Dedicating this chapter to kassicast because I love your comments & a dedication was due from AWMA days. :D

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER - 3

LOVE IS... WEIRD

"We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love." ― Robert Fulghum, True Love

My eyes stayed fixed at the brown wooden door that was staring right at me, while my mind was busy recalling everything that had just happened. I was definitely the perfect picture of the color red. After processing the entire scene, my wide eyes went to my arms and my cheeks reddened a shade darker at the utter embarrassment that I had just faced.

Everything was Dylan's fault. If only he had not bumped with me, the coffee wouldn't have spilled on my clothes, I wouldn't have to remove my coat and I wouldn't have faced such an embarrassment. Stupid Dylan Parker!

But, could I really blame him? No!

It was all the fault of the guy who had just insulted me. Which guy observes such minute things about the girl he had just met and embarrasses her like this?

But, could I really blame him too?

Yes, of course!

Who else was to be blamed for my embarrassment? Not me, of course! Ahh...the sarcasm.

Shutting the inner mental battles that I could hear from inside me, I grabbed my coat and wore it immediately so it covered me just like it did when Steph had said something so similar to me. Oh, Steph, my beautician friend. Why didn't I listen to her?

I let out a groan in frustration and looked at the door again, but this time in determination.

How could he just say something like this to me? Has he ever looked at himself in the mirror? He looks like he had not shaved for at least three months and he was calling me a bear? Oh... the irony! Who does he think was? Who in the world was this guy? Maybe he was Ashton Parker's roommate.

But, then again, it was the infamous Ashton Parker and his near and dear ones I was dealing with. What else could I expect? A little voice in my head was laughing at me and saying, 'It's just the beginning.'

A little growl in complete embarrassment mixed up with frustration towards the Parkers escaped my lips as I tried to control my growing temper. Was this some way of greeting someone? Idiot bearded person!

Suddenly the door opened, making me step back in surprise again. "Now you're speaking your language," the same person from earlier stated with cockiness dripping from his voice.

I looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes and the smirk on his face just grew as he leaned against the door, blocking my way of entering inside the apartment and meeting his roommate - Ashton Parker. I tried to set aside the humiliation I had just faced and started saying, "Ahem... Ashton Parker?" I wanted to keep my conversation with this weird person to the minimum. One or two words were more than enough, seriously!

His eyes narrowed as if he couldn't believe that I was here to meet his roommate. Well, I couldn't blame him as neither could I believe the turn of events since this morning. Once again, with those striking grey eyes, he eyed me from head to toe and again from toe to head, while I resisted the urge to kick him in the shin, which was so against my principles. My methods of revenge were limited to sarcastic remarks and very light, colorful words. Never had I ever indulged in any kind of violence. But, this strange man was already making me doubt my own principals and methods.

I cleared my throat to get his attention back to me and I succeeded as his grey eyes settled on my green ones. He scratched his beard covered chin thoughtfully and leaned a little closer to me, making me take a step back, again. "You look like an Ashley to me," he muttered in his heavy, husky voice that blocked my thinking powers for a second or two.

All I did for those two seconds was starein his grey eyes; the eyes that suddenly looked at me in deep humor. My mind recalled what he had said and my eyes widened and blood rushed to my cheeks at the fresh humiliation faced by me. "O... of course, I'm an Ashley," I stuttered while looking at him as he eyed me with arrogance in his eyes and a huge smirk on his face. Just when the realization of my own words dawned upon my mind, I scowled at him. The arrogance in his eyes got replaced by slight amusement, but the smirk didn't leave his face even once. "I mean to say that I'm not Ashton, you moron. I'm here to meet Ashton Parker," I told him, looking at him like he was what exactly I had called him - a moron.

"Moron?" He snickered and took a step back to lean against the door frame, thankfully. "Are you eight, bear?"

