Chapter 56: "Time or Practice?"

Many apologies for the delay. I'll make up for it. A BIG, BIG shoutout to sunrays_moonlight for all the love.

More of this in the A/N.

Without further ado, comment your reactions as you read!

First Draft: July 2018

Zayn was waiting for Salma to show up when his phone rang with an incoming call from an unregistered number. Frowning, he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello dog," an extremely annoying voice taunted. "Enjoying her snubs to your advances?"

It was Thomas.

Zayn's features turned stony when the rat's laughter rang in his ear.

"Now what does a gutter rat like you want?" Zayn growled.

"Respect, pup, show some respect," James drawled. "My call might just be the answer to all your problems."

"If I don't hear a useful word coming out of your mouth in the next ten seconds, I'm hanging up."

"Be my guest," James replied, "but then again, you'd never find out how to stop her cringing away from your touch."

"What're you talking about?" Zayn snarled, feeling his blood boil with jealousy.

"Calm your woof-woof!" James laughed, before sobering up. "Oh dear, it sure is amusing to see you be so clueless –"

"You scrawny piece of --"

"Easy, easy pupper! She's not used to a man's touch, much less a hound's, such as yourself. It takes her a lot of time to get used to the idea. It took her ages before she finally accepted the fact that I'll embrace her every time we see each other. So yeah, I've got that privilege now. I get to hug her. She hugs me back, just to let you know. We hug--"

"Are you about done?" Zayn seethed.

"Aww, do I hear jealousy?!" James snickered.

"Go to hell, Thomas!"

"Will you join me --"

Zayn cut the call, breathing heavily. He saw red in his periphery. He kept getting reminded of the time when James had wrapped an arm around Salma's shoulders and turned around to mock him with a smug smirk on his face.

Zayn was desperately trying to dissuade his sudden anger when James called again. Zayn ignored it. His phone started ringing a third time. This time, it was a different number. Glaring at the device, he picked it up.

"Who is this?!" he snapped.

"Zayn, its Dean!" came the rushed reply. "I'm sorry for James's annoying call. Please, I just want to talk!"

"Talk!" Zayn spat angrily.

There was a moment's pause, and then Dean cleared his throat uncertainly.

"Listen, we figured Sally would be uncomfortable around you --"

"She's not!" Zayn snapped.

Another very awkward pause punctuated the call.

"Okay. . ." Dean trailed off, quite obviously not buying into Zayn's claim. "but she wasn't around us in the beginning so we thought we could help incase it's the same for you."

"Why would you care?!" Zayn challenged.

"Honestly mate, I don't care about you but--" He stopped when James started talking in the back ground. "And James said neither does he."

"Honored, and the feelings returned," Zayn replied sarcastically. "With passion!"

"Lovely, but Sally has decided to stay with you so we want things to work out for her," Dean replied. When Zayn didn't respond, he took it as his cue to continue. "She only gives in to a man's touch when she's extremely cold, or extremely scared."

Zayn raised a skeptic brow, then scoffed.

"Thanks for pointing out the shortest way to hell, but I happen to have a brain," he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

"Then use it," Dean replied promptly. "So far as I know, there had been times when she accepted your embrace. When was it?"

The never-ending dial tone reverberated through his ear as Dean hung up on him. Zayn was rendered speechless as the images of the times Salma found comfort in his embrace flashed past his mind.

That of the very first time, in the forest after he had found her hiding from the beast in that bush . . .

Inside that hollow tree, shortly after, when they were fleeing the X-Raw men . . .

In the car when the men with guns rammed into their vehicle . . .

She had only ever let him hold her when when she was extremely scared.

***

First Draft: August, 2018

Not comfortable with the idea of causing Salma distress just to get a hug out of it, Zayn decided to talk to Sarah. Salma still had about half an hour left in her meeting with her professor and fortunately enough, Zayn found Sarah on the bench by the oak alone. Zayn hesitated for a moment. After the sniper attack, he had been avoiding the grounds subconsciously. He had only frequented the benches to talk to Salma – who had restarted her habit of sitting by one of the oaks.

