Chapter - 12

LOVE IS... A MYSTERY

"It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logic or reasons can be found." - Sylvia Nasar

"What are you talking about?" I looked pointedly towards my friend, trying to make her understand my lie. "I love romantic movies." I stressed way too much on 'love' and looked towards the devil, who was still looking at me with a wicked smirk on his handsome bearded face. 

 "Why won't you? You are the writer of the 'Love Column' after all." Jacob frowned a bit. 

I shot him a smile and added, "Exactly! That's why we are going to watch some romantic movie now." 

Steph laughed a bit, still oblivious to my lie and Jacob grinned looking at her, while Ashton still chose to glare in my direction. "I want to watch If Only," Steph told us and jumped towards the television. She didn't look anything like she did this morning and I was glad about it. She looked happy, not over the moon, completely happy but a lot better than earlier. 

A growl from my left made me look from Steph to Ashton as he looked majorly pissed off at the moment. "We are going to watch this only and not some lame romantic movie," he said with his jaw clenched. "This is one of my favorite movies. Heath Ledger was incredible in this one," he commented and I wanted to nod my head in a 'yes' readily. But, no! This was my chance of making Ashton watch a romantic movie and maybe, just maybe, he would get the slightest bit sad after watching this movie. Maybe all his 'love is sh*t' version was nothing but a facade. 

Narrowing my eyes at him, I went towards him and hissed, "Ashton!" 

"What?" He was back to glaring at me and for a moment, I again pondered over the cause of him being so angry at me. 

I glanced towards Stephanie and Jacob to make sure that they were not looking in our direction and found them looking through the stack of DVDs to find the DVD of 'If Only'. With narrowed eyes, I hissed at him, "Steph just broke up with her friend... um... or boyfriend, whatever you want to call him. So let her watch the movie she wants to." I was dead serious as I told him this. She had been a good friend by watching one part of the batman series even though she was going through an emotional turmoil, and now it was my turn to bear romantic movies in her support. Add to that, I had an advantage of making Ashton watch this movie. 

He raised his eyebrows at me after nodding his head in understanding and asked, "Then why were you not watching such crappy movies earlier?" 

I searched for an answer in my mind while he looked at me skeptically. Furrowing my eyebrows, I answered him, "I didn't feel like and I wanted to divert her mind from that jerk." 

He nodded his head and mumbled, "Good." 

I was left speechless for a second or two at the very little yet unexpected compliment from him as it was the first I had heard from him till now. "Yeah," I mumbled back and sat down beside him, biting my lip suddenly feeling a bit taken aback. I looked at Ashton whose eyes were gazing in deep interest at the walls of my living room or rather at the various photos of my family that I had pinned on the walls."There is nothing interesting in my life," I told him in a little voice. It was true. My life was dull and boring. 

 He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, "I don't think so."

Before I could say anything in reply and interrogate him about what he meant by that, a sudden vibration made me jump slightly. I looked back at Ashton and saw that he was still looking at my pictures from afar with deep interest, not taking notice of the vibration. "You are vibrating," I told him. 

"What?" He looked at me incredulously. 

I let out a tsk and reframed my sentence, "Your phone is vibrating." 

He gave me a deadpanned look along with a glare that made me feel like a fool and I just grimaced in return. He took out his phone from his jean's pocket and I glanced at the screen, intentionally, to see who was calling him. 

'Mrs. Parker' it flashed and my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I noticed Ashton clenching his jaw very tightly and roughly sliding the phone is order to reject the phone call. After that, he simply switched it off while all I could do was stare at him in slight shock.

'Was that Priscilla, his mom? Didn't he want to talk to her? Was something wrong between them? Maybe they had an argument or some disagreement about something. Most probably about this stupid assignment only and maybe that's why he looks so pissed off today.' I couldn't help but wonder as I stared at his tensed features.

But then, maybe it wasn't his mother. Why would anyone keep their own mother's name saved by their last name? 'Pretty sure that it wasn't Mrs. Priscilla Parker,' I told myself.

Steph came back after putting the DVD in the player and pressed the 'Play' button. "It's been really long that you watched this movie, right Lia?" she asked with a little smile on her face. Before I could answer her in affirmative, she said something that made me want to rewind everything and tell her the complete story of my humiliation, without leaving out any single detail. "As far as I remember, you haven't watched it after your break up."

