Soul Harbour

0.57|when fathoming an ocean's depth|

0.57|from Sabah's first draft: when fathoming an ocean's depth|

"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?" Auburn spoke after five minutes of silence in which her mind had been buzzing with inexplicable questions and she had been undergoing the mental equivalent of frowning and laughing hysterically.

"I-" Anthony scrunched up his face and searched for the correct words, "I was going to-uh-boost up your social circle?"

She blinked at him as he desperately avoided her stare by looking ahead, finding the traffic rather interesting at the present. She bit her lip, "And you thought flaunting yourself at my place of work would help?" She sighed, "Anthony, you know you're getting popular, right? This could affect your reputation. People actually care about what you do outside the football stadium too."

He looked at her with a frown of his own, his grey eyes specked with shiny blue, "You're not mad I showed up but you're worried about my reputation?"

She smiled slightly, "I'm not very sure as to how I should react to your little stunt but yeah, I'm not mad. I mean, did you see their faces?"

He laughed, relief effusing over his face, "I had the best view, liebe, because I got to see your face."

"What does this liebe mean?" she asked, curiously.

"I wish I could have recorded just how hilarious you looked when you saw me. Your mouth was open for a whole minute," he laughed, avoiding her question. "I don't know, maybe more. Your reaction was priceless."

"Haha," she made a face. "I was just surprised, okay? I didn't expect you coming there looking all beautiful and shit. A heads-up would have helped."

His ears turned red at the offhand compliment and he gulped as he narrowly avoided a car ahead.

Auburn was still speaking, "So, where are we going?"

"To Carlotta's?" he said. Immediately he regretted saying that. He quickly added, "Unless you want to go somewhere else."

"Define somewhere else," she narrowed her eyes at him.

"So, you want to go somewhere else with me," he repeated with a smirk and for a moment, Auburn could have sworn her heart was racing.

She looked out of the window and said nonchalantly, "I have an amazing guy at my side, a free evening and my hair seems under control today. Why I would I refuse a nice 'somewhere else'?"

He was perplexed by the easy way in which she referred to him because he so wanted to believe that there was more to all this but because it was Auburn, who seemed to speak with the easy tone which one uses with old friends and family and yet hardly ever expressed anything about herself, who was a cleverly veiled closed book, who smiled at and complimented everyone, Anthony could only struggle in the thin space between assumption and apprehension.

And so he looked at her, trying silently to decipher some strand of her thought that glinted in her violet-blue eyes, slipped past her smiling lips and got lost in the strands of her brown hair that conveniently covered her expressions now and then.

Who was Auburn Ivy? He could claim to know parts of her. He knew when she was upset, when she didn't want to talk anymore, when she enjoyed silences, when she enjoyed her coffee and when she didn't, her choice of biscuits and cake, the fact that she worried about her job incessantly but at the same time waited for the day she would be fired but all this and more could just touch the surface of the rocky sea she was and Anthony Kroff was losing himself in her waves, drowning slowly, unaware as the adventurous swimmer who swims too far just to taste what the ocean feels like.

"You're very generous with these compliments today," he said, quirking an eyebrow, and just like that he swam too far, too out chasing an ever-widening horizon.

"Don't get used to it," she stuck her tongue out.

He laughed, "Okay, miser."

She glared playfully at him, "I'm the miser? Let me remind you, there's no one stingier than you at compliments. I had to compliment my hair myself. No, don't try to defend yourself. You know I'm right. Now, where are we going? And don't say its a surprise."

"Heard of Museo Del Prado?" he asked, excited as anything at the name.

She racked her brains, "Is it that museum we saw in the newspaper? The one which had Las Meninas? Oh my God, we promised we'd go there some time, right?"

"Yup," he said. "We're finally crossing that off our list of places to visit."

As they neared the Museum, Anthony finally asked, "Have you done something different with your hair today?"

She flashed him a wide smile, "You noticed?"

He grimaced, "Actually I haven't yet but I have noticed that you've mentioned it around ten times by now so I'm guessing you got a haircut." He smiled proudly at the fact that he had guessed it right.

She gave a disappointed look and punched his arm.

"Oww," he massaged his arm. "Girl, you hit like a defender!"

"I have this mini braid thing going on," Auburn suggested. She pointed out the three thin braids which were falling over her right ear.

Anthony peered, "Uh, looks the same to me."

"How do you even manage to play football with your poor eyesight?" she snapped.

He rolled his eyes, "Thankfully, none of the footballers are so bad at braiding as you are so I manage."

[This was going to be much longer but a longer chapter would take time, stalling the update so I decided to split it into two so yes, NEXT CHAPTER IS THEIR DATE and I'll try to finish it by tomorrow or so.

Liebe (German)=Love (but you guys already knew that)

AUBONY ON POINT, HUH? I love writing their conversations. Also, I had been waiting so long to use the ocean references and metaphors and I finally did yayyy!

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