CHAPTER - 19

LOVE IS... A LIE

'Hate is a four letter word. Love is a four letter lie.'

Day -7

"What did you do then?"

"After the dinner, we went for a stroll and talked about each other. It was a wonderful night, Lia. He is so sweet and attentive. I can't even explain," Steph gushed from the other side of the phone as I picked up a Nutella bottle and placed it in my cart.

A smile covered my face. Of course, Jack as per his previous day name, was very sweet and anybody could enjoy to the fullest in his company. His infectious grin was enough to lighten up the entire town's mood. I felt happy to know that Steph was happy, but again, my mind drifted to the fact that he was probably just a rebound for her and he didn't deserve that. But neither did Steph deserved to be as unhappy as she had been with Shane. She deserved to be happy and she seemed to be smiling a lot since last few days when she met him. "That's great, Steph. So what did you call him during your date?"

"I called him by his name," she said in a 'duh' tone.

I pried again and asked, "And that is?"

"Jack," she answered, making me stop in the middle of the shopping aisle for a short second. "Sweety, I know you are smart and all, but I'm not that stupid too. I told you I'm not supposed to tell you his name."

My shoulders slumped in defeat as my attempt of knowing Ashton's best friend name just went futile. "Good. That's good."

She laughed at my defeated voice. Rolling my eyes at her, I turned towards the aisle of fresh groceries. "You tell me, how was your wedding date with Ashton?"

My cheeks turned red at the mere mention of the wedding that reminded me of the kiss, and I thanked God that she was not in front of me to see the blush on my face. "It was all good," I told her, keeping the information to the minimum.

"Anything special?" she asked and I could literally sense the smirk on her face because of her tone.

Special? I didn't know if it was special or not, but it was unusual. But I decided against telling her about anything related to Ashton, and diverted the topic by answering, "Oh yes! I met Mike."

"Who Mike?" she asked in a confused tone.

I picked up some spinach. Didn't she know Mike? I had met Stephanie in my second year of college where we had same Literature class, but had I never mentioned Mike in front of her? I decided to ask her and clear up my doubts, "You don't know Mike?"

"I know me!" A voice from behind me said, making me jump in surprise.

"Who knows me?" Steph asked, sounding all confused from the other side of the line.

I ignored her and looked up at the person who had said this. I gasped in surprise, "Mike!"

"Who the hell is Mike and how does he know me?" Steph asked again, now in frustration of not knowing something.

"Hey Liana." Mike grinned and came towards me.

"Hey! How are you?" I asked from him, forgetting about my confused friend.

"I'm confused and frustrated," Steph replied, her tone justifying her answer.

At the same time, he replied, "Great."

I grinned and replied to Mike, "That's good to know."

"It's good to know that I'm confused and frustrated? What is wrong with you, Lia? And who is Mike?" she groaned, making me grimace.

I glanced at Mike and told him, "Wait a second. Okay?" He nodded and I focused my attention towards my whining friend. "Steph, I'll call you a bit later. I have bumped into Mike here at the grocery store," I told her in a low voice, so that he couldn't hear anything.

"Mike Mike Mike? Who the hell is Mike?" she asked again and for a moment, I realized that her reaction was a bit justified as we had repeated 'Mike' way too many times in last two minutes.

"Will tell you everything later. Love you, girl." With that I cancelled the phone and turned back to Mike with a bright smile on my face.

"You were talking about me," he stated with a teasing grin as if it was some sort of achievement.

"No!" I lied in an instant, though my cheeks reddened slightly at being caught red handed. "I was talking about Mike..." He raised an eyebrow in amusement at my sentence and fumbled with my words, "You don't know Mike? Everybody knows Mike. My colleague Mike. Yeah, Mike - my wonderful, wonderful colleague, Mike."

An awkward pause settled during which my conscience rolled her eyes at me and Mike just stared at me with raised eyebrows. After that he laughed slightly and said, "So what are you doing today?"

"Grocery shopping." I smiled and realized how completely dull and boring my life just sounded. Before he could judge me, I asked back, "What about you?"

He chuckled and pointed towards his cart. "Same." A little sigh in relief escaped my lips and he asked, "We have a lot to talk about. Let's go somewhere." Before I could even think about refusing his invitation, he added, "Let's go for coffee. There is a nice café nearby."

The word 'coffee' was enough to make me nod and thereby, agree with him. "Sure."

We finished whatever was left to shop in our respective lists and ended up going to the nearby café within the next half an hour. It was a nice cozy café and was almost full with all its tables occupied, except for two, one at the entrance and the other at the far end. We took the table at the far end and soon a girl in her mid twenties came to take our orders. Once she went away, I looked around the café and noticed little things about its décor and found them really endearing.

The sweetest part was the little note with a compliment given to the customer with their orders. It seemed like they paid attention to each customer and write down a little compliment. The note that came with my coffee read, 'You have the prettiest green eyes that have seen this café.'

I passed a genuine toothy grin to the waitress who returned it back and placed Mike's order in front of him. His note read, 'Shall I tell Ivy that you were here with some other girl?' I laughed out loud at the note and Mike just shook his head with a chuckle, though his cheeks turned red. The sight was cute.

