"Your love is such a sugar rush, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!"Garret lay sprawled on the bed, staring fixedly at the ceiling as he sang "Candy Store" out loud. His voice was coa.r.s.e and he was awfully tone deaf. Beside him, Hartley lay on the other bed, turning around restlessly. His face was scrunched up and he looked ready to throw up blood.
"Shut up!" he finally yelled, when Garret"s hoa.r.s.e voice began to ring in his ears endlessly, "I will come over and strangle you, shut up!"
Gar frowned at Hart, and barely sparing him a glance, looked at the ceiling and began to sing aloud again. His face held a lousy grin. When Hartley couldn"t bear it anymore, he picked up a pillow from beneath his head and threw it at Garret"s face.
Garret didn"t dodge. Instead, he frowned, put away the fluffy thing when it hit his face, smiled again and continued his song.
Hartley couldn"t believe his eyes.
"You!" he immediately got up, "What is the matter with you? Tell me now!"
Gar frowned again and shot Hart an impatient look. For a second though he stopped singing. Then carefully a.s.sessing his friend, he said,
"I think I"m going to ask her out."
Hart"s face dropped.
"What?"
"I said I think I"m going to ask her out."
The blonde actor"s expression changed rapidly from annoyance to wonder, and then to extreme horror. Giving it a second of thought, he screeched,
"The scary Aunty?! Jimmy will kill you!"
Gar rolled his eyes.
"Not the small girl. Her friend, Rebecca."
Hartley"s jaw immediately dropped. He pointed at Garret, his face the expression of utter shock and then gasped.
"The Aunty"s friend?!" he howled. Garret shot him another annoyed look.
"Yes, her friend Rebecca," he said in exasperation, "And I think you should stop calling Miya "Aunty" if you don"t have a death wish."
"You are defending her! Did you forget you got hit with a mop?!"
Garret"s expression instantly turned fowl. But then he also remembered the beautiful girl, Rebecca"s words, and shrugged the anger away.
Everything was fair in war and love, she had said.
And this was love! Well…
Infatuation at the very least…
So very solemnly, the gigantic man responded, "If she helps set me up with her friend, I can make my peace with it."
Hartley"s jaw dropped again.
"You shameless man!" he immediately accused, "You have no pride! Be hit with a mop to get laid?!"
Garret shrugged.
"I got hit anyway. Might as well have something good come off it."
"You have no pride!"
"I heard that the first time."
"I will complain to Chairman Hunter! I will tell him you and Shekhar kissed!"
"Do it. I still have screeenshots of Jimmy"s dating profile from when it read that he was a part time pimp. I"ll tell him it was you."
"You…!"
Hartley scrunched his fists, then stomped out of the room as indignantly as he could.
He was not dealing with this!
His friends were turning stupid! Jim had already married the scary Aunty and was living with her, and his Gar boy was turning lover boy too! And he, HE, was supposed to be the flirting giant!
Why was HE, the beautiful Hartley Greene, still single?!
And why had he been summoned by the Chairman? He could be away from all of these idiots, and be playing video games right now! And he had a stupid shoot in the evening!
Why did he have to work when everyone was flirting around?!
Mumbling to himself, he walked out of the house and into the night. He took a stroll around a nearby orchard, and was about to go back when he decided he was too tired. He needed to rest. Suddenly though, he saw the silhouette of a man sitting under a tree.
It was way past midnight.
Who was out so late at night?
Hart crept up to the nearest tree, and saw the Chairman sitting under the one directly before him. The old man sat on a chair placed under a gigantic peepal tree, and quietly smoked a cigar.
Hartley wanted to walk up to the old Hunter and ask him what was wrong. Almost instantly though, Senior Hunter began to shiver. Hart thought Simon was feeling cold, and he was going to rush to his help, when suddenly, the old man burst out laughing.
The sound was like a bark, and it echoed eerily into the night.
Hartley was scared. Immediately retreating his steps, he ran away as fast as he could.
Everyone was too weird tonight!
He was leaving right away!