Dedicating this chapter to Serenity (Princess_Trillmodee), who is an AWSOME friend and a great reader and commenter. I LOVE you girl. You are amazing. Thanks you for being so great to me always. :)

Banner on the side made by thevaliant07, isn't the banner incredible? :)

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CHAPTER - 14

NEW SHADES, NEW EMOTIONS

Two things that I have known best about Adam, in the last twenty years of our friendship were, he hates not being obeyed. If you want to save your a*s, do whatever sh*t Adam asks you to do. And the second was that he hates thin crust pizzas without extra cheese. Just hate them!

Adam was standing beside his car, waiting for me, but the moment he spotted Kim with me, his gleeful expression turned to that of utter confusion. It took him a moment to understand that Kim was going with us to the mall, maybe Kim's completely happy face gave it away. And when he did understand that, he focused all his attention towards me and looked at me with demanding, narrowed eyes.

I shrugged my shoulders forcefully and asked him, "Ready?"

Looking at his expressions of anger, I was sure that I could no longer save my a*s. I had disobeyed him too many times in the last four days. He looked at me with disbelief and opened his mouth to say something. But, before he could say anything, Kim shouted at the top of her lungs, "No can do, Adam. I call Shotgun!"

Clearly, she was completely oblivious to the brooding tension between the two bros and was more concerned about 'calling shotgun'. She ran towards the car, quickly opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. While, Adam looked at her like she was crazy, which she definitely was.

"What?" he managed to say, as he shook his head.

"I'll drive!" I shouted, snatching the keys from Adam's hand and running towards the driver's seat, leaving a very perplexed and raging Adam behind.

"But... but, this is my car," he yelled as he looked at me and then at Kim, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"Not my fault. You should have called 'Shotgun' first. But, no! You were busy checking me out," Kim replied, making me laugh.

I stopped my laughter when Adam looked at me with narrowed eyes and I just shrugged in response. "I was not checking you out," he retorted with clenched teeth.

"Tell yourself that." Kim rolled her eyes and continued, "Now hop on, or we'll leave you here sulking, Eve."

I couldn't help the laughter that escaped my lips at what Kim called Adam. Kim followed me, while Adam was still looking at both of us from outside his car, with a murderous glare.

"What? That was funny." I justified my laughter between my laughs and continued, "It reminded me of elementary school days." After completing my sentence, I laughed much more, which was followed by a much more murderous glare from Adam and questions about our 'elementary school days' from Kim. Of course, I didn't answer her. Had to follow the Bro Code.

"You should be glad that I'm excited about going to the mall," he grumbled, staring at me and grudgingly sat in the backseat of the car. Once my laughter had calmed down, I started the car and made our way towards the mall.

Kim ducked her head between her and mine seats and asked a much stressed Adam, "Why are you excited about going to the mall? Are you excited about doing some shopping, Evie?"

A chuckle escaped my lips and I bit my lips to stop the laughter that was about to erupt from my lips as I looked at Adam's face from the rear view mirror. Adam shot her a deadly glare and said, "Well, clearly you're not a girl and I'm sure that you've never been excited about shopping, as everything you wear looks like it's borrowed from your older fat brother or your father." I saw him smirking at the end as he looked at Kim's face, which I could not see.

"You got it completely right, except that I borrowed these clothes from my older 'fat' father and I don't have a brother." I could easily spot the smugness in Kim's voice as Adam again looked at her with narrowed eyes.

Throughout the ride, Kim kept passing comments on Adam to most of which he replied with but finally shut up when he realized that he couldn't surpass Kimberly Jones in this game, while I kept throwing few comments in between and mainly focused on driving. It was not a surprise when Adam literally ran towards the entrance of the mall, once we reached there.

"Why the hell did you bring her with you?" Adam asked me with accusation in his voice, when we reached the mall and Kim excused herself to go to the washroom.

I rolled my eyes at his behavior and asked him, "Where do you think they must be?"

He clenched his jaw and asked further, "What the hell is wrong with you, Keith? You change your holiday plans for this girl, you bring her to your parents' home. Are you serious? We are not supposed to take chicks to our parents' place. We bang them and say 'Goodbye'. But, all you are doing is literally welcoming her, not only in your life, but in your family's life as well."

"This entire lecture for just bringing her to the mall?" I asked, looking at him with disbelief.

In reply he looked at me like I was crazy and just when he was about to say something, Kim's voice stopped him. "Where are we going?"

Adam gave me a meaningful look and turned towards the opposite direction from Kim. Closing my eyes, I sighed and faced Kim, who was looking around the place. "Where do you think girls like to go in a mall?" I was genuinely curious, as I wanted to complete my mission of meeting Hannah and go out of this place soon. It was obvious that girls liked to shop, but the main question was where to search in so many numerous stores? Only a girl could answer this, and so, I asked Kim.