My jaw dropped open at the two insults he had thrown my way in a sentence of merely four words. My mind shouted for my sarcasm to come back as it seemed to have gone for a trip since I had entered this building, but it didn't pay heed and as a result, I was left to stare at him with wide eyes and jaw hanging open.

'Say something, Liana. Say something,' my mind shouted at me.

I complied with my mind's orders and the only word that came out of my mouth was, "Something."

The grey eyed guy looked at me with a weird look on his face, while I shut my eyes tightly and mentally smacked my forehead for the incredibly stupid goof-up I had just done. On the other hand, the other part of my mind who had always found something funny in every situation, laughed at me and said, 'I was asking you to say something, not the word 'something'.'

"No, not eight; you act like a seven year old." He snickered.

Putting aside my humiliation, again, I asked him, "Is Ashton Parker here?" My eyes drifted to the apartment view that was currently blocked by his huge built, but I craned my neck in the hopes of having a better look inside the apartment and spotting someone who looked even a tad bit humanly as compared to the jerk standing in front of me.

He snorted. "He is definitely here. But who the f*ck are you?" He was back to his rude self as he eyed me with a scowl on his face.

My eyes narrowed at his use of tone and I took a step towards him so he was very nicely towering me. "I don't think I need to introduce myself to some weird guy who clearly lacks manners. I'm here to meet Ashton Parker, and not to talk to a jerk. So will you please just call him already as I have certain limits as to the amount of stupidity, I can face in a day, and you've kind of surpassed it." I could hear the applauses from around me for my bravery and even felt some imaginary pats on my back. I was going well!

The rudeness in his eyes got replaced by slight amusement as he smirked again at me. Wasn't he tired of smirking all the time? I hadn't met him for more than five minutes and I was already tired of seeing his smirk. Oh, how I wish I could wipe it off. He shook his head in disappointment and folded his hands across his chest, making his shoulders look broader and very nice. "Six year old," he mumbled and my cheeks once again went on a spree of going red. I was painting the town... err... my cheeks red. Crap!

In an attempt to bring back my cheeks to their original color and to calm my boiling blood, I took a few deep breaths after shutting my eyes. Once I thought I had succeeded, I looked at his smirking face and shot him my sweetest smile. He raised his eyebrows at my action and I asked him with the sweetest voice I could manage to bring out of my throat, "Could you please ask Mr. Ashton Parker to come out? I'm here to meet him." Apparently, I had to try every speech type possible to meet him. The process was already tiring.

The expressions on his bearded face changed to complete rudeness again and he looked at me with coldness in his eyes. "No," he answered, his tone that of finality.

"What? Why?" I asked in complete surprise at his answer and his rudeness.

He clenched his jaw slightly as if I was irritating him and answered me, "My wish."

"B... but this is not acceptable," I managed to say in between the shock of many insults and continued, "I'm here to meet him. His mother had sent me and I'm not going to leave before meeting him."

"Will you stop yapping over my head so early in the morning?" he asked with tightly clenched jaw, closed fists and deadly gaze settled on me. He was pissed at me, it was obvious. And no matter how scary and intimidating, he looked with his huge built and tight jaw, I tried my best to keep my face blank at the latest insult thrown my way.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I took a step towards him and smirked while telling him, "Technically, it's not morning."

"Really, genius?" He smirked as he asked me this in a taunting voice and took a step towards me, which led to very little distance between us. He was really tall in front of my five feet six inch frame without heels, and I had to crane my neck upwards to look him in his grey eyes. I answered his rhetorical question by numbly nodding my head and I almost smacked myself when his smirk grew at slight display of my nervousness. "Good! So you agree with the 'yapping over my head' part?" He nodded his head in appreciation and I pressed my lips together at his observation. In a very low, husky voice that sent chills down my spine, he whispered, "Why don't you use your genius brains and find Ashton Parker somewhere else? Because what you're doing here is just wasting your precious time." With that, he stepped back and glared at me, making me almost flinch at the hardness in his gaze. "Goodbye. Hope to never see you again." Just as these words reached my ears and even before I had the time to say even a word, he stepped inside the apartment and shut the door in my face, again.