I knew my friend's intentions were most certainly pure and she was obviously happy that I had finally agreed to watch a romantic movie after a long time but showing this happiness in front of Ashton was just wrong, really wrong, especially when he was unaware of the truth.

As expected, Ashton's head snapped towards me at the speed of light with wide eyes and shocked expressions on his face. While all I wanted to do was go and bang my head on the nearest wall for being so negligent and plain stupid.

I, somehow, forced my lips to stretch in a grin while I removed my gaze from Ashton and glared at Steph. "Yes and then we got back together and watched this movie together," I lied through my teeth, silently warning her to utter even a single word more. She had said enough for the day. Seriously.

Again as expected, she looked at me with furrowed eyebrows and Ashton chose to stare at me and notice my reactions. Jerk.

I looked back at him and fluttered my eyelashes at him with a huge grin on my face. He just raised his eyebrows at me as if something had suddenly gone wrong with me. I couldn't blame him.

"Let's watch it now," I said way too excitedly and then scolded myself for being so fake and probably giving away the truth with this kind of behavior.

Unfortunately, nothing in my life had been going according to me since the last few months and this time, too, my best friend went against my wishes by opening her mouth and saying something I had never expected her to say, "Ashton, why don't you go with Liana to her cousin's wedding?"

"What?" I almost yelled in sudden shock.

'What in the world is wrong with her? Can't she, for once, keep her mouth shut?' I wondered as I stared at her with my mouth and eyes wide open.

"Yup." She grinned and continued, "Seth's wedding is day after tomorrow, that's Saturday. Why don't you go with Lia as her plus one?" She had a little smirk on her face as she looked between Ashton and me. If I wasn't a person against violence, I would have stood up and strangled her with all my might.

"Why would I? Shouldn't she go with her boyfriend?" he asked incredulously. "What's his name? Nylon?" He smirked, looking back at me.

"What?" Steph asked in a very confused state as Ashton mentioned about my non-existent boyfriend and I begged her with my eyes to just shut up till Ashton and Jacob were her.

Having the three of them together in one room was not good for me, not at all.

"Nolan; his name is Nolan." Though, I liked his version way better. With a forced smile on my face, I answered him with yet another spontaneous lie, "He is not in the country currently and will be back after two weeks."

"Wow! Really? Where is he?" he interrogated.

Being the 'Friends' fan that I had always been, I said the first name that came to my mind, "Yemen."

All hail, Chandler Bing!

Steph hid her giggles with coughs when I shot a glare in her direction. Just as Ashton was about to say something, I snapped at him, "Why in the world are you so interested in knowing everything? Come with me, if you want to and if you don't, it's perfectly fine."

"Then 'fine' it is because I'm really not in favor of attending a funeral of a young man," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

A frown etched on my face and I realized that making him watch a romantic movie was actually really important.

Thankfully, that's what everyone decided to do by starting the movie except Ashton who still chose to stare at me with his scrutinizing gaze. I tried my best to ignore it but it wasn't possible. With him sitting so closely to me and him staring continuously at me, made me sweat. Had he caught my lies? Would he think badly of me? Would he judge me?

'So what if he judged you? How does that matter?' a little part of me snapped at me.

It was right but the truth was that it did matter to me. Maybe because I was doing an assignment with him and still had to spend the coming fortnight with him. Yes, that was the only reason.

"Stop it," I whispered, not looking away from the television screen, when I felt his eyes fixed on me for about five minutes.

"Why?" he whispered back. From the corner of my eyes, I saw him smirk, that stupid, annoying smirk "Caught lying? Are we, Lia?"

My breath caught up in my throat at his words and for a split second, I didn't pay attention to what his words were other than 'Lia'. How did he make my simple name sound so... nice?

I swallowed the huge lump that had suddenly formed in my throat and with all my will, turned to look at Ashton with straight face and unblinking eyes. "You're living in an illusion, Ashton. Why do you want to prove that I am lying? Why do you want to prove something that's completely wrong?" I asked in a harsh whisper, glancing towards Steph and Jacob as they were engrossed in the movie.

His smirk grew bigger as if enjoying the entire ordeal and he whispered back as if it was a secret, "Maybe because you are lying."

