Flowers and bees

His eyes looked so mesmerizing. They were looking at her deeply. As if she was the only one in his world.

Being this close with him, she could counted his eyelashes. His tall nose and beautiful face were right in front of her eyes. He was so handsome indeed.

A one of a kind flower.

Surely attracted a lot of bees.

Shao Yan didn't have the confidence to fight with those bees. She decided to just admire this beautiful flower from afar.

Just as Li Xiqing was about to wrapped his arms tighter around her, she decided to be the one to break their eye contact and quickly looked down. She gulped and tried so hard to calm her restless heart.

Her fingers kept twisting her sling bag and now she digged her fingernails even deeper to her palm.

Dammit! Why was she so nervous! You're an adult, Shao Yan! And it's only an eye contact!

She thought this must be because she had been alone for too long. She just missed the masculinity of a guy.

Li Xiqing was disappointed when she looked away. His hands that were pressing the elevator wall unconsciously tightened up. But he kept his eyes trained on her.

People coming in and out of the elevator would keep bumping into them. Shao Yan was squeezed in more into his embrace. She accidentally touched his chest.

At the same time, he was surprised by the push from behind him, and reflexively cupped her head with his palm, pressing her cheek in his embrace. His other hand was pushing the elevator wall to keep them steady.

He stiffened slightly, he was surprised. He felt weird as this sensation of him hugging her that felt so comfortable for him.

After a while, he felt Shao Yan wriggled a little and then he let her go. Shao Yan did not dare to look at him, so she just looked at his white graphic shirt and tidied up her hair.

Li Xiqing pretended that it was nothing and kept protecting her as much as he could.

After what felt like forever, they finally arrived at the restaurant floor. He eased his stand, took her hand and walked out of the elevator with her. After they stepped out, Li Xiqing was still holding her hands. Shao Yan was looking at their clasp hands. He noticed her gaze and so he let them go.

It's lunch time so the restaurant were really crowded.

They had to wait for a while before their table was ready. While waiting, he kept talking to her, asking her a lot of things about her past projects. He could feel that she was nervous being near him. So he tried to keep a reasonable distance with her.

Shao Yan was very proud of her achievements. It came from hardwork and a lot of sacrifices over the years. So when Li Xiqing wanted to know more about what she had done, Shao Yan gladly talked to him. Soon, he also started to tell her about his work.

Slowly, she forgot about her nervousness and she talked more comfortably.

Thirty minutes waiting time went by in an instant. Soon, they were escorted to their table and started to order.

He had met a lot of people from different nationalities and different job levels. So he was very knowledgeable.

He could engaged her with variety of topics and kept her entertained. Their lunch time unknowingly stretched out to three hours!

But neither of them were aware of that. Because they just enjoyed each other's company.

He knew how to make her laugh. He enjoyed seeing her every little expressions. He tried to remember every single gesture she made.

When she laughed, or when she was confused. He didn't want to miss a single thing from her.

Li Xiqing had encountered a lot of women. He also had eaten meal with a lot of women. Most of them would limit themselves in front of him.

They just wanted to shower him with praises or seductions. They would either smile so politely or seductively. They would laughed with over the top manners.

He was tired of those fake gestures.

Those women gave him ingratiating smiles. The way they looked at him made him felt like he was a big chunk of meat waited to be slaughtered and served to them on a silver platter.

Well, they're not wrong, actually! Women really wanted to devour him, but he just never gave them the chance to.

While this one in front of him was different. From the moment Shao Yan approached him in the coffee shop, she didn't have that fake attitude towards him.

She would laughed happily without restraint. She would frowned when she was confused. She would teased him back when he made a mistake.

Li Xiqing really enjoyed being with her.

Shao Yan was not a talkative person. She was amazed at herself when she finally looked at her watch and noticed how long they had been talking to each other.

Now she could understand, why those unknown numbers would not stopped looking for him.

He was so charming!

She sighed over their gap of attractiveness.

This time, Li Xiqing insisted to pay for lunch. He mentioned that he was the one needed her help, so she was not allowed to fight for him on this one.

She relented and just politely said thanks.

"Can you not say this word 'thank you' anymore? I thought we're now friends?" he laughed and said that to her. She smiled back and then they walked outside together.

This was fairly new mall, with a mix of indoor and outdoor shops. After lunch, both of them decided to explore the area. They went inside some shops to look around. They also walked outside where there's a man-made pond with koi fish swimming around.

Even though it's crowded and hectic, but strangely, Shao Yan felt peaceful.

Just before sunset, around golden hour, he asked if they could go to another place. He wanted to look at a piece of land that developer C wanted to use. He needed to analyze the distance between that land to this mall, since this mall would eventually be the point of attraction.

Shao Yan didn't have any plans for the rest of the day anyway, so she didn't mind.

They walked back to the car. He opened the door again for her, Shao Yan managed to stop herself from saying 'thank you' this time and just smiled.

Li Xiqing waited until she settled down before walking to the driver seat.

He was not sure of the location of this land, so he was checking his phone for GPS location.

While waiting for him, Shao Yan also checked her phone. She was browsing a website to check how to fix her car battery.

Li Xiqing finally set the GPS in the car, and he started to drive away.

Shao Yan was quiet along the way, she was too focus on her phone, digesting the information about car battery.

He was looking at her every now and then, curious of what she was doing.