Tenant’s Secret Love

Chapter 16: Two shameless thieves

When I arrived at the office, as usual, I turned on the computer and watched the social news for a while. Then I went to my friends' microblogs and tried to find some funny content to cheer myself up.

I accidentally discovered that Natalie posted a tweet two days ago. The main content of the tweet was a wedding photo of her and Harlan. Natalie @-ed a circle of people in this tweet, but did not @-me. Of course I know that she is afraid that Harlan and her marriage will make me think of the bleak ending of myself and Brittany. In fact, she doesn't have to be like this. I can afford Lucas's blessing with pain.

There are many themes in their wedding photos, one of which is named “Silent Joy”. In this photo, Harlan and Natalie are holding hands but have blank expressions on their faces, looking very silent. The background of the photo is a smiling sunflower, which highlights the theme of “Silent Joy”.

This is a wonderful theme, but it doesn't belong to them. This theme was suggested by me when Brittany asked me more than three years ago what I thought of for her wedding photos. I felt that joy in silence can withstand the test of time and the erosion of the years, and will last forever.

I sighed gently, but my heart ached at the relentless passage of time. After a long silence, I smiled and left a comment under Natalie's tweet: “Two shameless thieves, I wish you eternal happiness!”

I lit a cigarette, took a strong drag and exhaled slowly. The smoke quickly dissipated in the wind, and I saw a cracked picture. Brittany was still lying in my arms, as she had done three years ago when she fell in love with me. She praised the theme “silent joy” that I had proposed, and we happily decided that when we got married one day, we would use this theme for our wedding photos.

But in the end, we never got to use it, because our two uncreative friends, Harlan and Natalie, stole it from us... Haha, I'm not sad about it at all, really not... I just think back to that day in the evening, and how happy we were just thinking about getting married.

...

At noon, Harlan and I had lunch in the company cafeteria. Starting this afternoon, Harlan will be on his two-week wedding leave, and he needs to temporarily hand over some of his work to me.

After spending ten minutes chatting with Harlan about work, we talked about his upcoming wedding to Natalie.

I asked Harlan, “Has Natalie found her maid of honor yet?”

Harlan nodded and said, ‘Originally Natalie was going to ask a female colleague from her company to be her maid of honor, but now that Brittany is back, she will definitely ask Brittany.”

I was caught off guard for a moment, and it took me half a second to ask Fangyuan, ’You mean I'm the best man?”

“What, are you trying to back out?” Harlan asked with a stern face.

“What are you two thinking? You and Natalie didn't consider how awkward it would be for me and Brittany to be arranged in this way?”

Harlan only responded after a moment and said, ”Oh yeah, Natalie and I really didn't think of this at this point. It would be quite awkward for you to be arranged in this way.”

“That's good to know. And Brittany and I have already broken up, so it's inauspicious for us to be your best man and maid of honor!“ I added.

“You're right, I'm a little scared!” After a pause, he asked, “So who's going to back out, you or Brittany?”

“You're on your honeymoon leave, and all the work is piling up on me. I don't have much time to be your best man, so I'll back out,” I said after thinking about it.

“That's fine, there really isn't a perfect solution to this,” Harlan said with some regret in his words.

Of course I felt sorry too, but according to wedding customs, it is not very auspicious for the married couple to have a best man and maid of honor who have already broken up.

After a moment of silence, I asked Harlan, ‘Do you have anyone else in mind for the best man?”

Harlan made a reassuring expression and said, ’No need to think about it, there's an obvious choice, just ask Robert.”

Needless to say, Robert is the perfect choice to be Harlan's best man. When we were in college, the three of us were the closest in our class. It's just that Robert is from Nanjing and went back there after graduation, so he didn't stay in Suzhou with us. But the friendship between revolutionary classes has always been there (in China, children from ordinary families will jokingly refer to themselves as revolutionary classes).

I nodded and asked Harlan, “I haven't been in touch with him for a while, what's he been up to lately?”

Harlan sighed and said, ”His family's tobacco and alcohol store has been doing well over the past two years. I heard they've opened several branches in Nanjing. They're getting ready to operate as a company now, and they've opened an 800-square-meter flagship store. They spent more than 300,000 yuan on the flagship store's image design alone. It's quite upscale!”

I sighed and said, “His father is really something! Even in his old age, he has made this kid a rich second generation!”

Harlan shrugged and said, ”This really has nothing to do with his father. You know that his uncle works in the Commerce Bureau and is a real power player. It was only a matter of time before their tobacco shop became big!”

