Me After Meeting You

Calvin remembered vaguely hearing in his alcohol fuelled haze that she had said that she had broken up with Ian. Now sober, he was afraid that he had possibly misheard, so he wanted to verify it, and spoke up. “Hey.”

“Yes?” She replied with a lilt in her wonderfully pleasant voice as she looked at him seriously.

But before he could ask, her phone suddenly rang. She turned around to look for her phone, saying, “It could be from the hospital.”

In reality, it wasn’t from the hospital, but instead a call to find him. Calvin could tell because he heard her answer, “Yes, he’s with me … alright, I’ll tell him to return immediately.”

It seemed that the person on the phone with her said something else, because she began looking a little exasperated.

After hanging up, she told him, “It was from Trysta. She said that your phone was off and that your mother was very worried about you.” As she said this, she stood up. “Come on, you need to go back home. I’ll walk down with you.”

She walked him down outside the residential area. Once they reached the lobby, Calvin began regretting it. Given how cold it was outside, he shouldn’t have let her come out with him. But he didn’t want to part with her, and he’d take advantage of anything just to stay with her a moment longer.

As the wind blew wildly, her cute little nose reddened immediately and her face turned as white as snow.

Calvin felt his heart blaze with an uncontrollable heat of passion.

“It should be that car.” She stood by the side of the road, looking into the distance.

His gaze, on the other hand, was focused solely on her. When the headlights got closer, he suddenly spread out both hands and hugged her tightly.

She was somewhat surprised and turned her head to look at him.

He ignored her reluctance, moved his face closer to her, and lightly kissed her cheek as he softly whispered, “I love you, Amber.” into her ear.

This was the first time that Calvin had ever done something as bold as this, so he was understandably nervous. In his nervousness, he quickly let go of her and ran into his car after the single kiss.

He was so fast that Amber couldn’t even react before the car had already left, far away.

“….” Amber was speechless. She hadn’t seen Calvin that embarrassed for many years.

Amber couldn’t help but laugh at the situation before putting both of her hands in her pockets and preparing to walk back inside. As she was turning around, she found herself looking at a car parked by the side of the building. It was black and hidden in the dark, just like a monstrous shadow.

When she looked at it a bit more closely, the headlights of the car suddenly turned on, and the strong, bright light shining directly into her face almost blinded her.

Even without seeing who was driving the car, she could feel the driver’s malicious intent. She quickly covered up her eyes, frowned, and prepared to leave.

At this time, there weren’t many cars and pedestrians on the road, and Amber didn’t want an accident to occur either.

But just she started to step away, a piercing honking sound shattered the quiet night air right next to her ear-tin, tin, tin, tiin-a conspicuous disturbance in the dark and silent night.

When she turned and looked back more closely, she saw the car’s interior light up and then blink. Amber found that a familiar face was actually sitting in the driver’s seat.

‘Ian?’

‘Why was he here this late?’

After mulling over it for a moment, Amber slowly walked up to him. The car window slowly rolled down. Ian was alone in the car, sitting in the driver’s seat, with both hands clasped on the steering wheel. As his fingers tapped on it rhythmically, his gaze noncommittally looked at her.

“Eh, why are you here? Did something come up?”

“Get on.”

“Where to?”

He tilted his head, his gaze still on her face. He said nothing and merely pressed the middle of the steering wheel again, causing the deafening noise to blare out again.

It sounded as impatient as his mood.

Amber quickly got into the car.

She wasn’t worried that Ian would do something to her. Even though his personality was cold, she felt inexplicably like she could trust him with her safety.

***

Ian ended up bringing her to Axton Hotel, immediately throwing her inside a beauty parlor. The female proprietor had already closed up shop for the day, but he called someone to get her over, pointed at Amber, and then said, “Clean her face.”

Both Amber and the salon owner, who had rushed over hurriedly, were somewhat speechless, looking at each other out of shared confusion. Amber was the first to say, “Sorry to bother you.”

The salon owner coughed and replied, “It’s not a problem.”ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Then she took out some appliances and creams and indeed began washing her face as Ian waited in the lobby. Amber lay on the bed, feeling the owner’s soft fingers comfortably pinching and kneading her face. Not long later, the salon owner took out a large set of tools. “Are the two of you having a big event tomorrow, to clean your face this late?”

Amber’s face was dripping as she pondered Ian’s intentions. When she heard the salon owner’s question, she casually asked back, “What big event?”

The lady owner smiled. “Getting married, of course.” She put a facial mask on Amber, and her voice now sounded somewhat indistinct. “When I went out just now, Mr. Axton even told me specifically to do the deepest cleansing possible, I said that our deepest cleaning is generally for new brides right before they put their bridal makeup on, and he said to do that one. The two of you are getting married, aren’t you?”

“….”

She immediately remembered Calvin kissing her.

Ian … couldn’t possibly be doing this because of that, could he?