Both Kris and Lena did not even sense Madam Li in the hallway. After Kris took out the wooden splinter out of Lena"s toe he stood up.
"It"s bleeding a bit, let me go get you a bandage."
Lena looked at the nasty piece of wood that imbedded itself on her toe.
Lena might be overreacting a bit for some people. But, in Shen Qian"s life, she once tripped over the playground woodchips and had many wooden splinters in her palm, hand, and legs.
As a child, that experience of her mother helping her pull them out has ingrained her the mental trauma of splinters. She never played on the playground with woodchips anymore.
She never knew... that she will now be traumatized by wooden furniture too!
Kris came back and cleaned her wound then put a bandage on it.
"You need to throw that table away and burn it!" Lena scolded him.
He laughed. "Sure." He stood up. "It"s late. Go back to sleep."
Lena stood up from the sofa and walked slowly back to her room. She opened the door but it was locked. She tried again and was sure it was locked.
"Pssst...It"s locked." Lena told Kris.
Kris walked over and tried the door. "You lock yourself out?"
"You think I am that stupid?"
"But the door is locked. A door can"t lock itself."
"Shut up."
"Hold on, let me go get the keys." Kris went to his room and opened his drawer. To his disappointment, it was not there.
He did not know, but when Collin told the people to come to clean the house, they took the keys to open the rest of the doors in the house and made sure they did not miss anything. They never put it back where they got it from.
Kris walked back to Lena. "No keys. Just sleep in my room, I can sleep on the sofa."
"OR I can just go back to my home and sleep there."
Lena turned around to walk out but Kris grabbed her wrist. "What will I say when my mom asks where you went this morning?"
"Just say I left to go home?"
"And if she calls the Shen residence and you"re not home?"
"Then.. ugh... Fine. But I get the sofa. I am not sleeping in your rough bed." Lena lied back on the sofa. "Go get me a blanket."
Kris went to the closet and took out a small blanket and pillow for Lena.
"Goodnight." Lena closed her eyes and forced herself to go to sleep. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes again and Kris was still standing on the hallway. "Go to sleep."
"Yeah, I will after you go. Just in case you run away."
"Kris.. it"s like 4 a.m. I need at least my three hours of sleep!" Lena covered her head with the blanket and went to sleep.
Kris did not care if it was 4 a.m. or 5 or 50 years from now, he"ll watch her just in case she runs away from him. It was not until the sun was starting to rise that Kris head back to his room.
When it was 8 in the morning, Lena woke up. She went back to the guest room to see if it was open and it was. She slowly opened the door and noticed that Madam Li was not in the room.
She went inside the bathroom and looked at her back pain. It was not much and the redness was mostly gone. Her hand was not swollen nor red anymore. She put on the bra and walked to Kris room to knock on the door.
"Kris?"
He opened the door.
"Your mom is not here so I am leaving."
"Already?"
"Well... I have to take care of my missing phone and possible missing car too."
"I can go with you."
"It"s fine. You go and make sure your mess from yesterday is good. And possible go get yourself check up on too."
"Will I see you later?"
"No. I have a meeting with my therapist. See you after your vacation."
Lena quickly left his house and went back to hers. She immediately removed her bra and nasty g-string and got into something comfortable. Without even caring about anything else, she plopped herself onto her bed and went back to sleep.
She did not wake up until her doorbell rung a few times. She got off her head and looked at the time. "s.h.i.+T... almost 4 p.m. for her meeting."
She went to open the door for James and told him to wait for her. She quickly brushed her teeth and got ready. James already got a new phone for her and he said that he can take care of her car while she was with Stella.
Lena was still tired when she was sitting in the room with Stella. This time, she chose to sit on the sofa so it would be better for her back.
"Rough night? Kris was it?" Stella started the conversation.
"You know?"
"They always call the gang every time it happens so I would know."
"Yeah... rough night."
"You want to talk about it?"
"Nope." Lena was over that whole entire night.
*cough 7 chapters if you didn"t realize... we need to move on*
"Well, anything else you want to share?" Stella asked.
"I am in love." Lena spoke. "I am in love with Kris."
Saying it fully for once out loud to someone else but her mind, it felt nice. It had an angelic tone to the word love. It also felt more real, like she did not need to hide it anymore.
Stello was surprised. "That"s a big development from last week." Just last week she said she was not in love.
"Yeah. I felt that..." Lena smiled. "I loved him first before I desired him. Is that normal?"
"It happens. But it could also be the other way around. And some people think that l.u.s.t is love and love is l.u.s.t, but that is not always true. Both are completely two different things."
"I love Kris and I have some l.u.s.t for him. Two different feelings for him." Lena was sure about her feelings for him. Sure she had dirty thought about him but overall, she loved him more. Lena once told Andy that if you really love a person, your l.u.s.t can wait.
"But... I don"t know if he even knows those feelings. I mean does he?"
"I don"t know. A lot of his life was surrounded by darkness, but most of his recent life, he had been showered with love. So I think he would know what it is. Have you told him yet, about your feelings?"
"No. Not with everything that just happened." Lena looked down at her hands. "You know that feeling where you don"t want to confess to your friend? Because taking a friends.h.i.+p to a higher step can ruin that strong friends.h.i.+p?"
Lena looked up at Stella. "It would be a lie if I said that I wasn"t afraid. No one would like to be rejected." She smiled. "But I am optimistic about it. After he"s back from his vacation, I will pursue him. Tease him a bit and then confess."
Lena"s eyes smiled brightly and she spoke.
"That reminds me of me and my boyfriend. We were... friends or co-workers I guessed... and we fell in love. Not saying everything will always be successful, but it happens. I understand your feeling of uncertainty. If you confess, and he rejects you, there is an awkwardness in the friends.h.i.+p. If he accepts you but later on, the relations.h.i.+p doesn"t work out, you lose a friend and a boyfriend. And then is the other path of finding real love."
"If he rejects me, I was planning to threaten him. Is that too harsh?"
Stelle smiled. "I don"t think you need to worry about that."
Lena shared more about her weird plans while Stella offered advice. When talking about love, time past by so quickly.
"Our hour is over, but would you like to go to dinner with me and my boyfriend?" Stella asked. "Oh, and he has a third party p.o.o.per friend with him, and if you go, it"ll be less weird for all of us."
"Your boyfriend?"
"Yeah. You can finally meet him."
"Then, I will surely take the offer then." Of course, Lena can never deny free food!
Lena texted James that she was going out with Stella. He can finish taking care of her car business and take the rest of the day off.
Lena and Stella walked down the building together until they reached the outside.
Stella rushed ahead as she spotted her boyfriend. "COLE!" She waved at him.
Lena"s smiled dropped.... "Collin?! Don"t tell me the third party p.o.o.per friend is..."
Collin got out of the car and kissed Stella on the cheek. "Ah, Miss. Shen. Guessed you"ll be joining us for dinner then?"
"Us?"
"Yeah, Kris is right there. You"ll drive with him." Collin smiled.
"Ah.." Stella lets go of Collin and walked to Lena to whispered to her. "I once told you, everything you shared is just between us. When I walk out of my office, everything said in that room stays."
Stella a.s.sured Lena that regardless of her relations.h.i.+p with Dr. Tye or Collin, her patient privacy comes first. She winked at Lena and hopped into the car with Collin.
Kris got out of his car and smirked at Lena. "Guess I am seeing you later..."