Without wasting even a second, Kim answered my question, "Food court!"

Adam snorted from behind and all I could say was, "Huh?"

"Girls love to eat," she said like it was a world-known fact, which actually was the complete opposite of what she just said.

I regretted my decision of asking this question from her. "Okay, let me re-phrase." I looked at her and said like I was talking to a five year old, "Where do normal girls like to go in a mall?"

She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment and then rolled them. She answered without looking at me and with a scrunched up nose, "Some designer store to buy clothes or shoes or maybe, Victoria's Secret."

"Right!" I smiled in victory and turned to look at Adam, who was already looking at me with a huge smile on his face.

"Victoria's Secret it is." He grinned.

Nodding happily to him, I grabbed Kim's hand and started tugging her towards the famous store with Adam leading us. "What are you guys doing?" she asked as she tried very hard to free her hand from mine. "Where are you taking me?" People around us were giving us strange looks, and Adam and I just smiled politely at them. "You know, you just have to ask, I can walk on my own." On the other end of the corridor where we were standing, we could spot the pink board that had written 'Victoria Secret' written on it boldly. "Leave me and I'll kill you, Keith. Why the hell are you dragging me?"

When we were ten meters away from the shop that we were sure will make us meet our winter holiday destinations, Hannah and Precious, I felt a very hard bite on my hand and I withdrew my hand from her's in an instant. "Why are you so insane?" I asked her ridiculously as I rubbed the place on my hand where she had bitten and looked at her with my lips twisted up in disgust.

"Why were you dragging me?" she countered back, looking at me with a smug look on her face.

"He likes doing that. He likes dragging you everywhere, even at places where you are not at all required," Adam answered for me, his voice was hard and taunting. I watched as Kim's expressions fell to that of hurt, just for a split second and she rearranged them to that of indifference.

Before I could say anything to either of them, a voice stopped me from saying anything.

"Keith Warren."

I turned around towards the entrance of Victoria Secret and there she was standing, looking greatlydolled up and sexy.

"Hannah." I smirked, nodding my head.

I slowly looked at her from top to bottom and then bottom to top. She was the definition of 'hot' in her skin fitted blue jeans and black leather jacket. Her blonde hair was loose on her shoulders and her green eyes sparkled as she checked me out.

"Take a picture, it lasts longer," I suggested her with arrogance in my eyes. Anyone could tell that she liked what she saw, the same way as I liked what I saw.

She raised her eyebrows a bit, making my smirk grew bigger. "Maybe, I will," she said and slowly approached me.

I looked towards Adam and that was when I noticed him already talking to Precious, well, more like flirting with her.

"Hey Keith," Precious greeted me when she saw me looking in their direction.

"Precious." I nodded a bit in acknowledgement.

"Isn't it so great that all four of us are here at the same time of the year? It's been years," she chirped, looking at Adam.

"Of course, it is." He smirked, looking at her.

All the time, I could feel Hannah looking only at me, which gave a huge boost to my ego that had been wounded pretty badly due to Kim. "What were you guys doing here?" Hannah asked us, but looking solely at me.

To say that we were 'hanging out' would have been the ideal answer to this question, but obviously, Kim didn't think so.

"Adam wanted to buy lingerie for himself," Kim answered the question that was not directed towards her. Our heads snapped towards her and the only expressions that she had on her face were that of 'poker'. Completely blank expressions!

"What?" the other two girls asked in unison. Their voices were perfect examples of bewilderment. I looked towards Adam, who was all red and looking at Kim with eyes as wide as saucers.

"Yeah! That's why we are here in front of Victoria Secret. He swings the other way," Kim answered them and shrugged her shoulders casually. "I thought you girls knew. I mean, it seems that you've known each other for some time." She looked at Hannah and Precious with curious looks and then at Adam with sympathy as she said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that it was still a secret." She was anything but sorry.

All I could do was look at the entire scene in front of me silently. I silently thanked God that it was not me who was Kim's target at the moment.

"Oh Adam!" Precious cooed.

"You are gay?" Hannah asked.

"I always thought so. I mean, you do look a bit girly but I still thought that there was scope and we could be together just once," Precious said, looking at Adam with sad eyes.

"Well, I'm just glad that you came out of the closet," Hannah consoled him.

People passing us gave us strange, horrified looks as they heard bits of sentences that were continuously being said about Adam being gay. Kim and I looked at the three of them with our lips tightly closed as we tried to stop the laughter that was threatening to escape at any given moment. The ghastly expressions on Adam's face were epic.

"Shut up!" he shouted, making the girls flinch and eventually quiet. I looked around a bit and saw that now he had the attention of almost everybody around us. He shot a forced apologetic smile around and looked towards the two blonde cousins that were looking at him with questions written all over their faces, well, not literally. "I'm not gay. I'm very much straight," he said, stressing on each word that he said.

