🌈The Scarlet Cube vol. 1💙💙

Chapter 7

***

When Lenard's message came, Ethelstan was still asleep, holding Rika tightly.

"Sorry about my dad. I really wanted to see you. Too bad it didn't work out. Have a safe travel. Just in case you can't call and I can't say this in person."

He's apologizing?

Ethel rubbed his eyes and read the text twice.

"Lenard, you're such an idiot," he whispered, breaking into a satisfied smile.

Carefully freeing his arm from under the sleeping guy's head, he got up from the bed.

The alarm was supposed to go off in fifteen minutes, but Ethelstan decided it was better to stay awake.

Rika stirred in his sleep, and Ethel looked at him, smiling fondly.

"Will you forgive me?" Ethel whispered, adjusting the blanket over the guy. "I really need to go. I hope you find your happiness and everything goes well for you."

Ethel believed that whispering certain affirmations to a sleeping person would make them follow them. Unfortunately, he never got to test this theory in practice.

Dressed, he went to his stepfather's office. The club had recently closed, and the man was already asleep. But Ethel had to wake him.

He asked the sleepy man to take care of Rika and handed him a folded piece of paper.

"Give him this note. And some money for a taxi. I don't want to leave it on the nightstand. He's not a prostitute, after all."

"Are you sure about that?" Videgrel asked, struggling to suppress a yawn.

"Absolutely. Don't offend him. He's just a bit lost."

'Was there something between you two?"

Videgrel looked sternly at his stepson. He wasn't going to lecture him but needed to make sure Ethel wouldn't have problems because of this guy.

"Nothing serious," Ethel smiled and squinted mischievously. "Jealous?"

"Not at all. Ethel, I'm not asking out of idle curiosity."

"Calm down. Nothing happened. Almost. I didn't touch him. We kissed, rubbed against each other, and he fell asleep. No drama," Ethel ran his fingers through Videgrel's hair and kissed his cheek. "Not angry now?"

"I wasn't angry. Stop attributing feelings to me that I don't have."

"And yet you were jealous," Ethelstan smiled, continuing to tease him. Then, stepping back, he said: "Well, don't miss us too much, I'm off!"

"Call when you land in Paris, your mom might forget," Videgrel asked.

"I might forget too. I'm her son, after all."

"Be serious. I worry about you both."

"I'm joking. I'll call. Bye."

With those words, the guy left the office, closing the door behind him.

There was only an hour left until the end of check-in, but Ethel had already decided he wasn't going anywhere.

To hell with Paris. He didn't want to leave Lenard for a whole week without seeing him.

Mom would survive. She had to understand. And if not, that was her problem.

Ethelstan took the subway and rode the trains for a long time, turning off his phone and waiting until the plane left and nothing could be changed.

His mom was terribly superstitious. If a flight was canceled or she missed it for some reason, it was impossible to make her fly on another flight that day.