Chapter 17 #2
‘We’ve got time to kill. Just one round.
’ She ignored the protests and grabbed an empty fizzy drink bottle and putting it in the middle of the blanket, she spun it with a flourish.
It landed on Shoaib, who shook his head, resigned that his sister would get her way, as he sat up. ‘Truth or dare, Sho?’
‘Argh, she’s relentless.’ Reshma groaned as she started putting lids back on containers and clearing up the food debris around them.
Zafar helped her. He needed more of a distraction from the thoughts that had plagued his mind moments ago and knowing Haniya, they weren’t likely to get up until she had extracted her pound of flesh from them.
‘The words dog and bone come to mind,’ Shoaib griped. ‘Dare.’
‘Fab. Sing us a song.’
What ensued was one hundred and twenty seconds of hilarity as Shoaib sang a song dreadfully off-key.
It took them a few minutes to recover from that, Zafar feeling his abdominal muscles protesting as he tried to stop laughing. The girls were wiping tears from their cheeks and they only managed half a dozen seconds of silence before bursting into fits of laughter again – Shoaib included.
‘Right, my turn.’ He spun the bottle and it landed on Reshma.
‘I’m not playing.’
‘If you co-operate, it’ll be over quicker.’ Zafar tried to reason with her. ‘Trust me, I’ve suffered at the hands of siblings. They’re unrelenting in the extreme.’
‘Argh! Fine. Dare.’
Shoaib grinned at her maniacally. ‘I dare you to sit in Zaf’s lap.’
‘Yesss! That’s brilliant.’ Haniya high-fived her brother like they were both six years old.
The pair of them were beside themselves with excitement while Zafar’s entire body went on high alert. He tried to get his tongue to dislodge from the roof of his mouth to intervene before things became super awkward, but the stupid thing wouldn’t budge.
Reshma narrowed her eyes at her cousins, enunciating her words slowly as though she were speaking to idiots. ‘That has got to be the silliest of dares ever and I refuse to do it.’
‘Are you forfeiting then?’ Shoaib asked her mischievously.
‘Yes.’ Zafar felt immensely grateful at her refusal and overwhelmingly disappointed at the same time, the conflict making him grit his teeth in frustration.
‘No. You’re not allowed to forfeit,’ Haniya protested. ‘It’s truth or dare, so if you won’t carry out the dare, then you can tell us a truth.’
Zafar watched the silent exchange between the two women for a moment and then he saw Reshma’s shoulders slump as she looked in his direction and he froze in a bid to stop himself from fidgeting, keeping his expression as neutral as he could.
Reshma got up and circled a finger towards his legs. ‘Stretch them out, please.’
‘No, cross them,’ Haniya shouted from where she sat.
Reshma turned, pointing her finger in Haniya’s face. ‘The dare is to sit in his lap, so I’ll choose how. I’m not a child, so I’ll be doing it in as ladylike a fashion as I can. Any of our relatives could happen upon us.’
Wordlessly, Zafar stretched his legs out and with her back to him, Reshma sat on one knee, keeping her feet on the ground. He could tell she hadn’t put all her weight on him properly and the way she was sitting had her bones digging into him.
She nearly lost her balance as Zafar moved his knees to get more comfortable, until he moved his arm around her waist to steady her as he grunted under his breath. ‘It’ll be more comfortable for both of us if you sit on both of my thighs. You need to move back a bit. Please.’
From her side profile, he saw her close her eyes, her cheeks going pink.
She got up and Zafar moved so his legs pointed towards the ocean rather than the blanket. He held his hand out to her and gave her what he hoped was a comforting smile.
She placed her hand in his and he closed his fingers over hers, swallowing her petite hand with his much larger one.
As she lowered herself onto his legs, he swapped her hand into his other one and his now free hand landed on the small of her back, steadying her as she finally sat back.
She was as stiff as a board and that made him tense, though his nerve endings were currently singing songs of praise in chorus at their closeness.
She shifted and he bit back a groan as his thigh muscles twitched.
This seemed to be more a test of endurance for him than anything else.
Her warm and woody perfume mingled with the scent of the ocean and bombarded his senses as her warmth seeped into his body, warming him in a way the sun had nothing on.
She shifted once more and before it got any worse for either of them, Zafar moved his hand that had been on her back towards her right hip and pulled her up his legs to sit in a more central position. ‘There. That’s better.’
