Page 7 of The Rival in South Africa
Butsosatisfying.
Alex bent over with a soft grunt, and his hand reached out, attempting to keep himself upright. It happened to land on my knee, and he was lucky I didn’t push him off. I was too busy tilting the screen of my laptop so he couldn’t see anything else.
“What were you doing? Sneaking up on me? Snooping over my shoulder?”
Alex’s hand was hot through my trousers, his fingers curled around my thigh. It reminded me of how he used to squeeze hard just above my knee back when we were schoolmates, guaranteed to make me squeal and wiggle away. Casual, harmless flirting.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I wasnotsnooping….” He trailed off at the sharp eye I gave him. “Okay, fine, I was snooping. You were looking so intently at the screen, and I have no idea what you’ve been up to lately.”
“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”
Alex stood, removing his hand from my knee. “Come on, Nikki. I’m sorry.”
I pursed my lips.
“Didn’t kneeing me in the stones make up for it?”
I fought a smile, then rolled my eyes and sighed. “Fine. Go grab a seat at the gate. I’ll pack up and meet you there.”
He glanced over at the gate where there were half a dozen people spread out around the hundred or so black leather chairs. “I’ll wait.”
I slipped off the chair and pulled my headphones out of the jack, forgetting that the video was still playing.
“—BOKEH EFFECT, YOU WANT TO SET YOUR APERTURE AS WIDE AS IT WILL GO.”
I scrambled to open my laptop and navigate around the thirty tabs I had open to find the YouTube video that continued to blare. Heads turned. Conversations stilled.
Ugh. I wasthatperson.
I cut off the guy as he was espousing his favorite fast lenses. “Sorry. So sorry,” I said, making eye contact with a few nearby people who’d been disturbed. My cheeks were radiating heat, and I carefully packed my stuff up while taking deep breaths, willing my face to cool down faster.
I slung my backpack over one shoulder and stalked past Alex, refusing to look at him. He picked up his bags—a sensible but new backpack and duffel bag, I noticed—and sullenly slumped into the chair across the aisle from me. I was often the receiver of Alex’s broody stares, a look he perfected in secondary school after that fateful first kiss of ours.
I ignored him.
“Still helping Ion with his Instagram, I see.”
“I’m not—” I stopped myself. If Alex wanted to believe I was researching photography for Ion’s Instagram, I wasn’t going to dissuade him from that idea. “Bokeh is very popular on Instagram right now.” That was true.
Alex crossed his ankle onto his opposite knee. “So, what are you doing now, Nikki? Aside from helping Party Boy?”
Crap. I really should have come up with some kind of story. I hardly wanted to tell him I was filling my days with photo shoots and online lectures. Maybe I should be taking a class on subterfuge.
“Helping my mum out.”
“With what?”
“Church?”
An eyebrow quirked. “Is that a question or an answer?”
The question is will you believe that, and the answer is no.
I sighed. “Neither.”
We had a few moments of awkward silence where I looked anywhere other than Alex. Kids ran around, people coughed, talked on the phone, bought overpriced candies and boring paperback novels.
“Still running?” Alex asked, forcing my eyes back to his.
