9 Your warmth

The car cruised along the highway smoothly. You could still smell the new leather seats. He was driving with one hand on the steering wheel with his fingers sometimes tapping along the music, and another leaned in to the window, switching between holding the other side of steering wheel or supporting his chin every now and then.

Some jazz instrumental music was playing in the background, a mix of saxophone and piano tunes accompanying their journey. Traffic was light, so their journey all along felt so peaceful.

When she just arrived in the mall earlier, she already felt unwell. It seems the aspirin helped her headache.

But she just realized, she took the aspirin while her stomach was empty. She just quietly leaned on to the window hoping she would get better soon.

"Did you move from another province? And that's why you're not familiar with city S?" he suddenly asked. She was looking at the scenery outside the window and turned her head to meet his eyes.

While he was driving, his phone kept receiving message notifications.

His phone was connected to the car, so from the dashboard screen, she could see the sender name and some snippets of the content. The senders were mostly unknown numbers because he didn't put any names to it. But the content were all almost similar.

Basically asking him if he was around, or if he wanted to hang out, or if he wanted to grab lunch together. Shao Yan just pretended she didn't see them.

Clearly this guy had other friends! She didn't understand why he had to drag her around today.

"Not really. I grew up at city J, which is just 5 hour drive from here. I moved to country U around 8 years ago and just recently moved back." she casually replied him, which suddenly earned her his surprised look.

"What a coincidence! I have been living there the past 10 years." he exclaimed before changed lanes and exited the highway.

Soon they're almost reaching the area. "Destiny is surely so funny, that we never met before, and we only meet now" he said while smiling at her.

All of a sudden, she suddenly felt really queasy now. She looked so pale.

He noticed something was wrong and was alarmed. "What's wrong? Are you okay?". He quickly stopped at the road side, unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over to take a good look at her. She had cold sweat now.

"It's nothing. I think I just need to eat something." She tried to answer casually, "I took some aspirin this morning."

He understood now, and before she said more, he already stepped out of the car. He looked around as if looking for something and crossed the street hurriedly.

She saw him disappeared into a convenience store and then 5 minutes later came out with a plastic bag.

He jogged back to the car, and went to her side and opened the door. He handed a paper bag to her, "Here, eat this first."

She could feel something warm was inside the bag, she peeked inside and saw a meat bun.

He also took out a warm sweetened tea for her, "Drink this first, we should reach the mall in few minutes." he said while also passing napkin paper to her.

She was still looking at him stunned with all of this chains of action. He looked at her questioningly, "What's wrong? You don't eat meat?" he probably was guessing that's why she didn't touch the bun.

She felt so touched that she didn't know what to do.

She just shook her head and started to eat the bun. He watched her for a while, before closing the door, and walked back to the driver seat. He started the car and drove away.

They were already near the shopping mall. He found a parking spot and when he turned off the engine, she was just done eating and was wiping her fingers.

He took a look at her complexion, and after he was assured the color had come back, he gave a relief smile.

"We will have lunch first before we explore the area." he took the plastic bag from her hand and stepped outside the car. She collected her things before opening the door, he was already standing next to her when she stepped down.

"Is there anything you don't eat? Do you have any allergy to any food?" he held the door for her and then closed it. They walked to the entrance slowly.

"No, I'm actually quite adventurous in terms of eating food" she smiled at him. He was looking at her, "That's great, we can do that next time. But for now, you need to eat something light."

They were waiting for the elevator to go to the restaurant on the top floor. Supposedly, they served really good dim sum there.

It didn't take long for the elevator to come. But because it's the weekend, the mall was really crowded.

They stepped inside the elevator. He had stood really close to her but people still kept pushing on them to get inside. Afraid that he might hurt her, he stepped to the side a little and put both arms to her side to cage her in and protect her from others.

He could feel that she stiffened up. Her top of head was now only inches away from his lips. If he turned a little, he could have kissed her forehead.

Her hair smelled so good. And he could also see faint blush from her cheek. He was not sure if it was because of temperature, or because of their close proximity that was making her nervous. He smiled to himself a little.

Shao Yan could feel her breathing hitched and she tried to stand as properly as possible. This guy smelled so good. But he's too close!

This was too big of a temptation. She could feel his hard chest in front of her and his strong arms wrapped her on her sides.

She just didn't know where she should keep her eyes at. She kept looking back at his arm's muscle next to her.

She looked up just when he was still looking down at her.

For a moment, they were both stunned. His lips was very close to her forehead. If he wanted to, he could just brushed a light kiss on her.

They just stood still, with eyes focusing on each other. They could see each other's reflection in their own eyes.