CHAPTER - 31

MAKING HER SMILE

"Which of these?" Andy asked with a huge grin covering his face.

I stared ridiculously at the t-shirts in his either hands as he waved these clothing items in front of me. "None of them," I replied and turned my back towards him to exit from the room where he and Farah, the makeup artist, had been torturing me for the last one hour.

"But why?" Farah asked in a loud voice.

Not even two hours had passed since we settled in this five star hotel and I was already feeling hell tired. Thanks to Andy and Farah.

Sighing heavily, I ran my fingers through my hair to control my temper. Once I thought I had succeeded, I turned around to look at them. Both of them were looking at me with huge eyes and slightly parted lips. They looked like they could not believe that I loathed the clothes they had presented to me in the last hour. Honestly, there was nothing surprising here.

"What makes you think that I would want to wear any of these?" I asked with a bored tone.

Andy audibly gasped at my question and looked at me with much wider eyes, if that was even possible. 'Well, because they are of your favorite color - pink and its family shades," he answered, motioning towards the piles of clothes that were now scattered everywhere in his room.

"That is the damn problem. They are either pink or something horribly related to it," I told him in a bit louder voice. The last one hour had taken a toll on me. Suddenly, his entire sentence registered in my mind and asked, "Wait! Pink? My favorite color? Who the f*ck told you that?" My voice and expressions were the perfect examples of shock and ridiculousness.

"Kimberly," Andy answered plainly.

Hearing this, a smile threatened to erupt on my face and to cover it up; I ran my hand through my face. "Of course, she did," I mumbled, lightly chuckling at the end.

"Did I just hear someone saying my name in their prayers?" I heard her voice from behind me. I turned around and gave her the best glare I could give while doing my best to not smile at her.

Her expressions changed like a perfect power point presentation as she slowly took in the entire scene in front of her. The grinning face with which she had entered in the room changed to that of slight confusion when she looked at me glaring at her; this confusion changed to narrowed eyes as she slowly moved her head around the room to see the scattered pile of different shades of pink; the narrowed eyes soon converted to huge eyes and tightly closed lips when she understood what the entire issue was all about; it was like she wanted to laugh out loudly but definitely controlled herself in front of Andy and Farah; she looked back at me and grinned sheepishly while scratching right behind her right ear.

Just as I opened my mouth to question her, she brought both her palms in front of her eyes and shouted dramatically while trying to hide behind her palms, "Oh God! My eyes! Save my eyes from exploding! Oh! No! This will make me suffer from Pink-pneumonia." She was acting perfectly like a person who had been living in a dark room for ten years and is suddenly made to face a lot of lights.

A chuckle escaped my lips and ordered her, "Cut the act!"

Slowly, she removed her palms from over her eyes and peeked at me. When she noticed the little smile that had managed to make a comeback on my face, she removed her hands entirely and grinned at me.

"Care to explain?" I asked, motioning towards the clothes. In response, she opened and closed her mouth several times but failed to answer in a sensible way. I sighed and told her, "Forget it!"

She sighed in relief and muttered, "Thanks."

Rolling my eyes with a little smile on my lips, I asked her, "Will you just tell them what colors would be better other than this crap?"

"Oh! Sure!" she chirped. She looked at Andy and smiled. "Blue; something blue when we do the beach photo shoot."

"Why blue?" I asked, cocking my eyebrow at her.

"It brings up your eyes and it looks great on you," she replied nonchalantly, paying attention back to the camera that was hung on her neck with a strap.

I heard Andy and Farah huff and start discussing something behind me, but my attention was on Kim, who was still busy checking something on her camera. This was the first time ever that I had heard her praise me or my appearance. It was a huge confidence boost for me and I was not going to let this opportunity go. Not a chance!

Just as I thought this, Kim looked up from her very interesting camera and said, "See you guys later!" With that, she turned around and started moving out of the room.

