Chapter 4/A ride home

<Haya's POV>

He looks so sad, and hurt. It breaks my heart.

"I don't know," he says, not meeting my eyes.

I tap his hand, and when he raises his head, I push my bottom lip out. He rolls his eyes, and mutters, "What?"

"Why don't you let people know see the real you? Why always be so mean?" I always wanted to know this, I wanted to know so much about him but he just wouldn't let me know.

He shrugs. "I don't know."

"Can you stop saying 'I don't know'? It's annoying," I tease but his face gets red.

Leaning forward, he braces his arms on the table and locks eyes with mine. "If I annoy you so much, then why sit here and waste your precious time? Go sit with your friends, I'm sure they're missing your company."

My eyes travel to their table and my face falls. They look happy without me. Keeping my gaze on the table, I reply, "I don't know why they're acting so weird. Like literally from the moment I told them about you and I working together."

He frowns lightly. "What have I done to them?"

I offer him a half smile but get none in return. "I think," I pause for a while. "They say you're dangerous, and full of mysteries, which I totally agree with. . ." For the first time in history, he grins and I cannot help but admire it. He looks so young, and honestly he should smile more.

He nods, looking at me with such soft features that I almost forgot this boy sitting in front of me is Aarib. "That, I think is true." After a second he goes back to pulling that blank face of his.

I tilt my head a little to get a more perfect look of his face. The cut on the jaw has almost healed, along with the bruise on his forehead.

I nod at his forehead. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

I sigh with complete frustration. "You should really communicate with me, cus you know we've got an assignment to do that requires to spend time together, and obviously we will need breaks in between to eat something to fuel—"

"Okay, okay, relax," he quickly says, holding up his hands in the air.

My lips curve into a huge grin, whilst he shakes his head in disbelief. "Are you always this nosey, Haya?"

This is the first time he has taken my name, and I would be lying to say it doesn't feel good. Not that good-good, but as in we're getting on the road of getting to know each other.

The rest of the time passes in painfully slow. I finish my pizza in silence while Aarib goes on his phone, ignoring me the entire time. I don't complain because he broke his record of keeping his mouth glued. He talked to me, not only that, he even showed me his teeth, which by the way are perfect.

I had totally forgotten about Zoha, so when I look over, they're nowhere to be seen. Almost the whole restaurant is empty save for the staff who's standing half asleep near the counter.

"I should go. It's getting late," I murmur, grabbing my phone and checking the time. It reads 11:30pm. WHAT? My brothers' will throw a hissy fit!

He nods and gets up. "I'll drop you, come on."

We walk out in the chilly night, and face each other. He looks cute when he's not frowning.

"It's fine. I'll get a cab, and besides I'm sure you have other stuff to do."

He takes out his car keys from the pocket of his skinny jeans. Then looks down in my eyes and says, "No. Its not safe for you to go home alone with a stupid taxi driver who God knows is even trustworthy or not."

I stand there with my eyes wide and my mouth on the floor. Did he really just say that? Are my ears ringing? "Are you feeling okay?" I mock, bursting into laughter.

He sighs heavily then grabs my hand. "You are one annoying little thing," he mutters, and I sprint to keep up with him to the end of the street.

I gasp. "You drive a BMW?!" Even we don't have such an expensive car, although Dad earns a huge amount of money and sends some every month to us. And because Mom is a dentist so we never face financial crisis. I try to ignore how his car looks exactly like MAFIA MEN.

All of a sudden his face falls, his eyes go dark and he looks away. "Yeah." With a short reply he slides in the driver's seat at the same time me in the passenger one.

His car smells just like him. All manly and amazing.

"What cologne do you use?" I ask in a thoughtful way. He puts the car in reverse and then cruises along the road in a decent way. I thought he might be a racer guy, but surprisingly he isn't.

Maybe because of me?

"Fierce by Abercrombie and Fitch."

"I'm stealing that."

"That's couple stuff. I don't do that crap."

I sneak a glance at him with a broad grin. "Friends also steal other friend's stuff."

He doesn't reply to that so the whole journey I kept my gazing out of the window. Despite his grumpy expressions and annoyed talks, I still had a nice time.