In My Sister's Shadow (Book 1)

29. Waiting For Tonight

Trigger Warning: Mature Scenes ahead.

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The humid and sticky evening was charged with an electric energy between us, like static when you feel the shock run through your flesh. I couldn't look at Zayn. I couldn't to talk him. I stepped out of his way, but clumsily, we hot footed around each other. Like strangers we sat around the dinner table and spoke only to communicate.

"What was Tina saying to you at school?" Like swallowing vomit, I held my deep-rooted envy threatening to rear its ugly tone.

"Nothing much. The same stuff." Zayn stuffed a spoon full of paste into Aymaan's mouth. Dinner time was always a fight with Aymaan.

"Why were you and Jag fighting?"

Zayn broke his glance with Aymaan and shrugged his shoulders. "He thinks I owe him from a game of poker. He's lost the plot."

"You gamble?"

"Meh! It's a harmless flutter." He brushed it off like it was nothing.

"Do you owe him money?"

Aymaan jumped out of Zayn's lap, and Zayn chased him before he could answer my question.

Later that evening, when I was washing the dishes, Zayn's arm pressed against me tightly that I could feel the hairs on his forearm against my arm. Heat rushed through me and I all I could remember was that kiss. However hard I ignored it, my body's response to his fleeting touch filled me with longing and shame. It was time to unlock my bedroom door and open for Zayn to loot.

****

But he didn't come. I felt like a fool pretending to be asleep but listening to him singing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' to Zara. Hot and humidity at its peak, I opened my window for fresh cold air but that night was cruel. The cold air still. I couldn't think straight, restless and wrestling with the blanket.

A desire to talk, to spend time with Zayn was ravaging me, but would I seem desperate that I want him? Yes! I was his wife, but still just by name. But if he did come in, would he want to be intimate? Eventually he'd see my old scars that I cut myself and he'd surely gag. After all he called me old, flirtatious and I should act my age. Now he had the opportunity to mock my scars. No, I couldn't open myself to insults and abuse. I was just about getting over last night, I couldn't do it.

Dressed in my knee length cool white night shirt, I ventured to the kitchen for a glass of ice cold water. In the fridge, I took out a bottle and poured it into the tumbler. I pressed the cold glass against my burning cheek with pleasure. It would be another long night thinking of Zayn who slept peacefully in the adjacent room.

When I made my way into my dark bedroom, I closed the door but found Zayn going through his drawer. The splash of light from the moon highlighted Zayn's large build. Suddenly the bedroom shrunk with his presence. I swallowed hard and stood in the far corner watching Zayn dressed in his grey boxers.

"Have you seen my white and black t-shirt? I'm burning hot. I should have bought that fan which was on offer." He complained.

I grumbled something incomprehensively.

He found his shirt and pulled it over his head. "They said it's the hottest day of the year."

"Yeah, twenty-six Celsius." I elaborated. Somehow my mind had a tendency of storying useless information and revealing it when I was nervous. "It might be a mini heat wave with five percent chance of precipitation."