Once again, in merely a gap of ten minutes, I was left to stare at the door with my mouth hanging open and shock etched on every feature of my face.

What in the world was this guy's problem? Was calling his roommate - Ashton Parker - out of the apartment was as hard a job as shaving his beard that he didn't want to do it? I had not even met the devil and I was already facing troubles in this assignment. Oh dear, so much drama just to meet him? As if the dramas in my life were already not enough.

One thing that I had already established was that I hated the weird bearded guy. He might be the devil's roommate, friend or lover, I didn't care. I just hated him.

Lover

What if Ashton Parker was a gay? What if being a player and a ladies' man was nothing but a disguise? What if my plan of making him meet a girl and making him fall in love with her prove to be completely futile? What if the main motive of his mother sending me here was already accomplished, but only in the same sex? What if...

My eyes widened as these thought crowded my mind and I imagined how this article was going to be a huge failure if he had already found a lover in his life. However, it could act as a boon because Priscilla would have to change the theme of the article if that was the case.

There were so many what ifs and after a moment of dwelling in all those questions, I realized that no matter what might happen I had to meet Ashton Parker today. If this weird bearded jerk was stubborn, then I was no less.

With a new found determination, I took a step towards the door and started banging on it very loudly. To add effect, I started shouting his name in the corridor of his building, "Ashton Parker! Why are you hiding, Ashton? Come out! How can you do this to me after the wonderful night we had spent together. Is this what you do to a girl who tells you that she is pregnant with your child?" My speed of banging the door and the pitch of my voice just increased with each word that came out of my mouth. I didn't care if I was making myself look like a stupid girl in this building; all I cared about was fulfilling my assignment and the first step of achieving it - meeting Ashton Parker.

"What the f*ck?" the bearded person's highly pissed voice reached my ears and he opened the door to stare at me with tightly clenched jaw and his hands holding the door in a death grip. I pressed my lips together to hide the satisfactory grin that was threatening to make its way on my face at the expected reaction from this short tempered jerk.

Just as I was about to tell him to go and call his roomie who must be really deaf to hear all the chaos and come out on his own, another door opened to my right hand side. "What's going on here?" Another voice reached my ears, making me snap my head towards the speaker. My eyes landed on the man who looked around the age of sixty as his eyes own tired eyes wandered between his neighbor and me.

I felt slight guilt taking birth inside me as I had so badly disturbed this man, whose features were dripping with kindness. This guilt made me grimace and I told him, "I'm sorry for disturbing you. But this-" I pointed towards the weird bearded jerk with my index finger who had not uttered even a word since his neighbor came out of his apartment and continued, "-jerk is not letting me meet the father of my unborn child - Ashton Parker." The old man looked at me with amusement clear on his face and a little secretive smile on his lips. "Could you please ask this person to call Ashton?"

"Sure," the man told me and I shot him a grateful smile. He looked back at the person beside me and said, "Let her meet Ashton, Ashton."

With a smug look on my face, I faced the weird bearded guy again and found him looking down at me with a raised eyebrow and tightly closed lips; lips that were trying their best to hide a smile or according to my experience with this guy of ten minutes, he was trying to hide his smirk.

'Can't you for once stop smirking and do what you are asked to do?' I was tempted to ask, but refrained from talking to him, going by my resolve of keeping my conversations with him to a bare minimum. Seriously, could he be any weirder?

But then the man's entire sentence registered in my head and my eyes widened like saucers as I gazed at the bearded person, who was no more trying to hide his arrogant, victorious smirk as he looked down at me while standing at the door.

Like a fish suffering from a very bad case of asthma, something I wasn't even sure could happen, I opened and closed my mouth for what seemed like a year, but were probably just a few seconds. Time was dragging along with my humiliation and utter embarrassment.