My jaw dropped a bit but I tried to look as unaffected as I could because of his scrutinizing gaze set on me. And again we had our little staring match started and once again, it was my phone that snapped us out of it.

"Jerk," I hissed and got up to grab my loudly ringing phone from the coffee table.

"Ms. Uptight." I heard Ashton mumble and found him smirking happily when I threw a very sarcastic smile in his direction. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I stared at the name of the person calling me.

'Priscilla Parker'

Recalling the rejected call on Ashton's phone a few minutes ago, I looked towards him. He raised his eyebrows in question when he saw me staring at him. Shaking my head, I went inside my bedroom. 

"Hello?" I answered.

"Liana, how are you?" she asked sounding a bit relieved.

"I'm fine. How are you?" I stared down at my bed that was covered in a beige colored bed sheet as I stood just at the door frame.

She chuckled a bit and answered, "I have been better. How is the assignment going on?"

My thoughts drifted back to everything that had happened in the last three days and today, everything from Ashton's rude first greeting to the two 'no comments' meetings with the girls we had had; from my lie about my happy relationship to him almost catching my lie. "Fine," I answered after a pause of about a minute.

She sighed and asked while pausing in between in reluctance, "Is he co-operating?"

'He is the king of co-operation,' my sarcastic self wanted to say but I instead said, "He is moody. It's going fine." I decided against telling everything to Priscilla. Whatever was happening, the deal and everything was between Ashton and me, not somebody else.

She hummed slightly and asked, again with reluctance and care in her voice, "Is he okay?"

Involuntarily, my eyes went towards Ashton who was still sprawled on the couch and watching the scene where Sam enters Ian's meeting to give his diary to him. "He's great," I mumbled, staring at his lips and intense eyes that were staring back at the television screen. His left arm was resting on the head rest of the couch. The brown t-shirt he was wearing somehow made him look much more handsome than he already was as it complemented his hair and was in contrast with his eyes. The muscles of his arm were a sight enough to make any girl on the planet drool. He was undeniably very gorgeous. In that very moment, his head snapped towards me, making me blush dark red due to being caught while checking him out.

Save my soul! Why in the world was I even checking him out?

He narrowed his eyes at me and smirked. "Boyfriend?" he mouthed, teasing me.

Contradicting my blush and a little smile on my face, I rolled my eyes at him and focused on my favorite painting in my bedroom. The painting was one of the finest pieces of the current famous artist, Zacchaeus. Nothing and yet everything about this painting was extravagant.

"Really? That's so good to know," she replied as if she couldn't believe what I had just told her. She sounded really very happy and relieved.

For some reason, my mind drifted back to the phone call that Ashton had so angrily rejected. "Did you call Ashton a few minutes back?" The question left my mouth even before I could think about it. Why was I prying? I shouldn't. Why did I just ask this when I knew that it was not something that concerned me in any way? I shouldn't have.

Before I could apologize for prying in her private life, she answered in a low voice, "Yes."

"Oh!" I muttered feeling uncomfortable about this. "He was in the washroom. I'll ask him to call you back immediately," I lied. I had no other option. How would any mother feel if she would know that her own son rejected her call? My mother would have been terribly hurt, not that I could ever cancel her calls so angrily. I looked back towards Ashton who seemed a bit relaxed now, unlike the time he had received that call.

She chuckled a bit but it was humorless. "He hasn't answered my calls since months, Liana."

"Oh," I mumbled in sudden shock. "Um... I didn't know that."

'Because you left out this very important part while giving this assignment to me,' I thought but didn't say out loud.

"It's okay. You probably didn't know anything about it. Anyways, I just called to ask how things are going on. Oh and if you want any kind of help, feel free to ask Dylan or me. We know it's very hard to deal with Ashton."

"It's not that hard," I responded even before I could comprehend my words in my mind. Did I just defend Ashton? Did I just defend the guy who has been the root cause of my humiliation since last few days? What was wrong with me?

Priscilla, too, seemed surprised at my words as she replied, "Wow, really? That's good then." There was an awkward silence for a minute as I still tried to understand my own behavior. She broke this silence. "I'll get back to you, Liana. Good luck."

"Yeah," I mumbled, absent mindedly and cancelled the call.

