All 496 Side of Me

To Joe

Heyyooooo. Hope you enjoy this part brainiac peeps 💛🌻

***

It was decided. I wanted Joseph. I actually wanted him. For real. No hunch.

Everything he did, he did with elegance, grace; his eyes sparkling with a glint of playfulness as he spoke to me. His head dipping low when he had to tell me something quietly. The edge of his hair touching my nose, making me blush embarrassingly.

No men ever made me feel this way.

Sure there were good looking people, and maybe Joseph wasn't the most good looking of them all, but he had that charm. The charm that could get him out of any kind of trouble.

He had those eyes. He had that manner.

When Joseph spoke, I could not take my gaze off him.

'This, my Cherie, is a bottle of Sherry. And you say you've never tasted an inch of it.'

Joseph pondered over giving me the wine glass.

I tried to snatch it from his hand but he lifted it high up, away from my reach.

'Here's what you need to do', he grabbed my hand. Pressed the glass to the surface of my palm. 'Take a sip. And then, describe it to me. Not the flavours. Describe to me what it makes you think of. What it reminds you of. All that sweet ingenuity of yours, that passion, I want to know everything. Clear?' He whispered.

I had to stop myself from gulping as I nodded.

Joseph, good looking? Hah!
More like, good licking.

He moved away from my personal space and I let out a breathe that I didn't know I was holding.

He kept his gaze at me all the time, as I sipped down the drink like an ultimate young lady, keeping - the most important touch to the arts of flirtation in check - eye-contact, not letting my lipstick touch the wine glass by any chance.

Or maybe I could just keep my lipstick mark on the glass so that Joseph could take the last sip and he could in-an-ultimately-non-sexual-way kiss me . . . hah!

Nah. That wasn't me.
I decided to just wait it out for an actual kiss. I didn't want anything but the real deal anyway.

'What do you think?'

I closed my eyes.

'I think . . . I'm thinking of a beautiful trip in Bali, or Hawaii. I'd love Bali better. Or maybe Mauritius. But, I'm at a tropical island. And I'm wearing my favourite plum coloured foxy swim wear from fashion nova. The one they wanted me to try out and make an ad of last week, but heck I still didn't do it. It's a pretty hot plum colour though. The sun is shinning off my body, I'm wearing large pink shades. My hair is . . . brow- no, it's bronde. And I'm laughing. Like literally laughing. Almost like . . . chortling. It's a genuine cry of laughter. And I'm not much of a real smiler. I'm squinting my ey-'

'Joseph, bro, someone's just showed up dressed like J.K Rowling and now there's a commotion'

I snapped my eyes open and glared at the person who interrupted us.

'Excuse me, who ARE you?' I exploded at the stupid excuse of a man who interrupted my time with Joseph.

'Who are YOU?'

'Me? ME? You're asking M-'

'Noraline, this is my friend, Max', Joseph frowned at me. Frowned at me. 'Max, this is Ms Noraline Imogene.'

Max didn't even give me a second glance as he took Joseph aside without asking my permission and I, like the stubborn goat I was, glared at their backs.