His Girl #Wattys2016

4. Now what?

"Drake, tell me already. Which of these pictures is worth uploading?" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"All of them are good, Sarah. Stop irritating me!"

I pulled a face at him and went back to my phone. I had seen all the pictures thrice already and hadn't been able to decide on the one I liked the best. As much as I love Aaron, I would never torture anyone by uploading them all, so I had to find the one.

"Fine, don't help me. I'll ask Mel to do the honours-"

"Please, do." His smile was so wide and so fake, I wanted to bash all his teeth but I refrained myself from any such acts. After all, he had helped me achieve my life's goal.

I rung up Melanie as soon as I got out of hearing distance from Drake and narrated the whole thing to her. When I was done, I could hear strained breathing from the other side. Worried, I wondered if I had done the right thing by calling her.

"Mel, you okay?"

"Uh huh," answered a meek voice.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She said too quickly, "tell me again, what does he look like in real?"

"Oh, Mel. He's a delight to the eyes," I sighed.

"You call yourself a writer! Be more descriptive!"

"Okay, let's see. He was in his tracks, it was clear that he was completely sleepy in the beginning. But once we mentioned pizza, his eyes kind of lit up." I laughed.

I swear I heard the 'aaw' build up in her throat. She aaw'd for a whole minute or so, before she regained her senses.

"Go on."

"And Mel, when he smiles, even the coldest of days feels like spring for a moment."

"Pfft." Hearing a noise behind me, I turned to see Drake rolling his eyes at me.

"Mel, can you come over-"

"Sure." She replied before I could finish my sentence and the line went dead.

"She's on her way," I said, my tone superior.

"Feel free to use the guest room, the room is sound proofed for good." When I raised an eyebrow at him, he continued. "I'm not sure I want to hear all the squeals."

"You'll pay for this one day, Drake. Mark my words." I narrowed my eyes at him, expecting to scare him but he chuckled and I ended up giggling with him.

"Tell me, will it be awkward to go back to his place-"

"Sarah!" Drake had this look of unbelief on his face as if I had asked him to donate both his kidneys.

"What?"

"Do you want him to call for protection?" Drake sounded so pissed, and right, I decided to shut up for once.

I spent the next ten minutes or so thinking of a nice excuse to talk to him. When I found none and grew tired of thinking, I pulled out my phone and started playing Angry Birds. I was almost on my way to victory, with just one piggy standing between me and the next level, when I heard the phone ring. The last piggy survived and grinned back at me.

"Blast!" I muttered under my breath, careful not to be heard.

"Oh, hey... Yes, she is... Sure, let me get something to write on..." Drake said, as he produced a piece of paper from one of the drawers and jotted down something, "okay, alright... bye!"

He put down the receiver and looked at me. There was a sense of admiration in his eyes. I had known him for almost four years and not once had he seemed this impressed with me. I mouthed a 'what?' at him and he simply held the piece of paper towards me. I walked up to where he was seated and took the paper from him. There were numbers scribbled in his horrible writing on the paper and I had to squint to make out each number.

"What is this?" I asked, looking suspiciously at him.

"Seriously, I thought you'd have figured it out by now."

"Clearly, I haven't. So, shoot."

"Aaron's number. He wants you to have it. He also wants you to know that he doesn't give out his number to anyone and he hopes you can keep this to yourself," Drake said, his face devoid of expression.
I opened my mouth to say something but he stopped me. "No, not even Mel."

There were so many things going on in my head that I couldn't bring myself to speak. I wanted to ask so many questions, express my shock in words, but those very words were getting stuck in my throat. After so many trials, I realised that I hadn't yet said anything to Drake and that he was waiting for me to reply.

"Oh," I managed to say. Exactly what he wanted to hear.

I looked at the paper again, the tiny piece of paper that contained the phone number of the person I adored the most in the world. I slowly took the pen from Drake's hand and wrote down the number again, legibly this time, below his scribbling. He shook his head at me before putting his arms around my shoulder. He sat me down on the couch, pulled a chair for himself and sat down facing me.

"Sarah," he said, his tone unsure yet filled with warmth, "since the day we met, I've looked after you like a brother looks after his sister."
Which, I have to say, is true. There hadn't been one person who had seen our relationship under the wrong light, owing it all to Drake. He is one person you could trust your life with and the entire school knew it all too well.

He continued, "and I've never been anything but supportive of your decisions. But this one time, I want you to think a lot before you come to a conclusion."

Slowly, I repeated the words in my head. This didn't seem like the Drake I knew so well. He sounded different, scared. I lifted my head to see the fear etched on his face.

"Drake, what's wrong?"

He took a long pause before answering.

"You're forgetting that he has a girlfriend."