Yes, I was definitely not going to let this opportunity go and that's why I sprinted after her. "So, you think that I look great in blue?" I asked with mock-curiosity in my voice. She stopped dead in her tracks for a second as if realising what she had said inside the room and then, resumed walking in the corridor. "Or you think that I've sexy blue eyes that would make the photo shoot incredible if you add up the blue of my eyes, clothes and the sea?" She didn't respond, making me smirk as her cheeks slowly reddened. My smirk bigger as the color spread on her cheeks and I continued with complete modesty, "Actually, I don't think that you think any of these." I kept my scrutinizing gaze on her face but she gave away nothing except the red color as she continued looking at her camera. We reached the lift and I followed her inside it.

The elevator was empty and I stood right in front of her, facing her. Once the elevator closed, I leaned a bit towards her so that my mouth was close to her ear. Very discreetly and yet unwillingly, my nose filled up with her smell and I found myself wanting more. She stood still due to close proximity between us. I wanted to be closer to her. The distance was not helping either. It took me a moment to find my voice back and I whispered in her ear, "You think that I'm always sexy." I felt her shudder and a satisfied smirk made its way on my lips. I stepped back lightly so I could look at her face. Her eyes were closed and she was no longer holding her camera. "Right, Kim?" I asked in a whisper and this made her snap open her eyes. She immediately took a step backwards and looked at me with something very strange in her eyes.

Her movement was like a bucket of ice cold water being thrown at my face.

What the f*ck was I thinking? What in the world was I doing? What the hell was wrong with me?

As if moving away from Kim would have given me the answers to all the questions that were racing in my mind, I stepped back from her. Just on cue we heard a 'ding' of the elevator and it halted. A few people stepped inside, making me turn my back to Kim and face the doors.

'What? Why? How?' I asked myself in bewilderment, not knowing what exactly I had to ask myself. Kim's face kept popping up in front of my eyes and even though, she was standing merely two steps behind me; I couldn't bring it upon myself to turn around and look at her. 'You are engaged to Veronica, Keith. You love her.' I reminded myself. It was pathetic that I had to remind myself this. 'And so is Kim. She is engaged to that Josh-sucker-Stark. Whatever just happened was probably due to the fact that we are from different sexes and were in a lift alone. Yup! That's it. No need to give so much heed to all this crap.'

While I was busy telling my mind all this, I felt somebody shake my arm. I turned to my left and saw Kim looking at me with raised eyebrows. "What?" I asked her and in response, she pointed towards the doors with her chin. Following her motion, I shifted my gaze from her to the doors and saw that they were open. The murmurs and the slight irritated glances that the other people around us were giving me finally settled in my head and I realized that it was the fifth floor; the floor where both Kim and mine rooms were. Grimacing slightly, I stepped out of the elevator and so did Kim.

Silence took over as we moved towards our rooms. Once we reached her door, she took out her card and opened the door. "See you later?" she said, well more like asked.

"Yeah!" I breathed and started moving towards my room that was located two rooms ahead of her's. Just as I remembered something, I turned around and called her, "Kim!"

She had still not shut her door completely and asked, "Yeah?"

"Come in my room at six this evening," I told her. She raised her eyebrows in question and I continued, "I've to show you something." Her expressions changed to that of disgust mixed with horror and she shuddered slightly. Rolling my eyes at her dramatics, I turned my back towards her and told her over my shoulder, "Ha! In your dreams, Kim. In your dreams!" Sound of her laughter reached my ears and my lips twitched up on their own accord.

Nothing was weird between us. We were back to being the normal Keith and Kim. It was good, again.

*******

My eyes drifted from my laptop to the girl sitting on the edge of my bed and shaking her left leg in impatience. She was eyeing me with an irritated look on her face as she kept looking back at the wall clock and then at me.

"Patience!" I told her for the umpteenth time in the last half an hour just as she was about to open her motor mouth again.

She huffed in annoyance and grumbled, "Patience my a*s!"