It wasn’t. Not really. Nothing would be better until she got up and he submerged himself into an ice bath to try to cool himself down enough to form a rational thought.
What the hell was happening to him? It was like the doors he’d had closed this whole time on any attraction towards Reshma had been flung open and it was all pouring in faster than he could process it.
Reshma seemed to have gathered herself from the awkwardness she was feeling – good for her – and moved forward to spin the bottle before moving back again.
Zafar tried to focus on the scene just beyond her, hoping it would slow his breathing and heartbeat down before Reshma noticed either.
Getting caught by her while he was losing it would kill him.
He tried to concentrate on the waves of the water, the reflection of the sun shining on them, the clear blue sky above it all.
But when Reshma flicked her hair back over her shoulder, his gaze went to her.
The shell of her ear and the small studs she was wearing.
Small droplets of water clinging to her hairline before s-l-o-w-l-y making their way down.
The winking of her nose stud, which mesmerised him whenever he looked at it.
He must have moved or made a sound because Reshma turned her face and looked directly at him.
Her face was close enough that he could see the tan line along her hairline and the lighter flecks in the dark chocolate of her eyes, fringed by dark eyelashes.
There was a faint set of vertical lines between her eyebrows, which slowly deepened as she looked back at him, bringing about an equally faint horizontal line on her forehead.
His eyes went to her lips as she pressed them together and Zafar felt his mouth go dry as his lips tingled, wanting to close the distance between them.
He watched her slowly release the clamp on her lips and then they lifted at the corners as she smiled at him, her hand squeezing his.
He looked down and belatedly realised that they’d not let go of each other after he’d offered her his hand as she’d sat in his lap.
He looked at her beautiful face again, zoning in on the feeling of her closeness and the warmth of her gaze on his, making him respond in kind.
‘Ahem.’
Reshma abruptly turned her face, as did he to find her cousins staring at them with utter glee on their faces.
Zafar felt her stiffen once more, but it didn’t last long.
She looked down at the bottle pointing at Haniya and she relaxed again, giving Haniya a sweet smile, which he was sure promised something only the other woman understood.
‘Truth or dare, Niya?’
Haniya grinned and chose a dare.
Reshma scowled at her.
Zafar’s mind went back to similar antics with his brothers and he had an idea. He leaned forward and whispered it into Reshma’s ear, realising too late that doing that was a bad idea. Goosebumps erupted on his skin and he was sure she shivered as he spoke.
She grinned playfully at his suggestion and he felt a sense of pride bloom in his chest to have that look directed his way. He distracted himself by pulling his phone out of his pocket and cueing up a song before handing it to Reshma.
‘OK, Niya. Your dare is that you have to stand over there and dance to the song that plays.’
‘What? Nooo, that’s sooo awkward.’
‘Ha. As if I’m going to show you any mercy. Off you go.’
‘I swear, Reshma, I’ll get you good and proper after this. The gloves will totally come off. I’m warning you.’
‘Bring it on, sister.’
The awkwardness lasted barely thirty seconds before Haniya got into what she was doing as they all clapped along, a handful of beachgoers stopping to watch her and adding their applause when she finished and curtsied.
When Zafar had suggested the dare to Reshma, he’d had no idea that Haniya was so good at dancing. He just remembered getting one of his brothers to do the same and then all of them laughing their heads off.
She came back to the blanket and after glaring at him and Reshma, she spun the bottle.
Reshma had completely relaxed now as she sat more comfortably and while he felt like he wanted to shift and get a bit more comfortable himself, he didn’t want to move and break contact with her. Crazy.
This went way beyond his desire for mutual respect and affection to a different kind of desire and there was an acuteness to his feelings that he was certain he’d never felt before, and while a part of him thought he ought to back away from it all, he didn’t.
‘Zaf.’
‘Huh?’ He’d zoned out and hadn’t realised that Haniya had spun the bottle and it had landed on him. He looked at the bottle and then at Haniya. ‘Hang on a second. That’s way too convenient, how can it have landed on each of us so perfectly to complete a round. No doubles at all?’
They all looked at him as though he’d lost his marbles. ‘She spun the bottle and it landed on herself so she did it again and it landed on you,’ Reshma said softly.
‘Yeah, pay attention, mate. Last one and then we can pack up and leave,’ Shoaib said as he riffled through the hamper and pulled out an apple.