Sweet Devil [BL]

Chapter 32. Chocolate Muffin

After buying a plastic bag worth of snacks and the basic groceries needed for a week of camping, Gulnas went to fetch her daughter at her friend's. She had been dropping Masha off at Camille's so often lately that she had started to wonder if her daughter actually knew that her friend's place wasn't her house!

'Maybe I should remind her,' Gulnas inwardly sighed, a smile on her lips. 'Not sure she's going to listen to me, though.'

Masha had always been close to her childhood friend; it was to the point that Mrs. Brown sometimes felt like she had two daughters instead of one. The girls looked like sisters, the kinds that did everything together. Gulnas had long since included Camille as a family member, whether consciously or not.

With this in mind, she and her husband invited the teenage girl to spend the week with them, but the teenage girl gently refused, saying that she wasn't good with outdoor activities.

Moreover, the day they planned on returning from their camping trip coincided with the day Camille's family was leaving the country to travel through Europe. It was a month-long voyage that her parents had carefully planned over the past year, and Camille couldn't exactly tell them that she wasn't going anymore, not when everything was already paid, plane tickets and hotel fees included. Even if they came back early in the morning so that she wouldn't miss her flight, Camille still refused, saying that she didn't want to take any chances.

However, she didn't have to stay at the campsite for the whole week. Instead, she could have kept them company for the weekend and returned a few days earlier with Alexey. Because he couldn't request a week-long vacation after the few days off he had taken to visit his son at the hospital, Alexey only had his weekends left for the rest of summer and thus couldn't spend the whole week at the campsite. Though it was a lot of time spent on the road, he had decided to travel back and forth on the weekend, meaning that he could give Camille a ride.

However, that didn't change her mind, and Camille still refused to come. She didn't want to sleep in the middle of a forest, even if it was only for two nights. She couldn't stand the idea of bugs crawling into the tent and then on her skin! It made her stomach churn. Sorry, but she much preferred sleeping in her soft, warm bed.

All in all, because of their respective family trips, the time Camille and Masha could spend together was quite limited this summer, which had never happened until now. That being said, Masha decided to pay her friend a visit before leaving. Albeit with a reluctant sigh, Mrs. Brown allowed it as long as her daughter helped pack the car in the evening.

Now, time was up, and her daughter had to return home. And even if she begged to stay five more minutes, Gulnas would turn a deaf ear. Enough was enough!

***

"I'd have liked to stay five more minutes," Masha sulked as she opened the front door. "Just five more!"

"Your five more minutes would have turned into ten, then fifteen, and so on! We would never have left if it were up to you," Gulnas retorted. "Sweetie, Gabriel was already waiting for you at your friend's house!"

"But—!"

Masha stopped talking mid-sentence; a sweet smell drifted to her nose, startling her. She glanced at her mother and Gabriel before curiously walking to the kitchen, only to come across a messy room and a little boy. The child didn't seem to notice them immediately, engrossed in humming an obscure song that none of them recognized.

Slightly bent forward, his hands on his knees, the boy was happily swaying his head in time to the unknown song, staring at the oven as if it was a marvelous treasure. His crystal clear blue eyes seemed to sparkle with a thousand lights while dark brown blots, left by the muffin mixture, stained his white skin. It was a mischievous but adorable appearance, softening people's hearts.