you have disgusting taste in food combinations. You have ketchup, mayonnaise and banana with every meal."
"So do you!"
"I do not. Banana and plantain aren't the same thing." It was an argument as old as time in their friendship and they never resolved it.
Lima was quickly distracted by a stall selling toffee apples and fudge. She whipped out some dollars from her purse and was purchasing enough candy to power a car purely off the sugar rush.
"Yes, I feel like I'm in a Hallmark movie, now all I need is an asshole ex I'm escaping from and a hot farmer to rescue me," she told the lady at the stall. "It's my first time in America."
"Oh, where are you from?" The lady asked interestedly, laughing at Lima's enthusiasm and Hallmark generalisation.
"I'm from London, England."
"Welcome, I hope you enjoy your stay here." The lady said politely, handing back Lima's change.
"Everyone's so nice here, I was worried for a while you know, this is the most I've been around..." she dropped her voice conspiratorially. "White people...for ages."
Natalia laughed, knowing exactly what she meant. When she had returned to the UK from the Middle East had taken her a while to get used to feeling like a minority everywhere she went, and dealing with entitled Karens - Middle aged white women that loved to complain.
"Where to first?"
"Meats, then fruits and vegetables. I'm thinking of making potato salad, mac and cheese and a salad for sides."
"If you make your famous halloumi and watermelon kebab too, I'll love you forever."
"Alright then, I'll add that to the list. What shall we do for the dessert?"
"Fruit salad? Do you think we can persuade the Yanks to like Eton Mess? Because you can't have a barbecue without it?"
"I'll deffo back it one hundred percent, I haven't had a good British dessert for ages."
"Right?"
"Why are we always living abroad again?"
"We love being tortured by bad tea and no free healthcare."
They grabbed what they needed from the market and hurried home. Natalia still needed to marinate the meat, she didn't care what Gabe said about the meat being high quality and not needing much. She wasn't letting anyone under season meat in her presence.
When they got back, Natalia let them into Gabe's with the brand-spanking new key he had given her yesterday. She tried to not make a big deal out of it at the time, but her insides were screaming when he had handed her the key. They were like almost cohabitating?
Gabe was in the backyard, he had cut the grass and was sweeping up the debris with a rake. Shirtless. Natalia and Lima gawked at his bare-chested torso. Natalia had seen it before obviously, but out in the midday sun, with the rays highlighting his sculpted muscles, he looked like an art piece.
"God, I have seen what you've done for others. It's time to bless your favourite child too," Lima prayed semi-seriously with her hands outstretched to the sky. Natalia laughed at the expression on her face.
"Hold on, God is sending me a message...He says, stop being so damn picky, Lima."
"I'm not picky."
"Yes, you are. You dumped the last guy you dated because..."
"He didn't drink enough water, I just knew his semen tasted like battery acid and expired orange juice."
Gabe chose that exact moment to walk into the kitchen to...coincidentally retrieve a water bottle from the fridge
"Lima, don't —"
"God, I wasn't going to. I have some boundaries, you know."
"I don't think I want to know what this is about, I'm going."
Lima laughed at the unintentional comedy until there were tears in her eyes.
After leaving the meats to marinade, and preparing the side dishes and dessert with Lima helping by chatting incessantly, both girls left to go back to Natalia's to get changed into attire more suited to having company.
"You didn't!"
"Of course, I brought my shisha pipe with me."
"What flavours did you bring?"
"Grape, Mint and Pineapple."
"Pineapple? You're actually my soul mate."
Lima's face deflated. "But we don't have coal."
"And this is why I'm the brains of this relationship. There's coal in the barbecue."
Gabe's friends were already at the house when Natalia and Lima arrived, stood in the garden drinking beer and chatting. Ty, Lima's new favourite American and another guy, a tall muscular black man, she had seen at the party but couldn't place a name to his face. Gabe was manning the grill, and taking his role oh so seriously.
He had laid the table in the backyard, while they were gone. How had he managed to rope her into co-hosting so effortlessly? She didn't mind it, she loved cooking and she loved hosting. She was glad to do more of it. And finding new pieces to the Gabe puzzle was always a bonus. She had never interacted with his Military friends until yesterday. They were all nice and well-adjusted people, she didn't know what she had been expecting. But it wasn't that.
