Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Eighty-Three: Best Laid Plans

Wanna had been up early checking on the plants in her parents small yard. Last night there had been a lot of wind, so some of the pots had been blown over. She wanted to fix everything before her father got up and saw the damage. He had a cold, and she didn't want him to come out and do it himself.

When she went inside the house, she put the kettle on to have a cup of tea before she went to shower and get dressed. While waiting for the water to heat up, she scrolled through her phone. That is when she saw it. The headline: "Prince of Pakorn group to wed Yaya Sperbund: a new Thai power couple is born."

She immediately turned off the kettle and went to her room. When her father got up—he usually woke up before everyone on the weekends—he saw his daughter fully dressed and writing a note at the kitchen table.

When she saw him, she said, "Good morning, Da. I was just leaving you a note." Her father noted her grim face.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"I hope so, but I really don't know. I need to go to Bangkok. I'm going to try to make the next train."

Her father nodded. "Do you want me to call Kong? He can come by and take you to the station."

"That's okay, Da," Wanna said, checking her bag. "It's only 5 minutes to Mike's place. I already called him and plenty of the guys are still there since it's so early." Her father nodded. She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll see you later," she said smiling, and then continued when she saw how worried he looked. "I'm fine, Da. I'm just checking in on a friend. Let Mae know. I'm hoping everything is fine and I'll be back for dinner."

He nodded, and she left.

It really was only a five-minute walk to the central garage for Mike's Motorcycle Taxi service, and it was early enough for most of the guys (and now with Kanda gone, it was all men) to still be sitting around waiting for calls. They usually teased Wanna, most of them knowing her since she was a kid, but Mike had warned them she was heading their way and sounded like something was wrong.

When she arrived, they wondered what had happened to put such a look on her face. But, though she looked both worried and angry, she still smiled and greeted them all, even remembering to ask Dusit about his wife who had been ill. They could tell that she was distracted, so she did not have to wait at all before she was on the back of a bike heading for the station.

Wanna kept thinking about Max. Max who had pulled them all through the trials of last year. Max who had even gotten physically attacked because of them. She thought of the Max who checked in on her particularly during the whole time and then continued to do so after he had left for Switzerland. She knew she wasn't mistaken about his feelings for her boss although he never said anything to her specifically. She had attempted to tease him a bit about it, too, when he had teased her about Sean, but he would get so quiet that she had stopped.

She had thought that her boss felt the same way, especially after seeing the look on his face when Max was in the hospital and then at the airport. She had worried when Max was in Switzerland because of Tul's dates with Yaya and his silence towards Max, but then she was relieved when she saw how he had clearly doted on Max during the welcome back dinner, looking had him with such adoration that she was sure he was going to confess any minute.

She just made the next train at Pak Nam station and settled in for the 40-minute ride. She didn't have a plan really. She had tried to call Max but couldn't get in touch with him. She needed to do something even though she knew he had friends closer to him than she was. She wanted to know if he was okay. She also wanted to know what this whole engagement thing meant. How could Tul look and act like that when he was about to get engaged to another person?