London is Pink

Chapter eight

JORDYN

"I'm sorry."

It had been forty five minutes, or maybe an hour, since my beloved teammates had locked me in a room with the person I hated the most. We'd opened the box containing the puzzle, and tipped all the one thousand pieces out onto the floor. Dele had picked out all the bits that looked vaguely like the tree that filled at least a third of the picture. He'd then carted all of them off to the other side of the room, and after much argument - ("You need to do it close to the rest of the puzzle!" "The floor's flat, I can slide it along." "It will break!" "No it won't, stop being dramatic") he finally settled down to put them together.

I worked on piecing together the house which was on the other side of the picture. I quite liked jigsaw puzzles, and I attempted to focus all my attention on that, avoiding the turbulent thoughts that flooded my mind. It worked, too, until Dele decided to speak.

"Why are you sorry?" I frowned, glancing at him.

His brown eyes were focussed on his tree, his brow furrowed.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I just feel like I owe you one."

I shook my head.

"Not cutting it, Del. I need an explanation."

He groaned, finally turning his gaze on me. I rested my back against the far wall, and fiddled with one of the puzzle pieces, waiting for his answer.

"I'm sorry I kept antagonising you," he said at last. "I know it's nearly always me who starts it when we fight, so uh... yeah. I'm sorry."

I sighed.

"I'm sorry too. It's not just you, I've been acting like a kid as well. I know I'm really competitive, you just... you make me so angry, sometimes."

Dele smiled at this, but said nothing, and turning back to his tree, he placed the last piece in triumphantly. Then he set about sliding it along the smooth floor, towards where I'd begun on the rest of the puzzle. It wasn't as easy as he'd made it out to be - parts of it kept breaking off, and he had to fix it several times on the journey over. I watched his progress, and bit my lip to prevent smiling at the look of concentration on his face. He was purely focussed on what he was doing, and I felt my cheeks heating up as I realised this was the Dele I associated with those moments we'd had previously. This was the side of him that part of me, however unwilling, was partial to.

He grinned at me cheekily when he'd finally connected his tree up to the house, and I rolled my eyes, my smile finally escaping. Dele sat down beside me, back to the wall, and turned to look at me. I avoided his gaze, but he tilted my chin gently so that I was looking at him.

"What," I murmured.

"You told me to let you know when you were ready for peace," he said, his eyes flicking over my lips, making his intentions perfectly clear.

When we'd been in these situations previously, I'd felt confused, and nervous, angry even. Today, whilst my heart was beating faster than usual, I felt calm. I didn't know what had changed. Perhaps it was the fact that we'd both had time to accept that the emotion we'd channeled into hate might actually be something else. Regardless, I didn't want to make this decision. This was on him.

"Ball's in your court," I said.

He smiled at me, but I barely had time to appreciate it before there was the sound of footsteps, and a banging on the door. The two of us sprang apart guiltily, as Danny's voice spoke.

"Hey! You two finished the puzzle yet?"

"Yes," Dele lied.

"I don't believe you," the voice retorted.