All for Laila

All for Laila

_David raised the bunch of flowers he bought from the florist with both hands to his face and gave it a passionate look.

He kissed it with a very wide grin. It was all for Laila, his adorable wife.

It cost him half of the total money he has, both at home and in his pocket.

Whatever was spent to please a wife who is a real wife is no waste.

David's love for Laila could only be compared with Romeo's love for Juliet. In life in death.

The bunch of flowers was for their third marriage anniversary and to compensate her for being with him in the face of the horrific experience he was getting in their home.

Three days to the third anniversary of their marriage, he had bought the flowers. Why?

He did not want another competitor to be the first. Her family's heart was already after the son of the director of the company where she works.

They had met during David's graduation from the University and because of David's handsomeness, Laila's brain was spun and they had sex that night, super sex that made them cleave in passion, in desire, in Oath. Name them. Yes, because, David's family had arranged a wife for him whom he would marry after graduation. A girl from another royal family but he ran away with his angelic Laila, under a gentleman's Oath: An adopted son-in-law.

He waited for a cab. He could not remember when last he boarded a cab but to preserve the health of the flowers, he added additional money for its packaging, his last dime, yes, his last dime for transport fare.

He had learned how to trek to work, and tomorrow he will. No problem.

Despite rolling up the glasses of the cab, the Territory A winter in Denver seemed not to abate. Would these flowers that cost him all the money he would have used to go to work tomorrow do the magic again? Laila to surrender herself to him again?

The cold permeated his skin as he shivered

The cab pulled up at the Andersons' home and David came down hopefully, with the beautiful casing containing the bunch of flowers, finely banded together with its small ceramic vase.

The gateman opened the gate. He was the only worker in the Anderson's household that does not make a jest of him.

"My guy. Welcome," Phillip said to him.

"Is my wife in?" He did not know if Laila was back from the office because he had no credit on his phone.

"Sure!" Phillip nodded.

He was happy as he walked briskly in.

"Hey! Evid, come here!"

His mother-in-law from nowhere called him. His heart jigged:This witch. What again?

Nothing she said now that will be so damning. "David, I cannot run away from my wife because of her family!" under his breath he said so and that was his goal, if Laila was all he had, fine.

His parents died in an auto crash on August 22, last year and he did not attend the burial because they were opposed to his marriage with Laila. So, what is it again to fear? He doubted.

Evid stood before his mother-in-law who had chosen to call him 'Evid' instead of 'David' because both cannot have the same 'D' starting their names. Her name was Dina.

" What is this? " Her face was contorted as David tried to explain why he bought the flowers.

" Hehehe!" She clapped. "What a useless son-in-law?"

She snatched the flower case from David and had a look into it.

"So, this is your own money?" She raised her face to look into David's face.

David felt cold and dumbstruck.

"Come down, my daughter is sleeping," Laila's mother said.

It was on the staircase she stopped David. He wanted to match up to his room and Laila's.

"I said come down!" she commanded."Church rat!" she named him.

David came down to the first step. He shared a bedroom with his wife. He wanted to go up in and feel the warmth of the room and discuss with Laila even without the flower she had squeezed.

"Go now and do your laundry before you go to your useless work tomorrow."

She did not just say it. She pointed at the laundry shed.

David checked the water he added yesterday in the electric iron to spray some on the stiff dresses. Her children deliberately complain of poor ironing and to avoid anything that creates a problem for him, he was determined to iron their starched clothes to shine more than an army General's uniform and concluded in his mind one day he would punch their mouths one by one.

As he was ironing, Selena briskly came in.

He lowered his face, strictly minding his ironing.

The devil's trap: She drew a plastic chair close to his side and sat.

Others in the family hated David because he was poor but her reason was different.

Was she on an errand to trap David for the family to have cause to send him packing? David used to ask himself. Or, to date her family's useless son-in-law because of love?

He could not know which of the doubts motivated her. So, even if he wanted to have a fling with her, he would not do it. For fear, it may lead to losing Laila.

Any time David fails to reciprocate her advance, because of sour grapes, she spits at David and calls him names.

She shifted the rubber chair into David's view

David still bent his face " You ain't ashamed loving who doesn't love you? " She spat.

"No problem," said David, eyes more glued to the dress he was ironing.

"David," she called him again to raise his face.

David refused to look her way having seen how she sat.

She got up and called him a village guy.

David grinned. "If not love for Laila," he grumbled.

He said so because he had weighed their wealth and everything they had. They were but junior compared to his family's.

"Who is that, Selena?" asked Laila, coming out of her Dad's sitting room.

She told her to go to the Dad's sitting room.

She had barged into the sitting room and whined to her Dad that her mom squeezed her flowers.

Mr Anderson then wanted to use the opportunity to call a family meeting to finally address the issue of Laila and David.

In the sitting room, Mr. Anderson, Mrs. Dina, and Fred, Laila's sibling, a lawyer, all concluded that Laila must divorce David and marry Dr Pat for her career and the family business.

She climbed up and flopped on the bed without a choice.

"Laila, what is it again?" asked David as he came in.

She whined, and tears dropped.

"David. For my career," she said.

"Tell me." inquired David. He knew without being told it was about what her family said but one in love does not listen to gossip.

" Adorable. Don't mind them okay," David pleaded.

Would she mind them after all?

._