Nerves

Noah had by now reached the office and he was already hard at work but for Laila he always had time. The moment he heard her special ringtone he instantly accepted the call. Pressing the green icon on the screen before the phone could let a second ring go through. Almost as if it was a built in reflex. Noah answered Laila's call before he continued with what he was working on. In his regular tone Noah picked up the phone and said, "Hey hon, what's up?"

Even though his words were simple, to Laila they somehow were calming and reassuring. She let out the deep breath she had been holding and a smile began to appear on her face as she answered him. "Nothing much. I just finished talking to Olivia and I wanted to let you know how it went." In a tone that showed that he was partially distracted but also let Laila know that he cared about what she had to say, Noah said, "Oh really? How did it go? Did she accept your suggestion?"

Laila dragged the answer to his question out a bit as she was looking for the right moment to tell Noah that he had been roped into her gettogether with Olivia as well. "Well, it took some convincing but after a while I managed to convince her." Noah sounded excited for her accomplishment as he said, "Well look at you, a real life, little miss deal-maker. I knew you could do it. How did you manage to convince her?" Now that the question had been asked, there was no way to avoid it anymore and Laila said, "Well...that is the thing. She wasn't very willing to have me over at her place. I am not sure why but she kept coming up with alternative options. So, in order to make sure that she would say yes, I decided to sweeten the deal a bit with something I knew she would be interested in."

Noah not yet fully realizing where Laila was going with this appeared to be amused about it all and excitedly asked, "Oh really? And what was it that finally pulled her over the finish line?" Laila reacted to his question as if he was standing in front of her, instead of speaking to her over the phone. Lowering her head a bit to hide her guilty eyes, before she hesitantly said, "You." Noah wondered if he had misheard her and responded by making a confused sound, to which Laila repeated her one-worded reply. "You. I told her that I would bring you. Once she heard that you were coming, she immediately agreed."

Noah leaned himself back into his chair and pushed it out as far as the chair could lean back. Both his sigh as well as the annoyed expression on his face and his tone revealed how upset he was. "Really? You know that I have to spend time with her today to fix yesterday's mess, aside from having to hop around all over the place to put on some act and make that text we sent the truth. Plus, I still have to set up everything in order to prepare for tomorrow. That has me missing out on plenty work as it is. Now you tell me that I have to go to her house with you tomorrow, making me unable to provide you with tech support from the house."

Laila apologized. "I know, I'm sorry. I didn't want to drag you down with me but she left me no other choice. I was positive that she was going to say no if I didn't add the chance of her spending time with you to the mix. At least I managed to let her agree at you only coming for dinner. So, you won't have to spend all day with her like I will." Noah let out another sigh as he felt bad for the way he had responded initially.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too. I know you didn't do this on purpose. It is just coming at a bad time for me, that's all. But then again, all of this is and since neither of us have a choice in the matter, I might as well just accept it and deal with things as they come. So, no worries. Forget all that I said before. I will figure something out. Maybe Steve can set up so that I can continue with the office work a little longer. At least knowing that I can go in there with you, will make me feel more relieved at you going there in the first place. You seemed so worried about it all that I started to become worried as well. It wouldn't be the first time that nerves got to someone in the middle of a task, making them slip up. In fact, this might even be better. If I manage to work a little longer today, I can try and get there a bit earlier tomorrow and form the distraction while you set everything up."

Laila chuckled. Without having to do any convincing or cheering up, Noah had managed to get where he needed to go all on his own. Laila for one, was not complaining about her husband's self-sufficient ways. "Sounds like you came up with a perfect plan to deal with it all. So, all that is left to do now, is for you to congratulate me. Then I will be off on my way and you can finish working on whatever it was that you were working on. Ever minute spared now, is a minute you have over to free up more time for our plans for tomorrow. So, chop chop mister."