Ask for something else?
She just wanted to be friends with him. What's so wrong about that?
Alexis squinted her eyes in both confusion and a little bit of annoyance. "Am I not up par your standard, Mr. Davenport?"
"No."
"No?" She almost couldn't believe her ears. What did he mean by no?
"And why must I ask?"
Arthur looked at the wind chime hanging on the doorframe of the balcony twirling with the air as if it was much more interesting than having a conversation with her. Alexis felt another gush of annoyance surging inside her. She never felt this absurdly ignored before.
She held Arthur's chin to her own surprise and twisted his neck to look at her again. That single action made her tiptoe as she barely reached his chest with no heels on.
"You're ignoring me," she replied.
"No… I'm not," he again muttered under his breath.
"Then why can't I be friends with you?" Her eyes darted with the same annoyance again, just a little softened by his cool voice growing a little softer for the first time.
Arthur didn't reply, just stared blankly at her. Or maybe the emotion playing inside him wasn't readable enough for her, yet.
"Josh is your friend, isn't he?"
"Yes," he sighed while replying as if regretted being friends with Joshua
"Then why can't I be your friend too? Or are you one of those who say men and women can't be friends?" she quivered her eyes in question, hoping the answer will not come as affirmative. She somehow couldn't imagine his thought process to be that way.
"It's not that…. Ask for something else, Lockwood," Alexis didn't realize she still held his chin as he removed her fingers from them, carefully.
She felt a bit awkward at her dumbness. Going all touchy with the guy who doesn't wanna be friends with her. Good job, Alex.
"I don't have any desire to ask for something anymore. Leave it," she sulked invisibly.
"Lockwood, I insist."
There he goes again with his eyes being all serious and straight boring at her. Why is he insisting on this so much? Does he care too much about his tradition?
Alexis had so many questions to ask but Arthur wasn't giving her enough space for it at all. How is she supposed to ask him all the personal questions about him she had on her mind if she can't be friends with him? She wasn't desperately in need of friends, Rebecca was more than enough for her. But she felt a desire to get to know this man better and friendship was the most suitable equation for her.
"You're stubborn, aren't you?"
Alexis saw him finally relaxing a bit as she dropped the topic of being friends.
"Okay, whatever! I wanted to do a videography on Zevk, it doesn't go against your policy, right? Let me do that the next time I drop by. And also, no taking pictures of you. I'm aware of that," Alexis replied, giving up on fighting against the man who is so persistent about the compensation.
This offer felt suitable for Arthur as he nodded.
Suddenly a ping sound of notification from Arthur's phone broke their attention to the conversation. It was a one-sided conversation anyway. He looked at his phone and instantly she saw his facial muscle flexing in tension.
"Did something happen?" Alexis sipped on her coffee, asking with genuine concern.
"Can I use your cellphone for a minute? Mine ran out of battery. I need to check one thing urgently."
Alexis felt a bit puzzled, wondering what happened suddenly but restrained herself from asking. Would there even be an answer when he is so secretive?
"Here you go," she handed over her phone from her jeans pocket after unlocking it. She didn't have anything inside her phone that was worth going through anyway, so she didn't seem to hesitate while giving it away. In fact, Arthur didn't look like he was interested in her personal life anyway.
She saw him touch the screen a few times before handing it over to her, actions too swift to peek and process what he did.
"Was it resolved?"
"Hopefully."
***
Alexis took a cab from Rebecca's house to her parents home. The weather took a little turn. It was raining.
Pitter patter sound pierced through her brain as she was reminded of a particular rainy day. A few years back, on her semester break in college she stood in the rain for hours outside the student apartment complex.
It wasn't a good memory. In fact, it was powerful enough to overwrite all the good rainy day memories till now.
That was when she got a half-assed message of 'lets break up' from her ex-boyfriend.
It was cliché and yet she waited outside the student apartment complex to see him, to get a proper explanation. She must have been crazy in love to try harder even after breaking up with him. She loved and trusted him so much that she couldn't believe he left the apartment complex six freaking months ago without even telling her.
Why did she have to remember that out of all things right now?
The cab driver shuffled through the radio channel while being stuck in the traffic jam. Suddenly a channel caught her attention as a news report made her halt in thought.
"...Ashford Industries will no longer be the lead for the current…."
"Wait, don't change the channel. Can you please go back to the previous channel? Yeah, yeah, this one," Alexis probed the cab driver but by then the news report shifted to another topic in the split of moment.
Alexis gave up on listening to the news as the one she wanted to hear never came.
She unlocked her phone and pondered before typing a name. Her curiosity finally got the best of her as she finally began typing.
'Ashford Industries'
And it was paired with divorce news of the CEO of the company, Stefan Davenport with his current wife Venessa Vergara.
She found the most famous articles circulating the news and clicked on it.
It described how the marriage of these two were out of business convenience but as for their settlement, the industry value will be divided into half followed by news of the separation over a year finally leading into a divorce.
The news was published almost 5 hours ago. It already got couple hundred thousands of views in this short amount of time.
Why didn't she get any news related to it today? Although she never followed business news for obvious reasons, this was a big news to the showbiz world too. To think it escaped her was too much of a coincidence.
Alexis knew something was wrong about Venessa but she never expected something this intense. She didn't want to waste any energy whatsoever in finding out gossip about their lives anyway, still she felt like a dumb asking Stefan about Vanessa at the wedding when they were already on the verge of breaking off the marriage.
The change of expression on Stefan's facial muscle was so obvious when she mentioned Venessa's name, yet Alexis never imagined the reason to be this serious.
Did she regret mentioning Venessa in front of Stefan?
Yes.
But did she feel sad for them?
Maybe not.
Venessa was a good friend of hers back then, but now too distant to care about. While Stefan used to be someone most important in her life.
Used to be.
She didn't know if she really wished them genuine happiness when she attended their wedding. But she was sure she needed to be there for her own closure. It was selfish of her but she let herself be selfish for once at that time.
Still, business convenience or whatever. They must have had their own story judging how it lasted for six whole years. Even she didn't last that long with the person she claimed to be the love of her life.
He was still her only love of her life anyway. Not because she was still in love with him but never in love after that, never enthusiastic enough to feel that deeply again. The emotional investment she put on that single love was huge and withdrawing that almost killed her from inside.
Why would she want to repeat that same old pathetic cycle for someone new again? She isn't dumb enough for that anymore.
Her thought was interrupted, as a text came into her view. It was from an unknown caller ID.