Making sure Salma was nowhere around, Zayn stumped his paranoia and made his way towards the Snob.

"Where're you going?" Niall asked, as he followed after Zayn and took a sharp left.

"Want to talk to Snob," Zayn muttered.

Niall's shoulders slumped, but he continued following in any case. He didn't like being around Sarah. She intimidated him.

"Assalamo'Alaikom," Zayn greeted as he slid on the bench across her.

"Hi," Niall muttered.

"Bye!" came Sarah's swift reply, typing away at her phone. "I'm busy."

Niall froze halfway on his way to take a seat beside Zayn.

"I won't take long," Zayn said. "Bee seems uncomfortable around me. I need to know why's that?"

Niall turned to Zayn with frown, just as Sarah looked up from her screen with a raised brow.

"What did you do?" they said in unison.

"Excuse you!" Zayn cried. "Both!" he added, turning to Niall. "Why do y'all just assume I'm the problem?"

Niall chuckled and slumped beside him.

"'cause you are?" Sarah provided.

"Not this time!" Zayn said, annoyed.

"Take it easy," Sarah said in a bored tone, resting her head heavily against one of her hands as she continued reading through her phone. "What happened?"

"She's . . ." Zayn hesitated, then added uneasily, "She's uneasy with my touch."

He saw Niall and Sarah look at each other, and then look away as if struck by a lightening.

"Give it time," Sarah mumbled, not taking her eyes off of her phone.

"Give it time, or give it practice?" Zayn asked.

Sarah sighed putting her phone down and rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.

"How about give it practice with time?" she suggested.

Zayn sat back, feeling unsatisfied with her reply.

"Look, she's a tad unfamiliar with this couple thing, and the two of you have a lot of history so it'll naturally take time and a lil getting used to," Sarah reassured him. "I'm sure it's just that and nothing that she's got against you specifically."

"She told you this herself?"

"No."

"Then what if you're wrong?" Zayn asked.

"Dude, she chose to remain married to you when she was asked if you should be told to bugger off! What do you make of it?"

Zayn said nothing.

"She clearly likes you," Sarah said. "Maybe not all of you, since no one right in their head would like all of you, obviously. But she probably liked something about you."

"Thanks!" Zayn said sarcastically.

"You're welcome, now leave." Sarah replied, picking up her phone again. "I've got things to do."

"You sure she likes him?" Niall asked, frowning as he thought about the possibility.

Zayn gave him the stink-eye, feeling betrayed by the amount of faith his best friend was showing in him.

"Yeah," Sarah replied in a distracted, can't-be-bothered sort of a way.

"Hmm." Niall pursed his lips, looking past her as he kept mulling about it in his head. "Well then it's obvious that she's a little shy about the physical aspect of the relationship. The sexual tension would be –"

"FILTER!"

Niall jolted straight out of his counseling session, as Sarah's white-hot glare colluded with the fiery word she breathed on him like a dragon ready to roast his behind. Zayn bit on his thumb to hold back a laugh. If not for the backrest, he was certain Niall would be lying turtled on the ground by how high he had jumped when Sarah slashed the word at him.

Sarah kept fixing him with her murderous glare. Niall turned to Zayn for help, swallowing as he did so.

"I wasn't even talking about . . . that sort of a thing." Zayn shrugged. "I think she's uneasy with me holding her hand and stuff."

"Oh."

"Get out of my sight, both of you!" the dragon – Sarah – growled.

"Pronto!" Niall shot to his feet. "I, uh, I'll be leaving! Apologies!"

Zayn laughed, shaking his head at how quick he had ran away.

"You too!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever?" Zayn rolled his eyes. "Order me around when you have receipts of ownership to these benches."

He heard Sarah grumbling. Something about poo and waste of space. Zayn figured she was talking about herself.

"You really thing she likes me?" he asked after a while.

Sarah glared at him.

"Try to act like a normal human being when you answer, please," he interrupted. "Not some blood-thirsty demoness."