"Tanya, meet my friend Liana. Liana, meet Ivy's best friend. Tanya," he introduced us and we both passed each other huge smiles. The environment of this placed was positive and I was pretty sure that this was going to be one of my favorite cafés from now on.

"I'll catch up with you later. Have to go to the counter. Call me if you need anything," she told us and we nodded, after which she walked away to fulfill her duties.

I stared at the note they had given me and realized how wonderful this idea was at brightening any of their customer's foul moods. It was genius. I took a sip of the coffee and sighed in content. "This is my new favorite place," I declared.

He laughed and took a sip of his coffee too. "This is Ivy's favorite place as well. Tanya owns it."

"Wow! Really? That's nice." I smiled at him. "Tell me about Ivy?" I asked out of curiosity about the girl who had managed to steal Mike's heart.

My question brought a smile on his face and he started, "Ivy... umm... she is a wonderful person and quite opposite to me, actually." He chuckled to himself and with a far off look on his face, continued, "She is an artist by profession and I met her when I had to manage her exhibition. She was sh*t scared of me initially."

I laughed with him at the end and added my input, "Who wouldn't, Mike? You can be a little intimidating with your pervert ways."

"Touche!" He chuckled, keeping a hand over his heart in mock hurt. "She is in Prague currently for an exhibition. She'll be back on Tuesday. Would you like to meet her?"

Slight laughter erupted from my lips and I looked at him wide eyed. "Are you kidding me? I would love o meet her."

He answered with a grin and said, "That's great. She is a bit shy but I think you both will get along pretty well."

"I'm looking forward to meeting her then," I told him genuinely with a smile on my face.

He stared at me for a few seconds with a little smile on his face and I raised my eyebrows in questioning manner. He chuckled at my expressions and answered my unasked question, "It is good to see you back."

"What do you mean?" I asked, resting my hands on the table between us.

He imitated my actions and replied, "What I mean is that it is good to see the Liana of high school back in front of me, not the quiet, reserved and lost Liana who used to just focus on her loser boyfriend and not even care about herself, forget about others.

My smile faltered for a second as I took in his true words. I had really lost myself somewhere in that relationship. And now that I was back, I couldn't help but be thankful for the first time in last four months that that relation came to an end. This thought brought a smile on my face that I was pretty sure nobody could wipe off.

For some reason, I realized that this sudden positivity in me had taken birth in the past one week; after meeting Ashton Parker. It was bad, really bad that all I could think about since morning was Ashton or something related to him. Before I could think about the pros and cons of my next action, I picked up my phone from the table top in front of me and messaged him, 'Hey! How are you?'

Undoubtedly, I cursed myself and slapped my forehead the moment I pressed the 'Sent' button for sending this message. I could imagine his ego reaching new heights upon receiving the message from me. 'He must think that I am missing him... yeah, right!'

I took a sip of my coffee and waited for his reply, keeping my gaze fixed on the phone quite nervously. In about half a minute, my phone vibrated in my hands and I unlocked the screen to read the message. It read - 'Missing me?'

I thought about replying with the truth but fortunately, I knew how to utilize my brains in such weird situations, so I replied, 'Don't flatter yourself. I just wanted to inform you about our meeting tomorrow at twelve. Be ready.'

'Yes, Liana, you've a really sexy a*s but that doesn't mean that you'll any bullsh*t and I'll blindly believe you.'

My cheeks turned red after reading the first part of the message but after completely reading it, I frowned and wondered that how in the world were these two sentences even remotely related. Asking him about the same would have been even more embarrassing and futile, so I dropped the idea. So, I replied with a 'Shut up!'.

Day by day, I was getting creative with my responses. Note the sarcasm.

'Didn't I tell you that I don't work today? Now let me laze around and sleep some more. But yeah, if you want to join me in my bed, you know that you are most welcome.' His highly lethargic and pervert message was accompanied by a winking smiley which again, made me blush.

'Take care, Ashton. See you tomorrow.' This is what I replied with as I had no idea about how to react to his pervert remarks especially after the kiss yesterday. My mind was literally a mess.

"Am I that boring, Liana?" Mike's voice brought me back.

"Sorry. Really sorry," I apologized whole heartedly for being rude to him.

He laughed slightly and shrugged. "Now worries. I was messaging Ivy in the meanwhile."

Slight laughter erupted from my lips as well and my eyes fell on a person sitting at the other side of the café, on one of the tables which was right next to the entrance of the cafe. His usual grin was pasted on his face as he talked to the girl sitting with him. I briefly wondered what his name of the day would be and decided to call him as Jack Sparrow only. The girl, from what I could see from the distance and in the crowd, looked pretty with her blonde hair cut in a really cute bob cut. Before I could assume anything about their relationship, Jack looked out of the glass walls of the café and waved his hand, calling somebody inside. I followed his gaze and soon, my happy facial features turned into really confused and surprised ones as I saw another familiar person on the road, coming towards the cafe.

