A little secret

Laila scraped her throat for a bit before she said, "So, how do you feel about the whole Jake matter now? Were you able to give it a place?" Hearing this, Noah's smile disappeared instantly from his face and was replaced by a stern look and his pressed lips were nothing more than a thin line. He hadn't expected the topic to be brought up so soon. Or at all, for that matter. Especially with how their conversation was going. Before he answered her question, Noah asked, "Does this mean that Maria has left the room?"

Laila nodded and Noah's face let up a bit as he answered, but not before he said "I thought we weren't going to talk about what happened anymore for today and focus on more pleasant topics." After letting out a small sigh he said, "..But I guess I don't mind. I can't say that I am completely over it but I am better than I was this afternoon. I am no longer that upset and I can talk about it without getting angry, only a bit annoyed. To me, that is great progress and the best I could hope for in such a short amount of time."

Laila chuckled. "I shall take your word for it. Your face certainly changed fast after I brought up his name. But I can see as well that you are doing better than a few hours ago. Did it affect your work? I hope not at least."

Noah shook his head. "No. I refuse to let a person like that have any real kind of impact on my life. I forgot about him just minutes into my meeting. His face popped up in my head every now and then, during the few quiet moments of my day, but nothing I couldn't handle. All it was, was a bit annoying and annoyance is all he gets. As long as he stays away from you, I will be able to control myself and focus on what I have to do over here. But how come you are bringing him up now?"

Laila was happy to hear that Noah hadn't let the news affect his day too much and that his reaction during the taxi ride was the worst of it. Now that she had established that Noah was mostly over what had happened earlier during the day, she could tell him what she had discovered during her outing to town with Maria. "Well, for one I wanted to make sure you were fine and that he hadn't managed to affect your day. At least not in an important way. And second, I wanted to tell you about what I heard from Maria today. For that I needed to see how bad your reaction to me mentioning him would be." With a little chuckle Laila said, "You passed the test, so now I can let you into a little secret."

This caused Noah to finally start smiling again as well, before he let out an intrigued, "Oehhh, do tell". As he said those words, he had shifted his position to make his chin rest on the palm of his hand and tapped the tips of his fingers against the side of his face. With the smirk that followed he looked much like a mix of your typical mean girl actress and a flirtatious male lead. The look on his face, combined with his tone of voice, of course caused Laila to start laughing. Turning an otherwise very serious topic in that of amusement.

"Well, it turns out that after I chose you during our first date and left him behind, he went to wallow in his sorrow and self-pity. That is when our dearest old friend Suzy, the one that had started that whole messy final breakup, saw her shot and went to comfort him. One thing lead to another and they stayed in that kind of ambiguous relationship throughout college. After they finished college the two of them finally got together officially. They have been together ever since."

Noah interrupts her story here as he plays the devil's advocate. "In a way we should be thanking her because if it weren't for her, who knows how long you and Jake would have stayed together. Maybe you and I would have never gotten together. I mean, think about it. For all we know you would have married Jake instead by now and be living in our hometown. Of course the better parts, maybe even that mansion on top of the hill. Maybe you would be together with him till this day and those rumours would be about you. So, maybe you shouldn't be gloating so much as you tell this story and help her out instead."

In an annoyed tone of voice Laila said, "Shhh! Do you want to hear the rumours or not!? You don't even know the full story yet or what we plan to do with this information. So, keep that smirking and those wise words of yours for yourself." While Noah apologized with a chuckle and encouraged her to continue, Laila tried to hide her shock of Noah's scarily accurate guess. It was impressive how he had managed to guess even such tiny details of how things had actually turned out in her previous life. She was sure that Noah's mind will be blown when he would find out that this had actually been her reality not too long ago.