A glimmer of hope

While Laila was testing her nerves downstairs in the living room, upstairs Noah was being equally anxious. Since he had not yet received a message from Laila to let him know she was done with her task downstairs, he was working hard to keep his conversation with Olivia going while trying to keep her hands away from him. Though Noah had given Olivia plenty of reason to think he was interested in her, in one way or another, he hadn't taken her boldness into account. Now that Laila wasn't there to keep an eye on things and make Olivia behave herself a bit for fear of being caught too early, she was using every chance and opportunity to establish physical contact between him and herself.

So far she had used every trick in the book from asking him if he visits the gym a lot since his arms look so strong to pretending to trip over air in order to have him catch her. Using these tricks she had managed to grab and squeeze his arm to 'Feel his muscles', touched his stomach to see if he had abs as well and had tried to hug him when he caught her during her fake tripping incident. He was constantly busy with dodging her and it was getting on his nerves a lot. Add him being worried about Laila to the annoyance he was feeling over Olivia's antics and it wasn't strange that he was wondering how much more of this he could take before his mask would break. Being this fake, constantly smiling, charmer, was draining enough of his energy without all those added problems.

But just before Olivia could take things too far and cross another boundary with Noah, his silent cries for help had been answered. His phone went off and a message had come in. This allowed him to interrupt his conversation with Olivia, that was going in a dangerous direction, and see what had come in instead. When he glanced down at the screen of his phone and saw that the message was from Laila, he said this out loud in hopes that mentioning Laila's name would make Olivia pull back a bit. Though 'pulling back' wasn't exactly the way Olivia's reaction could be described after hearing Noah say, "Oh, it's a message from Laila. Let's see what she wants.", being on alert had at least stopped her from doing what she was doing.

With one eye on Olivia and the other glancing at the text from Laila, he read the message out loud and used Laila's words to keep Olivia distracted. "She says we have been gone for very long and wonders when we are coming back downstairs as she is feeling bored and neglected. Though I wouldn't mind staying up here a bit longer but I don't want to cause problems for your friendship. Having lost Maria, Laila doesn't have much friends left and I know she is your only friend in the area as well. So, I don't want to drag the problems between me and Laila at the moment into your friendship. I would be pretty upset if this caused a fight between the two of you. So, I think we should head down and enjoy what has remained of this dinner party before it is time for me and Laila to return home."

Though Olivia wasn't happy that Noah wanted to go back downstairs, she couldn't have him thinking that she was not Laila's friend. And as someone that is supposed to be Laila's friend, she has no way to argue with what Noah has said. Especially not for being considerate at the fact that she and Laila don't have many female friends aside from each other. But this didn't stop her from asking, "Going home? I hope not too soon?"

As Noah walked in the direction of the door, which seemed like his exit and safety escape from the madness he had endured, he replied by saying, "Yeah, I'm afraid we won't be able to stay for much longer. Laila is pregnant and can't handle much more and I have to be in bed on time as well as I still have some work to do in the morning."

Olivia had to hide her anger over Noah's words as she only heard that Noah was leaving earlier because he had to keep Laila and her pregnancy in mind, which to her meant that he still cared about her despite what his earlier words seemed to imply. But since her opinion of Noah couldn't become any better and her opinion of Laila couldn't get any worse, she told herself that he was only doing this out of obligation. Because he was a good husband. Something that showed how he would treat her as well once she was in her rightful place. That there was still hope for her and she tried to confirm that by saying, "Well I won't let you leave before you agree to come here again. Soon. With or, maybe even better considering Laila gets tired easily these days, without Laila."

Just wanting to leave and not wanting to argue with Olivia about this matter, he smiled and simply said, "Of course. I am going to be busy for the next couple of weeks but I am sure we will find a day to make it happen. You can even teach me some more cooking as you did so well." With that he hoped he had given her enough to be able to drop the matter for now and give her a small glimmer of hope that he would really take her up on her offer of a second visit.