The Man He Chose

Chapter 19

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Third Person POV

"Thank you so much, mom!" Cooheart happily clapped his hands like a child as he watched his mother lay out on the table a platter of calamari steak and a side dish of green papaya salad.

 Then his mother took out of bowl of fragrant jasmine rice from the big brown paper bag that she had brought with her and laid it on the table beside the calamari steak and green papaya salad.

"I met Kao on the stairs on my way up here," Mrs. Namwirote announced to her son just as Cooheart had pulled out a chair and sat on it.

Cooheart's happiness instantly disappeared and a mixture of sadness, confusion and guilt appeared on his face.

Then after a few seconds, Cooheart determinedly pushed away all his negative emotions and bravely put his happy face back on.

"I will discuss him with you after I have eaten your wonderful cooking," he said, already picking up his fork and knife to slice off a piece of the calamari steak.

"Suit yourself," Mrs. Namwirote said, walking away from the table and walking towards the living room area.

"Are you not going to join me?" Cooheart asked. "The food you brought is good for two servings."

"You can save the leftover for dinner," Mrs. Namwirote said. "I intentionally brought an extra amount so that you won't have to worry about cooking dinner later."

Suddenly a thought entered Cooheart's mind. With Santa around, he never had to worry about dinner. Or breakfast. Or lunch. There was always all those three meals ready for him. When Santa was around.

Had he been too harsh on Santa? Should he give Santa a call? Most importantly, would Santa take his call after the way he had treated Santa?

Cooheart picked up the tall glass of ice cold honey lemon tea and sipped from it as he tried to answer all those questions in his mind.

He had barely swallowed what he had sipped when his phone started to ring.

The ringtone indicated to him that it was Title calling.

"What's up, sweetheart?" Cooheart said into his phone.

Shit, he shouldn't have added 'sweetheart'. That would give Title the wrong idea that he had some feelings left for Title when there was absolutely none... or was there? ... stop it, Cooheart scolded himself.

"I was ..." Title was starting to say, but suddenly as if realizing something, he asked instead, "Wait, what did you say?"

"I said, what's up," Cooheart replied carefully, trying not to sound evasive.

"No, after that," Title insisted, wanting to make sure that he had heard Cooheart right.

Cooheart sighed.

"Okay, I added 'sweetheart' which I shouldn't have done because I don't want you getting your hopes up," Cooheart said, trying to make his voice sound firm.

It was Title's turn to sigh heavily, making sure that it was audible over the phone.

"Tomorrow is my mom's birthday and I'm throwing her a party," Title said. "I would like to invite you to attend the celebration."

When Cooheart did not immediately respond, Title added for good measure, "She's expecting you to attend the party, Coo."

"Of course I will be there," Cooheart replied, knowing that going over to Title's house could complicate matters more.