The thin line [Complete]

Chapter 7

Arthit's POV

I might have to concede in this one instance that Kongpob was better than me at arranging potential romantic rendezvous. Actually, much, much better. Pretty much no comparison whatsoever. This was the third weekend in a row when he a engineered for him, Preet and me to hang out with his drummer friend. And although the pretense was for Preet to meet her dream musician, he gave more than enough opportunity for me to spend uninterrupted time with her.

Except I am a complete dimwit. Dimwit being a fairly mild word to describe me. Everytime Kongpob would manage to conveniently leave me alone next to Preet I would get tongue tied and awkward and I would spend the rest of the time silently listening to her gush about the hunk of a man showering her with attention.

How exactly are these young kids such smooth talkers? I barely manage to say two sensible things and here between Kongpob and his friend Mike, Preet seems to be bursting with giggles almost non-stop. So with another awkwardly silent car drive once I was done dropping off Preet after all of us were done 'hanging out' for coffee I marched straight to Kongpob's apartment and beat his door vigorously, and barely waited for him to answer before I marched right in to begin my tirade.

"Yes P'Arthit why don't you come right in. I would like nothing more than you barging into my room at 11 on a Friday night."

"You need to do something about this Mike fellow."

"What would you like me to do about Mike?"

"Get rid of him for starters. Isn't he some hot shot musician? Why does he have so much free time to hang around with us? Tell him to buzz off and go sign autographs or something somewhere."

"Are you sure it is Mike who is the problem?"

"Of course. He keeps talking to her and...and...being all charming."

"There are a couple of million other men in the city too. Would you like me to get rid of them too? Just in case they have any left over charm."

"I don't think you are that talented. Let's just stick to Mike for now."

"Are you seriously going to blame me for your complete ineptitude of talking to a woman? I actually feel bad for P'Preet. Leaving you alone with her, she actually ends up answering more work questions than during her regular work day."

"Are you going to help or not? Mind you I haven't pulled one prank on you for 3 weeks. I even let you go home on time once in a while."

"Oh how will I ever survive such benevolence?"

"Do you want me to go back to the old days again?"

"Fine, fine. Tomorrow after lunch, Mike, May and I will mysteriously end up at the wrong movie theatre. That will give you and P'Preet all the alone time you need for the rest of the day. You sure you will be able to handle it? Or do you need me to also have the birds and bees conversation with you?"

"No thanks, I'm good. Just make sure the three of you buzz off after lunch."

And before he could respond I barged out the door and towards my apartment. And to be fair to him my inability to talk to Preet had very little to do with Mike or anyone else for that matter and everything to do with me having nothing really to say to her outside of work. I was almost having second thoughts about this elaborate scheme of throwing the two of us together repeatedly. Maybe it was all a futile venture and it was wise to give up sooner rather than later.

But whatever my misgivings were, it obviously didn't stop me from taking extra care in dressing up for my potential date with Preet. Now all I need to do is get through lunch with the annoying lot before I get some quality time. I have even compiled some note cards with conversations topics. I couldn't possibly be a disaster today.

So I was extra antsy all through lunch. Desperately looking at my watch every five minutes. And after what seemed like eternity we had yet to even place our order. Oh lord, today was going to be torture. We were still waiting for our dishes to be brought out when Kongpob briefly left the restaurant to answer a phone call. And obviously I followed his movement out the door cause I need him to return as soon as possible to dilute Mike's overwhelming presence, but for the very first time in the three weeks of our odd group hang outs did I notice Mike's eyes following his steps too.

In fact nearly the entire time that Kongpob was on his phone call right outside the restaurant, Mike had his gaze trained on him, with a weird expression on his face. It wasn't until Kongpob was making his way back to the table did Mike finally relax and turned back to the girls to resume the conversation. That was.....weird.

And from that moment onward for some inexplicable reason my eyes kept getting drawn towards Mike and his wholly unexpected reactions around Kongpob. Are friends supposed to be sitting so close to each other? Was it just today or have they always had less than an inch between them? And from then onwards it just kept getting weirder. Like how every second morsel from Mike's plate somehow ended up on Kongpob's place. It was surprising that he wasn't hand feeding Kongpob himself. Or how he leaned a little too closely to whisper things into his ear. What possible secrets did they need to be discussing at a lunch table with all of us sitting right here.

In fact I almost choked on my food when Mike eventually reached out and brushed Kongpob's lips for some stray rice grains and then kept lingering his fingers there for a few good extra moments for absolutely no reason. Is no one else watching what I am seeing? This is not normal friend behavior at all. But apparently no one but me was even aware of Mike's a little too touchy feely hands. Maybe the two of them were a lot closer than I earlier realized. But I don't care how close you are with your friend there is no reason to be his virtual shadow. And the more I thought back to the brief three week interaction I had with Mike the more clear it got that he was generally stuck to Kongpob's hip.

No wonder it was so easy for Kongpob to get me alone with Preet. This Mike fellow was more than happy agreeing to leave with Kongpob whenever he suggested a detour for them alone. And here I was worried about him being all charming towards Preet, where as he rarely ever stopped looking at Kongpob for more than five minutes.

Yeah, definitely weird.

"Arthit......Arthit...."

"Huh?"

"Are you sure you are ok to drive? You looked like you had kind of dozed off into some faraway land for a moment there."

"Yeah, yeah. I am fine. You know actually now that I think about it, I think we are heading in the wrong direction."

"What do you mean? We are almost at the theatre."

"No I mean I think we are going to the wrong theatre. I remember Kongpob mentioning them going to the one on the other side."

"Are you sure? I thought we decided this one."

"Yeah, I am sure."

And luckily we managed to pull in the parking lot almost at the same time Mike parked his car. And when all of us bundled out of our respective seats, Kongpob stared at me with a deep frown before silently mouthing the exact same question running through my head.

"What are you doing here?"

Seriously, what was I doing here?