Zayn saw her knuckles turning white from how tight she was clenching her fists. He frowned.

"I was about to say you have anger issues but . . . are you okay, Snob?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

Sarah faltered, her fists loosening a little, but then she quickly recovered, playing it cool.

"Of course I am!" she snapped. "And I'd be even better without you pestering me!"

Zayn narrowed his eyes, studying her.

"Snob --?"

"Yes, I think she likes you," Sarah replied. "Now shoo!"

Zayn did not move.

"Just go!" Sarah prompted. "Leave, go on! Bye bye!"

When she turned back to her phone, Zayn pursed his lips, deciding it was best to leave. However, he had a feeling the dragon demoness was worried about something. He got to his feet.

"In case you need help," Zayn said, "know that I'm available."

Sarah looked up from her phone incredulously, then snorted a laugh. It was so characteristic of her, especially in the riling urge it triggered in him to slam her nose onto to the table, that Zayn started regretting offering help, or thinking she actually had a problem.

"Forget that I offered anything!" he snapped.

Her manic laughter chased him out of the grounds all the way to the Biological Sciences Block.

***

First draft: September 17, 2021

"You okay?"

Zayn turned to Salma in the passenger seat. He smiled.

"Of course," he said averting his gaze back on the road. "Why do ask?"

"'S probably nothing," she replied, looking at the small hillocks on either side of the road happily. "You just seemed a little preoccupied."

Zayn laughed.

"Is the little Bee not getting the usual amount of attention?"

Salma just shook her head.

"Way to ruin a perfect moment," she muttered.

"Oh, we were having a moment?" Zayn teased.

"No." Salma frowned. "I was having a moment. With the . . ." she pointed to the surrounding trees.

"Way to break a man's heart."

"You're so dramatic, honestly."

Laughing, Zayn relaxed back into the seat and offered her his hand across the console.

"There, there," he mocked. "You have all the attention now."

Salma glanced at his open hand and then sighed. Zayn felt his heart sinking a little as he noted the obvious hesitance and lack of enthusiasm. She may like something about him, but she obviously did not like him. If she did, she would have loved to hold hands, hug or be close to him, not just emotionally, but also mentally and physically. So far, he did not see her getting excited about getting close to him on any of the three fronts.

He wondered if time or practice would really do any good, at all? For the hundredth time, since his call with Thomas and Cameron, Zayn entertained the idea of making use of their suggestion. Maybe, it would not be so cruel if he made her feel cold, instead of scared. After all, Cameron mentioned cold and fear, not just fear. Perhaps --

Salma dropped her hand on his outstretched palm. Despite the depressing reality, his foolish heart still exploded into a firework of feels upon the soft, warm contact. She interlocked their fingers. Zayn stiffened.

Was that a first?

He glanced at their hands out of the corner of his eye. Yep, she had her fingers firmly closed over his.

Give it time and practice, huh?

Smiling, Zayn closed his fingers over her small hand, giving it a squeeze.

"I'm okay," he said. "Just met Snob a while ago. I don't know if I'm imagining it but I thought she looked a tad spooked. I was just thinking about that."

"You noticed that too!" Salma turned to him, surprised.

Zayn glanced at her before turning his eyes to the road.

"Too?" He raised a brow.

"Yeah," Salma replied, thinking. "I had a feeling she was not fine. I'm wondering if it's Toryal bothering her again."

An unease ran through him at the mention of the spy's name. Salma's eyes snapped at him. She gave Zayn's hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Toryal has been pushed into a really tight spot after what Ghamey did," Salma tried to comfort him. "You know he isn't that big a threat now. He's nothing that can't be looked into."

Zayn smiled, picking up their locked hands and kissing the back of her palm. A shiver tingled up her spine.

"I know," Zayn replied, resting their hands on his side of the console.

"So where're we going?" Salma asked, peeking out of the window in an obvious attempt to steer into another lane of conversation.

"Somewhere with a cold spring to give you a dunk!"

Author's Note:

Proceed to the next chapter, it's a double update ^^

Lots of Love

J.