“Idiot!”
“Ow, ow, my finger!”
“Skskksk!”
The meeting room was disrupted with the two playing a thumb match in the middle. After a great deal of half an hour, Cassandra and Louis chuckle while clearing their throats. The meeting comes to an end as the CEO shakes hands with the ambassador and the CEO of another company.
Framton watches the other company representatives leave. He turns to his children who were playing on their own, in a world of their own.
“Kids,” people of the cabinet leave, whispering among themselves as they adore the siblings.
“That wasn’t very nice on our part to pay divided attention to them. Especially you, Louis. You’re the CEO.”
“Oh, papa. It was their fault that their points were so dragged and boring! I was listening to them too! Am I right, Cass?” Louis dramatically points to Cassandra who passes the same vibe towards Framton.
“It was boring, right dad?” She asks Framton.
Matching their silliness, he too does the same pose, “I know right!”
The three laugh together while Louis hugs them both, following them outside to go home. To the Johnson estate.
Cassandra insists that they stop by at a cool, roadside restaurant and have some fun.
Framton agrees, blaming it on Monday blues.
“Have some!” Framton feeds the girl, Louis pouting at his father.
“Cheating! You won’t feed me? Framton doesn’t like me.”
“Aw, how can I not love my eldest son?” Framton was arranging a bite on his fork to feed Louis. But the old man winks at Cassandra who chuckles while chewing.
“I saw that!” The tall man yells.
They reach home after filling their stomachs with street food at around 9. Changing into their clothes quickly, they join Framton in watching a random show on the TV.
“Dad, can we play rummy?”
“Oh yeah! I want to play too!” Cassandra speaks after Louis, bouncing up from Framton’s chest.
“Do you even know how to play rummy, silly?”
“Then teach me, silly.” Cassandra says,
“Alright, alright. I’ll teach you the game, Cassandra. It’s all about luck.” Cassandra pokes her tongue out at Louis who gives her a cartoonish I-don’t-like-you gaze.
Groaning, Framton gets up to fetch the rummy cards from below the TV drawer. They settle around the low wooden table in front of the couch as Cassandra plays gaming music on the TV.
Accompanied with some snacks served by the servants there, they enjoy the whole night with their father in the mansion.
On the other hand, Zayn was at home and locked away in his room. He assertively created a masterplan to keep Louis away from traveling anywhere on the basis of business.
Or any sort of travel on that matter.
He fills the notes with lies that can come up one after the other. A thousand lies were made to save the man from entering into death’s mouth.
“I think this will be enough. I’ll think about things tomorrow.” Saying to himself, he goes out at last during midnight to fill his stomach and get some good night’s sleep alongside Nick, his father.
However, at night, Zayn felt something against his butt.
He was turned around, Nick was supposed to be asleep behind him. A sudden rise of panic occurs to him as he quickly turns around.
“Bro, what are you doing?” He asks his father, his brother as for now for whatever he was attempting to do. Nick quickly puts his pants back on before Zayn lifted the sheets to see.
“What’s with you, ugh…” Nick pretends to be asleep. Zayn squints to see what was poking his butt, thinking it was just Nick’s hand.
“Yeah, whatever. I’m sleeping in my room. Goodnight.” Sleepily mumbling, Zayn goes back into his room. But that doesn’t ease his tension.
He thinks about Cassandra mentioning something was wrong with Ravine. They’ve been friends for a while now, more than an year has passed.
Zayn then recollects that Ravine’s parents were allowed to talk to her and James Lee. Now that James and Ravine were 20 years old, the property of their father has been divided to Ravine and James Lee, equally by the court itself.
Cassandra also shared with him a bit of information about Ravine’s parents, that they were acting weird and speaking bullshit to spike her up. Ravine chose not to visit them again after ‘something’ happened.
Ravine couldn’t share much of the details, but Zayn was thinking that something was troubling Ravine, and probably forcing her to stay away from Cassandra as a friend.
The next day, he wakes up to soft crying of someone beside him.
It was Alex, sitting on the bed while Dan and Nick talked to him.
“Guys, I’m sleeping-” his words were cut when he hears Alex sobbing and weeping.
Alex was in tears.
Alex Johnson.
Concerned greatly about Alex, Zayn grabs his spectacles and springs up to sit.
“Hey, what happened?” He looks around as Dan begins to explain, “I don’t know what happened between them but Ravine suddenly said she couldn’t do it anymore with him. That’s fucking strange.” Dan says.
“Oh boy,” Zayn was trying to connect the dots.
“She said she loved me just a week ago and- and I don’t know what’s bothering her, Zayn. She was so good to me all these months but…”
“Alex, calm down. Tell us everything you saw. Did she suddenly turn cold to you?”
“Yes.”
“Um… is she seeing anyone else beside you?”
“No. I don’t think so.” He answers honestly. He had faith in her that she wouldn’t cheat on him so easily.
“Me neither. But… here’s the thing.” Alex curiously looks at Zayn, twisting his body.
“Cassie said Ravine was behaving weird as well. Normally those two would stick to each other like glue, but these days they seem so distant.” Says Zayn.
“Really?”
“I think something has to do with us being Johnsons or something. Is she being jealous of us?” Alex widens his eyes at how Nick analyses and puts it through.
“You may be right there, Nick. We don’t know anything yet.”
“No… no. She wouldn’t become jealous that easily-”
“It’s been a fucking year already, Alex. It’s a possibility.” As Dan says, Alex felt his heart sinking to his stomach.