Confused at my own actions, I went back in the living room where all three of them were watching the movie. Ashton moved slightly to his right to make room for me on the couch he was sprawled on. "What's wrong?" He glanced at me.

"Nothing," I mumbled in reply and tried to watch the movie with them.

Ashton, thankfully, dropped the matter and focused back on the movie. "F*ck," he cursed when Sam died and I turned to look at his stunned face. He looked back at me with his jaw dropped open and glared at me. "The lead died in thirty minutes of the movie. What the f*ck is wrong with this movie?"

Steph and Jacob chuckled at his outburst and I, very calmly, asked "Are you watching it for the first time?"

"Yes." He frowned a bit.

Rolling my eyes, I suggested him, "Be patient."

With narrowed eyes, he turned back towards the screen. As expected, five minutes later on appearance of Sam, his reaction was very funny, just like Ian's. The movie went on and on, and eventually, I got engrossed in it. By the time it ended, I realized I was slightly teary eyed. To get rid of my unshed tears, I blinked my eyes rapidly. This movie had always managed to move me, like no other could do.

Steph, unlike me, didn't control her tears and sobbed freely. One of the main reasons of her tears was Shane, I figured. Jacob was looking at her and then me with wide eyes. He seemed clueless about what he should have done. Deciding to help him, I looked towards Stephanie and then him, making him understand that he should most definitely try to make her tears stop. He got the message and focused on her, after shooting a smile in my direction. "Holy sh*t, Alice. Don't worry when Jasper is here," he told her, grinning his adorably infectious grin which effectively managed to gather Steph's attention as she smiled a bit.

With a little smile on my lips, I shook my head at him and glanced at Ashton who was again looking at nothing in particular and seemed lost in his own thoughts. "Liked the movie?" I asked, curious to know whether watching this emotionally stirring movie had any impact on him. If it had, it would prove great for the assignment.

He frowned as he looked at me and shook his head. "Not really," he answered and for some reason, my stomach dropped a little. "Anyways, why this crap? Why not 'The Notebook' or 'A walk to remember' or such other sh*t?" he asked, looking mildly curious.

I didn't feel like answering his question and asked from Steph, "Do you want to have something? Should I cook or order?"

She shook her head and the person to whom this question wasn't directed, decided to answer, "Cook Italian. I'm hungry."

I shot Ashton a glare and told him, "I'm not cooking for you." With that I stood up and went inside my bedroom to go the adjoining washroom. Upon locking the bathroom door from the inside, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Why was I being so moody? Why was I being so rude? In short, why was I behaving like Ashton?

The answer probably lied in the fact that my mind had been in a mess since morning. First it was about trying to calm Steph, then surprise visit of Ashton and Jacob, then lying more lies in order to keep my first lies safe and secret, Ashton's unreasonable pissed off mood, Priscilla's call, defending Ashton in front of his own mother, watching my favorite romantic movie, the movie I had avoided watching since a long time, and knowing that Ashton was cold hearted as he didn't like the heart wrenching movie at all, thereby making this assignment all the more difficult and unachievable for me. My emotions were all over the place.

"What have I got myself into?" I asked myself as I drowned in the self made lake of self pity. Shaking my head at the many thoughts in my mind, I washed my face and after drying it, went in my bedroom.

A gasp escaped my lips when I noticed Ashton standing in my room, looking at my favorite painting with deep interest. He glanced at me and then back at the painting. "Where did you get this from?"

Keeping my eyes on him, I walked and stood beside him, facing the painting. "Someone gifted this to me," I told him, staring the intense mix of colors that this canvas was. It was way too expensive and I could never afford it. Heartiest thanks to my cousin, Seth, who had gifted it to me about a month ago.

Ashton didn't say anything further and stared at it, just like me. The painting had touched me to the core when I had first seen it. Maybe because I got it when I was going through a terrible heartbreak and it felt like I understood the deeper meaning the artist had hidden somewhere in the eyes of his subject. Nothing about this painting was as clear as the eyes. They spoke volumes about betrayal; they echoed in pain; they shouted about the loneliness and the feeling of being rejected. It was all there. It was beautiful about how an artist could capture all such intense emotions in one frame.

"You like it?" he asked in almost a whisper. My gaze flickered towards him and I saw him staring at the painting with utmost intensity as if he himself could understand the meaning behind this painting.

