Tang turned towards the sound, keeping her covered behind his back as he ran his fingers through his now thoroughly mussed hair."Where is the fire, Li Jie", he asked irritably, stepping out from the semi-dark nook.
"Your parents arrived ten minutes back and have been looking for you", panted Li Jie.
"I didn"t even know that they had been invited and Dad never mentioned about attending the wedding either", Tang frowned.
He turned around to make sure that nothing was amiss in Jia Li"s appearance.
"Chung is waiting for you at the car parking. You go in with him and meet your parents. I will get Jia Li in a few minutes", Li Jie said and pushed his friend towards the intended direction.
Loath to leave her behind, Tang gave her an intense look and walked away.
"Are you alright?" enquired Li Jie, taking in her flushed face and slightly swollen lips.
She gave a radiant smile to her dear friend and held his hand, "never been better".
Li Jie broke into a grin and said, "awesome! Let"s go and rock the party then".
Tang walked up to his parents with an enquiring look, "I didn"t know you were coming to the function, dad".
"I thought I should meet this friend of yours who has been so close to you but we haven"t heard of", remarked Mr. Xie dryly.
Tang always looked up to his father with pride and had tried to emulate him from the childhood. Mr. Xie had been a perfect father all this while and encouraged his son to push his limits in every field. So it had been a huge problem for Tang when he had realized that his father frowned upon his a.s.sociation with his three best friends, especially Jia Li. Though he had never said anything explicitly but Tang knew that he had to walk a fine line in maintaining the equilibrium.
Till date, he had managed to keep the situation under control but with the crazy tide of emotions that he had started to feel for his girl, he knew it would be a matter of time before things came to forefront. For him, it was imperative that his father should like Jia Li and he always kept dropping lines about her various qualities and accomplishments in front of his parents.
"I didn"t want to come but they dragged me along with. I had been invited to a sleepover but dad cancelled it", Chu spoke sullenly.
Smiling at his younger sister, Tang gave her a hug and whispered, "I think I saw a stall of cola drinks and vanilla ice cream next to each other. Do you think you can manage to escape mom"s scrutiny and go make a cola float for yourself?"
His sister beamed a million-dollar smile at him and got busy plotting escape plans.
Tang turned towards his mom and spoke earnestly, "do you know that the bride"s family is so fond of me that they have asked me and my group to perform a few songs tonight. They even offered to pay but I refused due to our friends.h.i.+p. In fact when you people came, Chung and I were discussing the songs that we shall be singing tonight."
Before his mother could remark, Mr. Xie intervened, "why should they object. They are getting free entertainment for their function. Tell me, am I coughing up such huge amounts of fees so that you can become a stage performer?"
Mrs. Xie put a restraining hand on her husband"s forearm, "this is neither the place nor the occasion to hold this conversation. Let"s go home and talk about this please."