When There Is Nothing Left But Love

On the chessboard, Ashton was down to his last few pieces. Gazing at me, he asked in a gentle tone, “What are your plans for this afternoon?”

“I don’t have any plans,” I replied. Then, I attacked his knight.

He didn’t seem to mind and openly surrendered to me.

Emery walked away, probably tired of witnessing Ashton’s obvious submission. Meanwhile, Cameron stood by the side and rebuked, “Didn’t I tell you both to visit the aquarium in the North District today? Summer has been going on about it for a long time.”

“That’s a good idea. The weather today is suitable for an outing,” Ashton answered with a nod.

I refused flatly, “I can’t. I’m busy.”

Both Cameron and Ashton looked at me, and the former asked quizzically, “Busy with what?”

My eyes stayed focused on the board and I only lifted my gaze after taking Ashton’s king. “Didn’t I tell you I’ll be visiting Uncle Louis today? I haven’t seen Hannah for a long time too. I wanna see her baby.”

Cameron was momentarily taken aback, but she managed to squeeze out a smile. “But Mr. Fuller is here. It’s a good time to take Summer out to play.”

“Oh.” I paused, then countered, “But I’ve already called my brother and made dinner plans with him tonight.”

Trying hard to patch things up between Ashton and me, Cameron proposed, “Well, that’s great too. You can all go together. Summer has never seen Hannah’s baby. Since Summer likes babies, I think it’s a good idea to-”

might be

Summer bounded down the stairs barefooted and ran toward me. “Mommy, Uncle John is

Speak of the devil…

as I answered the call, his voice drifted across the phone. “You’re back

see you’re

manner. “Of course. Let’s have dinner together tonight. I haven’t seen

coincidently planning to see Hannah and the baby, then visit Uncle

while

my lips, slightly

respond, I speculated, “Did you

just be the two of us?” From his grumpy tone, my guess was probably

softly and concurred, “Fine. You pick the place and time,

agreed and hung up

and I noticed that she was still in her pajamas. Hence, I told her to go upstairs and change, but she wanted me to help her. Seeing as she

up in defeat, I went back to my room and prepared to unpack

Day, I would need to go back to A City and continue working on the Lavelian Village project. I didn’t bring much of my own belongings back with me and the large

me because I noticed that the bed was

Summer and lectured, “Summer, you need to make it

at home, she needed to learn how to do these things on her own because not being able to do something and not wanting to

her response, I frowned and glanced behind me to