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-”

and she likes him. It might be troublesome to bring her along. It’s better if I

the stairs barefooted and ran toward me. “Mommy, Uncle John

Speak of the devil…

voice

you’re well-informed,” I

“Of course. Let’s have dinner together tonight. I haven’t seen you in such a long time. I

planning to

fell silent for a while before clarifying,

lips, slightly

respond, I speculated,

From his grumpy tone,

“Fine. You

hung up after

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 wasn’t a baby anymore, I turned her down. To my chagrin, she ran to Ashton, hugged him, and started acting all

up in defeat, I went back to my room and prepared to unpack my things since I probably had

didn’t bring much of

noticed that the bed was still unmade. After tidying up the bed slightly, I arranged my skincare products on the

“Summer, you need to make it a habit to make the

there were maids at home, she needed to learn how to do these things on her own because not being able to

frowned and glanced behind me to