Kindling Friendship #AtoZChallenge

Read previous parts here: One | Two

“Hiiii, How have you been?”, instead of heading towards the gate she turned to the first table in the bar and let out the friendly greetings in a tone slightly higher than her usual.
“Umm.. Hi”, came a feeble tentative reply from the man she had just startled, “I’m good.”
An awkward silence followed for next few seconds. She had already pulled a seat for herself and sat down to give the lone man some company.
“Do we know each other?”, asked the man after another few seconds.
“Are you high or are you pretending to have forgotten me?”, she asked in mock-anger tone. “Because, I don’t think you can forget me so easily”, she continued.
“Sorry?”, but man sat as perplexed as ever. Though the woman in front of her was harmlessly beautiful, she just couldn’t place her somewhere in his memory. And of course he wasn’t drunk.
“You are Eric? Right?” She asked when the initial confusion didn’t settle for the next few minutes.
“No”, came the reply. He clearly didn’t want a conversation at this time of the hour.
“We met at my best friend’s wedding. Sarah? Kevin? Does that ring a bell?”
“No, I haven’t attended such wedding. In fact I flew in just two days ago”, he replied. His replies were irritatingly short but Ella wouldn’t stop so easily.
“Huh?? You must be lying! I remember having met you at their wedding. Kevin had introduced us to each other and told me that you both go a long way back. How can you not remember him!” She was now less surprised and more frustrated.
“Because I don’t know him!” He said. His tone was authoritative enough to declare that he didn’t want to be pestered with another set of questions. He has by now confirmed the idea that she was trying to hit on him and he clearly wasn’t in the best of his days to go for a sudden and surprise date.
Getting the hint, she got up shrugging her shoulder. “Strange man! Who forgets their school best-friend whatever the case may be!”, she muttered as she turned to leave. She left without any goodbyes.

Next few days went by very quickly. She was busy juggling between work, zumba and home. Amidst this juggle, her personal life was headed towards a strange loneliness that she was getting used to. It was one such late morning when she was lost neck deep in her pool of excel sheets and presentations when her phone rung bringing her back to Earth.

“Kevin… Kevin Mathews?” He spoke as soon as the call was picked up by her.
“No. It’s Ella. Ella Brown”, she replied absentmindedly.
“Oh, Sorry! Yah Right Ella! By Kevin, you meant Kevin Mathews, right?” the voice spoke on the other side of the call.
“Sorry?” She was just unable to put the reference in any context whatsoever.
“That night at the bar, asking that I was a friend of Kevin… remember?” He gave a hint not wanting to reconstruct the whole scene again.
“Oh yeah! Kevin Matheeewwwss!” she spoke as she faintly remembered what she had done in not-so-high-yet-not-so-sober-state. “Sorry I bothered you that day Eric! But you finally seem to get sober!” she remarked, clearly not hiding away the sarcasm.
“It’s Mark here. I’m a cousin of Eric. And yes, before you ask, we look quite similar”, he explained calmly.
“Oh, that explains!” she spoke sheepishly.
Again few seconds of silence hung between both of them. The Ella remembered her pile of tasks and broke the ice.
“I’m sorry to hang up like this but I have quite a lot of work to do”, Ella blurted out.
“Oh, I’m really sorry to have disturbed you in the middle of your work”, he spoke with such speed as if the lost words had come running to him all of a sudden, “Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me, this evening?”
“Huh?” She almost felt lost and confused.
“I owe you an apology for my rude behaivour. So I guess, a coffee?” His hopes were low, but were there very much for sure. He really wanted to meet her and apologize for his ignorant behaivour that night.
“Okay, text me the details. Got to go now”, she hurriedly replied and hung up. Her boss had showed up at the cabin and was calling her for the conference.

…to be continued here

Written for A to Z Challenge 2016

Theme this month: A story A week