Kai sighed, gritted his teeth, and stiffened his posture with instant irritation. He should have known this would be one of the reactions and predicted some Anna-tears. Qian stopped mid-love-puppy grinning at his cell, appraised his two friends, and raised a hand. Seeing the start of a situation with no good outcome.
Qian was not a fan of messy.
Anna glared at him like he was a traitor as he passed and then turned back with renewed venom at the two men silently shaking their heads at her. Qian closed them back into privacy with the thud of the door.
“Anna, calm down and take a seat.” Tian slid out of his chair and got up, moving past Kai to be a peacekeeper. “I’ll make us all coffee.” He gestured towards the seating area, a headache brewing and wishing he could follow Qian out the door. Woman and their dramatics were not his favorite pastime.
“Why are you defending her? Why are you plastering our personal business and relationship all over OTS? What the hell are you doing?” Anna had not heard anything and was too intensely focused on Kai with ever-rising emotion. She looked wild, like a rabid animal caught in a trap, and her normally pretty features were twisted with bitterness.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Kai lost his cool, yelling in a harsh rasp and cutting her off, incensed by the nerve of a woman who knew nothing about their relationship in the past. “You don’t know shit, and I know despite being close, Minhui would never tell you either. What happens in our family stays in our family, which you are not a part of. You have no idea what you are even saying and no understanding of what’s going on, so back the fuck off. I’m warning you, Anna.”
The air crackled between them. Anna, instead of feeling vindicated in barging in here, was bruised by his harsh response, and it only fuelled her anger.
Anna gasped at the striking blow to her heart his words caused and reverted to a hurt, croaky whimper. Her eyes grew big and damp, and she began to tremble back to a submissive girl instead of an aggressor.
“I don’t love you.” Kai snapped, cutting off the sniveling, tearful deliverance in a whiny baby voice as Anna reduced herself to tears. She wasn’t invoking sympathy but heightened anger because she was infuriatingly suffocating. Kai should have shaken her loose long ago.
Anna was gobsmacked with Tian’s dismissive words and gulped down a sob, blinking at him with doelike sadness. These boys had never been so cold and harsh towards her in all those years as friends and had pandered to her moods. They had treated her like the princess she was, and she did not like this change in them.
All hints of sassy and boldness were gone, and she was sniffing and wiping streaming makeup from her face with the back of her hand. Childlike and pulling out all the tricks to have a man feel bad for her.
Kai shifted in his seat, feeling his cell vibrate in his pocket, and hauled it out, blanking the way Anna stared at him. He sat bolt upright fast when he saw Meilei’s name.
She had finally reacted to his statement, and it was like being zapped with a low-volt tazer in his stomach. He opened it with a lump lodged in his throat, a heart flutter betraying his nerves, and took a steadying breath. Losing all awareness of the people around him.
Why did you do that? You didn’t need to.
Kai frowned at it, trying to read between the lines to see whether she was angry or appreciative. He just couldn’t tell. It was such a neutral question devoid of any hint as to what she was feeling and could be interpreted as hostile or appreciative. He replied quickly, annoyed that he had no idea how to read her tone.
I needed to. I told you I would try to make up for everything I had done, and this was one of them. I’m sorry it took me so long. I meant everything I said about fixing the mistakes I made. x
Kai shifted uncomfortably, nerves on show, and blew out air in an obvious manner, pulling Tian’s eye, who figured immediately who was texting. Only one person nowadays could bring that sudden calm and sheepish look to his friend’s face. The anger had dissipated like he was doused in cold water. It could only be Meilei.
There was a long, tense silence as Anna composed herself. Eyes wandered from Tian to Kai, hating that he was now glued to his cell, seemingly unphased by her upset. She bitterly cursed that bitch under her breath for ever setting foot into her world and had to swallow down the fresh wave of rage and tears. Despising his indifference.
“What?” Kai’s eyes flew back to her with a snap of disbelief and the re-brewing of rage, cutting her off. Locking onto her gaze like a stealth weapon and pinning her with a snarling glare. “Did you just devalue Meilei because she isn’t some spoiled rich kid who grew up with a diamond-encrusted golden spoon wedged up her ass?” Kai sat up, letting his cell fall into his lap in his loose grasp. He was fully focused back on Anna and felt like he was seeing her for the first time. She had never shown her classist side in all the years of being friends.
Tian sight, stared at the ceiling in a desperate nod to the powers above to help him with this one and knew it was a lost cause. Anna was her own worst enemy, and this right here was the definition of poking the bear. Resigned to letting them fight it out, he turned on his heel to finish making the coffee he so badly needed. His anger spiked at her words, but this wasn’t about him, and he was butting out. Knowing he needed to count to ten before saying something he would regret.
Across the room, Tian had to bite his tongue and focus on the coffee grounds. Given his mother had been orphaned young to a low-income family and had met his father when working two lowly-paid jobs as a waitress. Tian could not agree on status, class, or privileged upbringing. He was raised by a salt-of-the-earth woman who, when given opportunity and support, had risen to be a self-sufficient CEO of her own company, fiercely loyal and honest to a fault. Anna was unaware that the Lady of his family, the queen of his life, had started in a one-room shack with a single mother and absent father. At fifteen, her mother died of an illness they couldn’t afford to treat and left her alone to pull herself up in the world. She was the strongest woman he knew, and he adored her for her success in life.
Tian focused hard on what he was doing and simmered as much as his friend was. Brewing scorn for the person stabbing at someone’s worth based on the money they luckily were born into.
Kai pushed his cell to his ear as it began to ring, glaring hatefully and having to control his urge to pick her up and toss her out the door. He had nothing else to say to her. He was done. Their friendship was done, and her place in his life was over. She had made the mistake of talking about Meilei, which was unforgivable in his eyes.