The neighbor erupted in slight laughter and Ashton's eyes flickered towards me, for which I made a note of thanking the man later. I took this slight distracting time to calm my nerves down. "I like her, Ashton. She is funny," the old man said between his laughter and I smiled towards him, a smile that felt awfully like a grimace.

Nothing was funny about this situation; nothing was funny about discovering that the weird bearded jerk for whom I had developed hatred in merely minutes of meeting was the guy I had to deal with for the next twenty days. I found myself drowning in the newly built imaginary tube well of self pity.

There was a hint of something strange in his grey eyes when he heard what the man had said, but it was gone even before I could order my observation skills to go to work and find out what it meant. "See you later, Bob." Ashton nodded towards the man, who, according to the freshly acquired information was named Bob.

"His beard kind of makes his unrecognizable." I grimaced at Bob, trying to save my esteem.

Bob cracked a grin while I heard Ashton sniff dramatically. "She was way too drunk that night to even remember my face, Bob. I feel betrayed! Do you think I should accept her?" I narrowed my eyes towards him as he added his own inputs to my drama. He widened his eyes and asked, "Are you even sure that it's my child?" In the meanwhile, I killed him with my gaze.

"Kids these days!" Bob mumbled. "Handle your personal matters at home, Ashton. Later!" He waved his hand towards us and after shooting a very kind and heartfelt smile, he went inside his apartment.

I was left to stare at a closed door again, but this time it was the door of the neighbor. Reluctantly, I moved my gaze towards the apartment number twenty, where Ashton was standing. He was looking down at me with a smug expression on his face and all I could do was look at him with my lips pressed together to hide my clenched teeth. Without saying anything further, thankfully, he turned his back to me and went inside his apartment. I waited for him to do his favorite action of shutting the door in my face, again, but it didn't happen this time.

A breath in relief escaped my lips when I realized that finally, after what felt like hours, I was granted access inside his apartment. Finally, all my hard work was paying off. Okay, I was exaggerating, but dealing with him had its own consequences and exaggerating was probably one of them.

Reluctantly, I took a step inside his apartment and said, "You are Ashton Parker." It was more of a statement that didn't need to be said, but I felt like I needed an assurance that yes, I had to deal with this devil for the next twenty days. The last few minutes were dreadful; I could only imagine how the coming days would be.

Oh dear God, please save my soul!

He turned to look at me and snorted. "So much for calling you a genius."

I dismissed him with a roll of my eyes and a wave of the hand. Before he could say anything, I thought of introducing myself to him. "I'm Liana Moore. I work for your mother." My tone was professional and clipped. There was simply no need for me to be informal and friendly with him. I was with him to complete an assignment; a dreadful and utterly stupid assignment.

For a moment he observed me with his grey eyes and just as I decided to groan in frustration of his lack of any kind of response, he opened his mouth and said, "Liana." It was like he was testing how my name should roll out from his mouth or something, I didn't know.

But, what I really knew was that in that particular moment all my frustration had gone on a trip and was replaced by slight surprise. The way he had said my name was so different and probably, for the first time, I liked how my name sounded. Maybe it was his voice that was so deep and husky or maybe it was the way he was looking at me with something very strange in his eyes that managed to send shivers down my spine or maybe it was a combination of the two. Whatever it was, I liked it.

Suddenly, a memory ringed in my head and my eyes widened to the size of meatballs. With complete alertness and panic in my head, I started looking around his living room and jumped on the nearest couch to me. With confusion etched on every feature of his face, he looked at me warily and finally, I decided to open my mouth. But my voice came out very meek and small as I voiced out my biggest fear. "Do you have a snake here?"

He raised his eyebrows at me in complete disbelief and looked at me like I was insane and really very weird.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N

How was it? :) Don't forget to leave your feedback in comments. :)

Thank you! <3

PS. Suggest me cast for this story.

Liana Moore: Brunette, green eyes.

Ashton Parker: Brown or black hair, grey eyes.

Dylan Parker: Brown or black hair, blue eyes.