Everyone complimented the food as they ate. It was nice. Benign. But she got the distinct feeling that they were watching their words around the girls. Talking about the weather, hiking trails in Texas and football. They asked Lima and Natalia polite questions about their background, but it seemed that they wanted to discuss other things. Alone.
Natalia and Lima retired to the living room gorging on the left over Eton mess, shutting the glass door behind them to give the boys the privacy to talk. Almost an hour later they came back inside to watch Sunday football.
By the time the game had ended Nat and Lima had set up their shisha in the backyard, sitting in the space vacated by Gabe and his friends, smoking and drinking tea. It felt like they had been playing musical chairs all afternoon but with the cold stillness to the air, and firelit orange sky it was finally nice to relax.
"Mind if we join you?" Ty asked.
"No, not at all," Lima answered, and Natalia could tell she wanted to make a smart comment but held her tongue. She had been on her best behaviour the whole afternoon.
Gabe lit a space-heater to compensate for the cold, the setting sun brought with it and then sat next to Natalia. She wiggled her toes into his lap, and he subconsciously warmed her toes with his hands. Her toes were always so cold.
"This is very Lawrence of Arabia," Ty quipped and Natalia could feel herself bristling. She had very strong opinions about colonialism in general.
"Tea?" Lima offered, sensing Natalia's mood change. The boys murmured their assent, Lima left to grab some more tea cups and hot water.
"Lima, wa jib naar, law samaht." Natalia called after her retreating back, asking her to get some more coal for the shisha pipe in Arabic. Natalia took a drag of the long pipe, blowing out the smoke slowly and feeling the relaxing rush that often came with it.
"You speak Arabic?" Gabe asked, surprised. It had never come up in their conversations.
"Yeah, I picked up some things."
"I'm guessing you lot speak Arabic too," Lima said sighing. "Now we can't chat shit about you man in peace."
"What would you even say about us that you haven't said?" Gabe asked with an incredulous grin.
"Don't encourage her. She'll find something."
Natalia handed the shisha pipe to Lima, so she couldn't say anything else that would incriminate herself. After ISISgate, she wasn't going to take any chances. She could see Lima's shoulders shaking in amusement behind a veil of smoke.
"Y'all ever gonna pass the pipe this way?" Dan asked.
"Oh, my bad I didn't know you man were into this Lawrence of Arabia stuff," Lima shaded Ty's earlier comment.
"Oh, Dan is a true connoisseur of Arabian tobacco aren't you?" Gabe said. "Didn't I catch you smoking a couple of grams of hashish by yourself on base one night, completely naked?"
"By yourself, how are you still alive?" Natalia laughed. "Lima accidentally did some hash once and spent a whole evening teaching English to the neighbourhood stray cats."
The boys all laughed uproariously at the anecdote.
"Wow, I thought you were my friend," Lima pouted.
"I had to lock him into a bunker so he could talk himself to sleep, out of sight." Gabe said, referring to Dan, who was glaring at Gabe and they all laughed again.
"Wait, but why was he naked?" Ty asked.
"Sure beats me." The laughter continued at Dan's expense.
"So you don't follow all the rules," Ty could be heard telling Lima, they were sitting next to each other.
Lima gave him a coy look from the corner of her eyes, she couldn't hear what Lima said back but it had Ty almost choking on his tea.
Natalia could see Gabe watching them with interest. He had already warned Lima off, explaining that Ty was not her type of man. Nat thought it was adorable that he had known Lima all but a matter of days and already he was protective of her.
"So Ty, you mentioned you were going away for work sometime, where are you going?" Natalia asked.
"Mali."
"Mali? Isn't there like a war going on there?" Lima asked puzzled.
"It's safe enough."
"What do you do exactly?" Lima asked.
Ty shot a look at Gabe before answering. "I'm a Security Consultant."
"Like Blackwater?" She said referencing a notorious firm, known for their unsavoury conduct in many war-ravaged countries.
"What do you know about Blackwater?"
