always His second choice..

Chapter 10

Omar's POV:

I got up from my deep sleep because of the continous beeping of my cell phone. I turn on the lamp and reached for my phone on the bedside table. It was barely an hour ago when I fell asleep after a hectic day. Two consecutive  meeting with clients, then some paper work and an important bussiness conference, the list of my busy schedule of ten days official trip to Turkey goes on. I received the call without checking the caller id, I knew who would that be at this time of night.

"Hello." I said in a sleepy voice.

"Where the hell have you been Omar... why weren't you picking up..?" Anoushay from the other side of the line asked me more like inquiring from me.

Seriously!

"Why do you call Anoushay? I'm too tired to talk to you right now." I said in between a yawn, putting my hand on my mouth.

"I don't care. I just wanted to talkkk. Besides I was getting bored, and I was missing you alot yaar." She said in her usual tone. She's still a whiny little Anoushay.

"And I'm not missing you at all Anoushay. We'll talk later. Please let me sleep, I have a conference to attend in the morning." I tried to reason with her. Truth was I seriously was very much tired. It's been my sixth day in Istanbul and in these past six days I didn't get a good sleep.

"Yaar Omar! Don't be mean okay. I really wana talk, besides there's no one I can talk to. Shahmeer's on job and...."

I get it. She's playing emotional card.

"Then talk to Maa. I'm sure She won't let you get bored." I said rolling my eyes. I was starting to get pissed.

"Maa's got her BP high so she was asleep. Don't worry she's much much better now. I..."

"What? She didn't tell me. Not even Zara told me about this. How is she now?" I cut her again in a mid sentence.

Maa's health had been a serious issue for all of us for the last four years. Doctors had pratically warned us about how we had to keep her away from any kind of stress or tension. It wouldn't be good for her. She has had a habit of taking every little thing way too seriously.

"She's fine. More than fine. Plus Zara was there. She got her under control." She said putting emphasis on her each word.

I need to talk to Zara.

"HaveyoubeentalkingtoZara;Zarawasupthisearly?" We said at the same time, obviously I asked first and latter was hers.

"Omar you tell me first why are you so surprised to know that she's up." She laughed.

"I'm not surprised. I already know she's a morning person."

"Woww.. since when have you two been on civil terms? Last time I checked you two were avoiding each other." She said teasingly.

Clearly she was in no way to hung up the phone so easily.

"Why do you think I would tell you?" I answered her the minimum I could. This was the only way I could avoid her inquiring more.

"Ahuh! So you called her first or was it her? Lemme guess; it was you!! Right..?? Come on fill me in! What made you call her?"

Ya Allah. Why is she so persistent?

"Umm it's a long story Anoushay. I'll tell you later." I said wishing she would feel the annoyance in my voice.

"Nope. You're not going anywhere without telling me Omar Affandi. It's not like you're gonna get back to sleep so easily. So better talk to me, may be I could help you getting more civil to your wife you know." She said suppressing a laugh. She's clearly not giving up.