Could he? Was there a possibility that there was a lot more to Ashton Parker than what he showed to everyone; a lot more than what the world thought about him? What was the story behind his behavior? There had to be something, right? Nothing in this world was without reasons. I had come to hate love because of the betrayal I had experienced by the person who had been the centre of my world for the last six years. Had he, too, experienced something like that for being the way he was now?

'He hasn't answered my calls since months, Liana.'

Priscilla's words rang in my head and all I could do was wonder that what must have gone so wrong to cause a drift between them. It was so obvious that Priscilla loved Ashton. He voice, expressions spoke volumes about it. While Ashton, on the other hand, was cold about her and almost everything around him. Why? Why did his mysterious ways interest me? He was a dark mystery.

"You like it?" he asked again, looking back at me with his piercing grey gaze. I blinked as I stopped staring at him and brought back my wandering mind to the current situation in hand.

"I love it," I whispered and looked back at the painting. Ashton didn't say anything and after so many tensed and irritating moments since his arrival in my apartment, we let the comfortable silence dominate us. "I like 'If Only' better than any other romantic movie," I said in a low voice, answering his earlier question as why this crap and not some other movie.

"What is so special about it?" he asked in his own low voice which was not rude but calm and curious.

"The fear, the realization that you might lose your love very soon and what all you are willing to do in order to not let that go. It tells us that we take everything and everyone in our lives for granted. We don't value the little gestures of our loved ones as we should and when they are gone, we regret everything. We remain angry and don't talk to people who care about us. We get so blinded by anger that we don't care about anything else at all. And the truth is that we can lose them any given moment as life is really very unpredictable. It is not a story about love; it's about the fear of losing that someone. That 'someone' can be the love of your life, your friend or your parents." I looked back at Ashton as I said the last word and his stance became tensed ever so slightly. "Why wait for the last day or last moment of someone's life to tell them what they mean to us, when we have every day and every moment to express it?" I questioned him and that's when he decided to stare back at me.

I stared at him with questions that had suddenly developed in my head, the questions I so badly wanted to have answers of, while he kept staring at me with his grey eyes that gave away nothing at all, irritatingly so.

"Love is a mystery," I whispered, giving him the definition of the day.

His lips twitched up ever so slightly and he responded, "Mysteries are not necessarily miracles."

"Maybe this one is," I replied back, not taking my eyes off of his.

He chuckled slightly and stared down at me with his mysterious eyes as if he knew something that I wasn't aware of. And again, his gaze unnerved me. Blinking my eyes rapidly, I stepped back from him and cleared my throat. "Pasta or spaghetti?" I asked referring to his demand for Italian food. His eyebrows shot up and a very little but heart fluttering smile graced his lips. He was beautiful.

'And a jerk, your client, and your boss's son,' my sane mind reminded me.

"Whatever you like," he answered shrugging his shoulders.

I smiled at him as it was good to not see him boss around for a change and said, "Spaghetti." With that, I shot him one more smile and started moving towards the kitchen.

"I'll help you." I heard him, and stopped dead in my tracks. I turned around to look at him and saw him rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm, anyways, getting damn bored," he clarified.

"Do you have fever?" I asked him, wide eyed. "Or has the sun risen from the west? Where is the Ashton I know?"

He rolled his eyes at me and muttered, "You don't know me at all." Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he said, "You know, I won't take long to back off from helping you. The offer lasts for hardly five seconds." He narrowed his eyes at me, playfully and walked past me in the living room.

"I accept the offer," I said, laughing a bit and joining him in the kitchen while Stephanie and Jacob spent that time talking away in the adjoining balcony. During cooking the meal with him, I realized that having Ashton around was not that bad as I had eventually thought.

Yes, he was rude, moody, a huge pervert, lacked basic manners, and was good for nothing, but truly he was not 'that' bad. Soon, I knew that if given a chance, I would not shy away from defending Ashton Parker, again.

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A/N

There was SO MUCH going on in this chapter. Damn it! It was really very tough to write about so many things. Urrgghhh... Hope you all enjoyed it.

Stephanie really can't keep her mouth shut. :D

And what about the little warming up moment between Ashton and Liana? :D What do you think about them? Tell me!!!

VOTE, COMMENT & FOLLOW.

Thanks <3