The girls nodded numbly, looking at the seriousness on his face. "But, she..." Hannah started, pointing towards Kim, but Adam interrupted her.

"She is crazy!" Adam exclaimed. "Don't ever listen to what she says."

"I second that." Kim grinned, making me chuckle at her behavior.

"You are weird, Kim," I muttered under my breath with a smile on my face.

But apparently, it was loud enough for Kim to hear, as she turned to face me and said, "I know."

For a moment, I kept quiet and tried to decipher the expressions on her face. It was like I wanted to know what she was feeling, whether it was sadness or happiness, I wanted to know that. "Good weird," I said, looking at her intently, filling the one word gap in my earlier sentence. This brought a slow smile on her face.

Sound of throat clearing made us look away from each other and towards Adam and the two girls. Hannah and Precious were looking at Kim in a funny way. Kim, probably, noticed this and asked me, "Who are they?"

Everybody I knew seemed to have a habit of speaking when they were not spoken to. Adam spoke in my place, "Girls! They are girls. Normal girls!" He pointed towards Hannah and Precious as he said this and stressed on 'normal'.

Kim narrowed her eyes towards Adam while I broke the little tension between them by introducing them to Kim.

After a lot of discussion and stomach grumbling noises, we all decided to go the nearby pizza place.

"I'd like to have salad." We all looked at Precious as she said this and our heads turned to Kim, when she started laughing at her. "What? What's so funny?" Precious asked in defence as she looked at Kim with narrowed eyes.

Kim looked up from the menu and raised her eyebrows in disbelief as she looked at Precious. "Um... the menu? They have jokes written all over." She smirked, waving the menu in front of her and making Adam and me chuckle.

"She's such a kid," Hannah said, looking at Kim with an expression close to that of disgust.

"I know, Aunt Hannah," Kim replied with a sigh and again making Adam and me laugh. Hannah looked at me with raised eyebrows and I decided that it was clever to ignore Kim's jokes if I wanted to bang Hannah. And that's what I did.

"We want a thin crust, tomato and onion pizza without extra cheese," Hannah told the order for Precious and herself. Kim let out a little chuckle again and hid behind the menu that was still in her hands. I looked at Adam, who was sitting opposite me and stopped myself from laughing at the expressions on his face. He was looking at the two blondes with his mouth slightly open.

Just in one day, Adam had experienced both the things he hated the most. "What have I done to experience this all?" he muttered bitterly and closed his eyes as he ran his hand over his face.

"What's wrong, Adam?" Precious asked, keeping her hand on his arm. I watched as she slowly felt his arm and completely forgot about removing her hand from there. Not that Adam was complaining.

Her action definitely calmed him, or rather, aroused him as the bitter expressions from his face disappeared and he smirked, looking at Precious. "Nothing," he answered coyly.

"Pepperoni pizza with extra cheese," Kim declared once she had done complete scrutiny of the menu. "I really have no idea why I even bother looking at this sh*t called menu, when I know what I've to order," she said more to herself as she placed the menu on the table. I smiled a bit, thinking about how I wanted to have the same thing.

The girls were looking at her with horror. "You are going to eat that?" they asked in unison.

Kim grinned and said, "All of it!"

"Oh! My! God! Just looking at it will give me so much fat. So much cheese, my Goodness!" Hannah shuddered and I couldn't help but notice that how entirely different Kim was from every girl I knew, every meaningless girl I knew.

"No wonder you've to wear your brother's clothes to hide all your fat. But, don't worry, if you want I can give you tips on how to stay fit and have a figure like mine," Hannah said with a huge smirk on her face.

The tension between the girls was obvious and Adam and I exchanged looks that said, 'We really need to do something.'

"Father," Kim said after a moment of silence.

"Huh?" was all Hannah could say as she looked at her opponent with confusion etched on every feature of her face.

Kim rolled her eyes at her and let out a tired sigh. "Father's clothes, not brother's," she said, holding her sweater from the neck and pointing towards it.

Once again, Adam and I couldn't stop ourselves from laughing, while the other two girls groaned in disbelief.

'She really is something.' Only this thought clouded my mind throughout the lunch, throughout the catching up of previous summers and throughout all the conversations that Hannah tried making with me.

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"Ice skating?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the expressions on Precious' and Hannah's faces as they said these two words like they were the most deadly words in the world.

"Yup." I grinned.

"No! I don't know how to skate." Hannah pouted and my eyes landed on her red lips.

Smirking, I took a step towards her, all the while looking only at her lips. They were tempting. "I'll teach you," I said and watched as she bit her lower lip and readily agreed.

"Adam, will you teach me how to ice skate?" Precious' sharp voice reached my ears and I turned to look at her. She was clinging to Adam's arm like her life depended on it. I was just happy that Adam was going to bang her, finally. Precious had always been a girl who was easy to get for guys, way too easy, which was kind of a turn off.