"I'm from the Horn Of Africa, what don't I know about Blackwater activities?"
"What exactly did you lot do in the Military?" Natalia asked eyeing Gabe, but asking Ty.
"Ty and I were both Marine Raiders, we did special ops and Dan was a Navy SEAL, he also did special ops," Gabe answered her question.
"Like SAS parachute out of a plane, rescue hostages type special operations?" Lima asked, referencing the famous British army special operations regiment, her eyes twice their usual size
"Ok, first of all we're more badass than those pansies, but yes." Dan said.
Natalia looked at Gabe, who had a look of apprehension on his face. When was he going to tell her? She had an inkling of it when she had found the miniature lock-picking kit attached to his keys, the night vision goggles and sniper optics lens in his garage and a big heavy duty safe that no doubt contained an assortment of other types of equipment.
Lima whistled low. "Here's to you guys being good at your jobs and making it back safe," she held out her tea cup in a toast, effectively breaking the tension.
"Natty..."
Natalia smiles tightly at Gabe. "It's fine," she lied. The conversation continued around her but Natalia stewed in silence.
When the tea was cold, and the coal of the shisha pipe had burnt through the flavoured tobacco under it, the evening drew to a natural finish.
"Let us help you clear up," Dan said.
"No way, you're guests. It's fine. I got it."
"Well, thank you for a lovely evening, I hope we can catch up soon," Dan said, drawing Nat in for a hug.
"You moving in on my woman?" Gabe said, watching the exchange with a semi-serious grin.
"I damn well should, how you get a sister like this and I'm still single?"
Natalia laughed despite the foul moody cloud overshadowing the nice evening she just had.
"I can't lie Danny, it's your gut. Shit, you ever heard of a gym?"
Dan and Gabe laughed at their inside joke. It must have been, because Dan didn't have an ounce of extraneous body fat. They engaged in some manly back-slapping and then Dan left with a final wave.
"I'm quite knackered, I'm gonna go to bed," Lima announced.
"Uh, I'll walk you..." Ty offered.
They cleaned up in silence. Natalia needed that time to process her thoughts and figure out why she was so upset. She was glad Gabe knew her well enough not to push her to talk too soon. With her words and sentiments all jumbled up she was liable to say anything.
"Look — "
"— I think I'm most upset about you hiding yourself from me. Do you think I can't handle it?"
"I'm not hiding anything, that part of my life is over there's no need to talk about it."
"Do you know how crazy it is that you won't even tell me what job title you held? I'm not asking for a complete autobiography, although that would be nice, but when you won't even let me open a first floor window in my house, I want to know what experiences led to that."
Gabe scratched at the week old growth on his face. "Okay, what do you want to know?"
Natalia let out a huff of annoyance at his derailing attempt. "I just meant when I ask you a question, it would be nice if you answered it directly." She snatched some stacked dirty plates from the outdoors table and took them to the kitchen. He was infuriating.
"Natalia..."
She ignored him, rinsing off the used utensils and loading the dishwasher.
"You don't get to do that. Shut me out and refuse to talk." He grabbed her arm, none too gently and turned her around to face him.
"Well, make up your mind, innit. You either want to talk to me and let me in, or you don't. You can't have this in-between."
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"But only when you were forced to."
"Natalia, it's hard for me, okay? I don't like to rehash a past I'm still dealing with. This weekend is the first time in years, I've talked about a lot of things and maybe it's unhealthy but that's how I've learned to live with it."
"Okay." She wiped her wet hands on a dish cloth and then she tried to wipe away the unbidden tears in her eyes. She hated arguing. It sapped the energy from her.
Gabe pulled her into his arms. "Why are you crying?"
"It's just upsetting to me – people shooting at you and you jumping out of planes, anything could have happened to you." She sniffed into his shirt. She could feel a wet patch under her cheek. Gabe rubbed her back, soothingly. "I hate war, nobody wins."
"I hate war too."
"Tell me you're done with it, that you won't go consulting like Ty."
"I'm done, Natty."
"Because I couldn't bear it, Gabs, I can't."
"You won't have to, Nat. I'm here. I love you and nothing would make me want to leave."