I laughed at her reply and diverted my attention back to my laptop's screen. I rubbed my hand in anticipation as I waited for her to come online. She was usually never late but it was already thirty minutes past six. I had no problem waiting for her but Kim definitely seemed to have a huge problem in waiting. Patience was not her forte.

"Why the hell did you call me here when you had some stupid work on your laptop?" she asked, not at all trying to hide the irritation in her voice. Of course, I hadn't told her the reason why I had called her here.

In reply, I shushed her by keeping a finger over my lips and not even glancing in her direction. She made a grumbling noise and got up from the bed. Before I could say anything to her, she started moving towards the door to get out my room. Just in that moment, I spotted a green dot with her name, showing that she was online and called Kim, "Come here, fast!"

Hearing my urgent voice, she forgot all her irritation and impatience of the last half hour and came sprinting towards me. In the meanwhile, she came online and started waving her hand towards me with a tired smile on her face. The sounds were off so I couldn't hear her. Kim was completely unaware of who I was waiting for the last thirty minutes. I could have told her but I wanted to be a witness of the expressions on her face when she would see the person.

She reached me and sat down beside me to look at the screen. The look of pure surprise and joy was a lot more than I had expected. Hailey's eyes were wide as saucers in disbelief and she had covered in mouth in shock. All the tiredness from her face had completely disappeared in thin air as her eyes landed on Kim. The tears of joy started flowing from her eyes and I was quite sure that nobody could stop them.

Kim on the other hand had the biggest grin on her face and her eyes were dancing in pure happiness. "Hailey?" Her voice depicted that she couldn't believe that it was her.

Hailey recovered from her emotional stance and removed her hands from her mouth to wave them towards Kim. "Kim? Is it really you?" Her voice was choking in between because of all the tears that were flowing freely from her eyes. Kim nodded in reply and laughed lightly. "Oh my God! I thought I would never see you," she continued, making me realize that seeing Kim was equally unbelievable for her as it was for me.

Kim shrugged her shoulders and changed the topic swiftly. "How are you? How is Brian?" she asked, leaning towards the laptop that was placed on the table.

"We're doing great and so is Brian junior." Hailey laughed, mentioning about my three and a half year old nephew.

"My goodness!" Kim covered her mouth in happiness and started clapping in joy. "I want to see him!" I shook my head at her behavior even though, I failed to hide the smile that had managed to appear on my face. The happiness, excitement, joy and bliss that was surrounding us was infectious.

Hailey too laughed and replied, "He is out with Brian. I make sure to chat with Keith only when Adrian is not home." She looked at me with narrowed eyes while saying this, making me laugh.

"Why?" Kim asked, looking between the laptop screen from where Hailey was burning holes in my head and me.

"Kim, he is a terrible uncle!" she exclaimed.

"Hey!" I tried to protest, but she continued.

"Shut up, Keith." She rolled her eyes at me.

"I want to know." Kim pressed, obviously finding something fishy and funny in our conversation, probably my expressions gave it away. It was undoubtedly damn funny.

Hailey started narrating the story to a very excited audience - Kim. "A month back, he visited us here. Brian and I had to go to a dinner and I really thought that my little brother has grown up. I mean, c'mon, look at him." She motioned her hand towards me and I ran my fingers through my hair and fixed my t-shirt collar in complete attitude and arrogance. Kim laughed at my actions, while Hailey tried to hide the little smile on her face. "But, no! I was so wrong." She raised her voice, making me laugh harder and making Kim's curiosity rise to one more level.

"I was just trying to be a good teacher," I said between my laughter in an attempt to defend myself.

"Teacher my a*s!" I laughed harder as I heard Hailey curse after such a long time. Ignoring my laughter, she focused back on Kim and continued, "When we came back after about three hours, everything was exactly like what we had expected. Keith was sitting on the couch with Adrian and watching Doremon with him. The only problem was my son trying his best to sing a nursery rhyme."