"Of course, baby," Adam said, holding her close to his body and pecking her lips.

This was the first time that Adam got it faster than me. Damn! I had to be fast. I had to do something. I couldn't lose this Winter Mission at any cost.

"Let's go!" I said loudly and took Hannah's hand in mine. Adam and Precious followed us, and so did Kim, who was quiet from sometime.

"Just hold my hand and you'll be fine," I whispered in Hannah's ears and felt her shiver a bit at the close proximity between us. A smirk made its way on my face at the reaction I had on her. Slowly, I tried to take her away from the starting zone of the arena, but she seemed to have completely no control over her legs. Her legs were behaving like jelly, moving on their own accord.

On the other side was Adam, who was trying to teach Precious. 'Trying' being the key word here.

I, again, looked at my student who with her continuous whining was making me regret my decision of coming here for ice skating. "Just try, please," I told her, impatience was clear in my voice.

"No," she cried a bit, like I was asking her to walk on fire and not on ice.

I stopped myself from groaning in frustration that I was feeling for Hannah. 'Why does she have to be so whiny? Can't she be cool and easy to talk to, like Kim?' This thought came to my mind.

'What's wrong with me? Why am I thinking about Kim when I'm with Hannah?' I scolded myself, but still my eyes went around in search of a certain brown eyed brunette.

"What are you searching for?" Hannah's voice brought me back and I looked at her again. She was pretty, hot and sexy. Nothing or no one could ever deny that.

"Nothing," I answered readily. "I'll be back in a moment. Try it on your own till then. Okay?"

Before she could answer, I went skating around the arena in search of her, but couldn't find her anywhere. I was getting impatient and uncomfortable, thinking about Kim, and that's when my eyes landed on her. There she was, sitting in a corner on one of the seats, with her head down effectively hiding her face from everyone in the arena. I sighed in relief and skated towards her.

"Hey!" I said.

Her head snapped towards me and I watched as a whirlwind of emotions took place in her eyes. It was relief, disappointment, hurt, happiness, sadness, expectation and surprise. All the contrary emotions were crystal clear in those brown orbs.

"What?" she asked, turning her face away from me and looking to her left.

"Huh? Why... why are you sitting here alone?" I asked.

"My wish," she said bluntly.

"Okay," I said, dragging the 'ay'. I removed my skates and went to sit beside her, on her left where she was so intently watching in order to avoid me.

"Why are you sitting here?" she asked me, looking grumpy.

"My wish," I answered back and smirked as I watched her take in a huge breath and her nose got red due to anger. "Why aren't you skating?" I asked her in a more serious tone.

"I don't want to." She faced her right side, avoiding looking at me.

"Why?"

"What's your problem?" She turned to look at me and anger was evident on her face. "Why don't you just go and teach your Hannah over there? I don't want to ice skate. That's it! Can't I do anything according to my own wish? Just go and have fun with those 'girls'."

I was taken aback at her outburst, but couldn't fight the smile that reached my lips. "You don't know how to ice skate, do you?" I tilted my head to the side with a grin on my face.

Her face turned completely red and she looked in the front again. "Wh... what? Of course, I know how to skate," she stammered and laughed uneasily.

I chuckled and said, "You don't know how to skate and you can't show that to us. You think that I'll feel low of you?"

"No," she said slowly. "I thought... um... you'll think that I'm just like all other girls." She pointed towards Hannah, who was still struggling to even stand on the ice.

For the first time since I'd met Kim, this was the first time that I could see insecurity and lack of confidence on her face. For some strange reason, I didn't like it even a bit.

I got up from the seat and stood in front of her. Holding her shoulders, I made her stand up in front of me. Reluctantly, she looked into my blue eyes and I told her truthfully, "You are nothing like other girls." I watched as her lips parted slowly but no words came out of her mouth. I closed her mouth by keeping my finger under her chin and smirked, "Let's go skating now."

She didn't move even a bit and muttered, "No."

"Why?" I asked her curiously. It was strange to see her like this. Her eyes had fearin them and most prominent was vulnerability. "What's wrong, Kim?" I asked with complete concern, applying little pressure on her shoulders. She was making me worried.

"I... I'm scared of falling..." she whispered, looking into my eyes. It was like she wanted to say something more but stopped herself.

I gave her a comforting smile and my eyes landed on some of her hair that was covering her brown eyes from her left. Unconsciously, my right hand shot up and I tugged those brown tresses behind her ear and kept my hands on her shoulders again. Her eyes widened a bit, but relaxed almost immediately.

"I won't let you fall... alone." I smiled when I saw her smile at what I said.

But little did I know that what I said to her was true. She didn't fall alone; I was the one falling with her.

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A/N

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12th January 2016 - Edited! :)