My eyes stayed fixed as Ashton in a dark green t-shirt and faded blue jeans entered inside the café in his trademark 'not even the devil cares' attitude. Shooting a slight smirk towards the girl, he hugged her lightly and flipped a bird in Jack's direction, which earned him laughter from both Jack and the girl.

My eyebrows furrowed in deep confusion as I stared at his back and my mind wandered the conversation I had just had with him hardly five minutes back. His place was a good twenty minutes away from this café. There was no way that he could have come here at the speed of lightening. The only explanation of his presence in this café was that he had lied to me. But why?

He sat down between them with his back facing me, and Mike took that very time to snap his fingers in front of my eyes. "That's Ashton. Your date from yesterday, right?"

I looked back at him with the frown still fixed on my face and repeated myself, "He was not my date. God! What's wrong with everybody? Steph, Seth, Laura and even you thought that he was my date. And my 'supposed date' thought that you were my date." I rolled my eyes in sheer annoyance as at the end I was still date-less and looked back towards Ashton's table.

None of them seemed to have noticed and seeing Ashton here made me really upset. My shoulders slumped down and a sigh escaped my lips as I watched him converse with the other two people on his table. I could notice that it was mainly Jack and the girl who were talking, but I couldn't really tell as Ashton's back was towards me.

Wasn't he supposed to not work on Sunday? Wasn't he supposed to just laze around his apartment as I was not there to disturb him today? Didn't he want a day off? Didn't he just message me saying that he was going to sleep some more?

The answer to all these questions was a big fat 'yes'.

And that 'yes' gave birth to a new yet very important question which was, 'what is he doing here?'

"Okay, Liana, you're kind of creeping me out with your constant staring." Mike's words made me look back at him and I ran my fingers through my hair only to tie them in a high ponytail again.

"Sorry for spacing out," I mumbled, grimacing a bit in embarrassment.

"Would you like something else?" Mike asked, tilting his head to the side with a slight smirk on his face. He was probably enjoying my confused state.

"Uh... no," I replied, again looking towards Ashton's table. My restlessness was sparked when Ashton and the girl got up from their seats and went out of the café, not even glancing back. Ashton dug his hands in his jeans pockets and walked beside her as they talked about something. My eyes remained trained on them till the time they turned to the right, out of my line of view.

Suddenly, a hand was waved in front of me to break my concentration and I looked at the person to whom the hand belonged. It was Jack Sparrow, Ashton's best friend. "Hi Kate!" He greeted me with his huge grin plastered in his face and sat down on the empty seat between Mike and me. Both of us looked at him in confusion which didn't falter his grin even for a second.

I knew better than to correct him, so I introduced him to Mike as Jack. I decided against making a fool of myself by introducing him as Jack Sparrow. That would have been weird.

"Christian," he corrected me.

My head snapped towards him and I asked, "What?"

"Grey," he completed with his trademark grin.

"Oh God! Really? I asked incredulously in complete surprise with my eyes wide as saucers and my hands covering my mouth.

"Yup!" He resumed a serious face and said, "Since the time I've met your best friend, Anna Steele, I'm feeling horny, needy, horny, desperate, horny, violent, and horny. I'm Christian Grey."

"That's way too many hornies in one single sentence," I told him in slight amusement while Mike kept on looking at him with wide eyes.

"Yup. Too many hornies is equal to one Christian Grey. That's me."

Laughter erupted from my lips at his explanation and I told him, "Don't call Stephanie as Anna Steele. Please!" 

"Don't make such faces, darling. You are Kate. And Kate had great sexual relation with my brother Elliot, who by the way is Ashton," His face brightened with each work he spoke, while I didn't know whether to slap some sense in his head or laugh at his absurdity.

I told him with very serious expressions, "I don't know what's more weird; you reading Fifty Shades of Grey or you comparing our lives to that book."

"Kate, my darling, this entire world is weird," he answered with equally serious expressions. After completing his dialogue, he grinned again and said to himself, "I'm so in character today. I should go and meet Anna."

"Oh shut up!" I rolled my eyes at him while laughing at his antics and decided to put an end to my curiosity. "What was Ashton doing here with you? And who was that girl?"

"Who?" he asked, taking a bite of my cupcake.

"Elliot! What was Elliot doing here with you?" I repeated, looking at him dead panned.

His grinning face changed into a frowning one and he asked, "What are you saying? He wasn't here." He got back to eating the cupcake. "This stuff is good," he commented.

"What? But I saw him!" I told him as he lied through his teeth right in front of me.

He frowned again and said, while shrugging, "I don't know what you're talking about."

I looked at Mike for his support as he had seen Ashton as well but he was too lost in staring the weirdo named 'Christian Grey' in front of him to understand anything. First it was Ashton who had lied to me, and now his best friend too. Realizing that they didn't want me to know the truth, I decided to let the matter slide and not talk about it.

But there were two things that didn't stop bugging me till the end of the day. The first was, why did he lie to me? And second was, why in the world was I hurt, upset, feeling rejected, and most of all - jealous?

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A/N

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