"What's wrong in singing a nursery rhyme?" Kim asked, completely oblivious to the rhyme I had taught my nephew.

"Nothing is wrong, Kim. But if you hear 'Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Nine months later they came down with a lovely daughter' from your baby boy's mouth, trust me, everything is wrong!" Hailey gave a very exhausted expression at the end, making me laugh again.

"Seriously?" Kim asked, looking at me. Her eyes held humor, she was trying her best to stop the laughter that was about to erupt from her lips. I nodded my head slightly and with that she no longer tried to hide her laughter. "That's so f*cking creative!" she declared.

While Kim and I were busy laughing and wiping the tears from our cheeks, Hailey had somehow stopped laughing or saying anything. This made me look towards the laptop screen and saw that she was looking between Kim and me with a huge smile on her lips. Her smile was not for the incident she had just shared but for something else; something I was scared to think about; something I didn't want her to think about; something that was not true and was very impossible.

"You know, Hails, Kim is getting married," I informed my sister, before she could think of any scenarios in her head. I knew my sister damn well.

Her smile vanished and she looked towards Kim with a quizzical look on her face. Kim confirmed the news by nodding and showing her ring finger to Hailey. "That's... great! Congrats!" Hailey said while glancing at me for a second. She smiled again and asked Kim, "Who's the lucky guy?"

And so the conversation started between Kim and Hailey. They filled each other about so many things, from Kim's engagement to Hailey's baby. After a while, I stopped listening and being an audience to their talks.

Hailey was not a stranger to my feelings towards Kim. She had known about everything I had done and gone through in the past years; everything that was past now. And I was not a stranger to the love that Hailey had towards Kim. She had missed her. I was just very happy to see the smile on her face. I had planned this call to see that smile on Hailey's face and to surprise her. But then, why were my eyes fixed on Kim the entire time? Why the happiness and joy on her face still mattered to me so much? The two hour video call made me realize that the Kim I had once liked was still here. No matter how much she tried to hide her in herself in front of everyone, she had undoubtedly failed to do the same in front of me and I liked it.

Looking at the grin on her face at the end of the call, I knew that I was going to be somehow successful in making this trip memorable for her.

She looked at me and just as she was about to say something, I interrupted her, "I'm not over yet."

"What?" she asked, shaking her head slightly with the hugest grin on her face.

I held her hand and made her follow me as I exited my room and went downstairs in the parking. Throughout the walk, I didn't let her hand go and neither did she try to free her's.

Once we reached the spot, I stopped a few meters away from the surprise that was waiting for her. Slowly, she freed her hand and took slow steps towards it. It was obvious that she couldn't believe her eyes. She reached near it and touched the bike with her fingers as if she was afraid that it would disappear. The bike that I had managed to hire was the exact replica of the bike on which we had rode around Miami years back. It was the exact replica of her bike. With trembling hands, she caressed it and looked at me.

I took steps towards her, not breaking eye contact. Upon reaching her, I grabbed her hand again and handed her the keys of the bike.

With a face filled of whirlwind of emotions, she looked at the keys in her hand and then at me. I watched as her eyes filled with moisture and a very small smile made its way on her lips. With that very genuine and beautiful smile, she whispered, "Thank you!"

I couldn't find anything to say, not even a word and shrugged my shoulders as if all this was absolutely nothing.

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A/N

Wattpad Prize 2014 entry. Please VOTE, COMMENT, FOLLOW & spread a word about this story if you like the story. :)

I'm terribly sorry for the long delay, but I was unwell & still am. :(

The story is about to end in about 5 chapters! :'( Did you guys like this chapter? I'm not in a mood to write a long A/N as I'm feeling very whiny today! *sobs*

Please VOTE & COMMENT! You can also check out my short story 'Engraved in My Heart', you can find it on my profile page. Hope you guys do read it as well. :)

Thank you!