I agreed with Harlan. In this society, the difference between those with connections and those without is not just a little. For example, Robert and I are two very different people.

...

In the afternoon, Harlan left the company, and my work became busy. I didn't get off work until 8:00 p.m. The next day, even though it was Saturday, I was still busy and added an extra day of work. The main reason was to replace Harlan and work on the GUCCI project of setting up a counter in our shopping mall. In the past two days, I have been coordinating with the inspection team from GUCCI and revising the project plan according to their requirements.

In just two days, I already feel overwhelmed and then bored. This makes me realize: Compared to Harlan, my work ability is still a bit lacking, at least he has always been very comfortable handling these events.

At 9 o'clock on Saturday night, I dragged my tired body onto the last bus home. My mood was not lightened by the fact that I would have the next day off, and all I could think about was tomorrow's wedding of Harlan and Natalie. Although I was happy for them, I didn't want to meet Brittany in such a happy occasion. This unwillingness became stronger and stronger as time passed. In my opinion, Harlan and Natalie's wedding was a cruel whipping and torture for Brittany and me.

Maybe Brittany doesn't care about this torture, but I really do!

...

It was already 9:30 when I returned to the apartment. I didn't wash up or go to bed right away. I just sat on the sofa in the living room and lit a cigarette as usual. Then I was overcome by anxiety and couldn't extricate myself. I even forgot to play a song on the guitar to relax myself.

I drank a glass of cold water and just lay on the sofa staring at the ceiling. After a while I heard the door open and I knew that Renee had returned. These past two days she had come home later than me, probably because she also had her own nightlife, but that didn't really matter to me.

The smell of smoke in the house made Renee frown. She walked over to me and said, “Can you stop smoking in the living room?”

I didn't care about Renee's question and said indifferently, ”What's wrong with smoking in the living room? I'm not smoking in your room.”

“Not even in the living room. I don't want to come home every day and the place be filled with smoke as soon as I walk in,“ Renee said sternly.

“Then I'll open the windows next time I smoke, okay? The wind will blow it away in no time,” I said to Renee, exasperated.

“No, you can't. You can only smoke outside in the future. It's not allowed in this house,”

I sat up from the sofa and frowned, saying, “You're not going to let me do this or that, are you treating me like your grandson? ...I've lived in this house for over two years, and I've smoked in every corner, including the room you're in now and...on the toilet seat in the bathroom.”

After I lost my temper, Renee suddenly said to me very calmly, ”If you're so unhappy about it, then find your own place to live, and no one will care if you climb onto the roof to smoke.”

I was speechless, but I hated the feeling of being held hostage. I couldn't resist, and I hated that I couldn't buy this house myself and become a rich man, then climb to the roof and smoke a cigarette with pride.

After a while, I crumpled the cigarette pack into a ball, threw it viciously into the trash can, and glared at Renee and said roughly, “Your grandfather won't smoke anymore, are you satisfied?”

Renee looked at me calmly and asked, “Your grandfather? Didn't you just say you were the grandson?”

I angrily said, ”Bullshit, you're the one who treats me like a grandson. When did I say I was a grandson?”

Renee laughed, shrugged again, and turned to walk towards her room.

I froze for a long time before I realized that she was setting a trap for me, making me admit that I was her grandson without realizing it... I suddenly felt an urge to spit blood at her room. It's so f*****g bullying of an honest person!

...

After washing up, I went back to my room, closed the door tightly, found another pack of cigarettes, opened one and lit it up, then opened the window and lay on the bed smoking.

The phone, which hadn't rung for a long time, rang without any warning. I was stunned for a long time before I picked up the phone from the bedside cabinet when the ringtone was about to end and then connected it.

Natalie's familiar voice came over the phone: “Lucas, are you asleep?”

“I'm lying down, but I haven't fallen asleep yet,”

Natalie sighed, “Thinking again? Single men are really pitiful!”

“You call back later, I'm going to the bathroom to cry for a while,” I said impatiently. Natalie is just like Harlan, comforting people to death every time.

Natalie laughed and said, “Okay, let's get down to business.”

“Hurry up,” I said as I took another drag on my cigarette.

“...I'm with Brittany right now. She's staying at my place tonight,” Natalie whispered to me.

I held back my heartbeat and asked calmly, ‘You're not with Harlan?”

“Are you stupid? I'm definitely at my own place right now.’ She added sweetly, ”My husband will come and marry me tomorrow!”

“Oh.”

“Well...do you want to talk to Brittany? She's in the living room talking to my parents.“ Natalie's voice dropped even lower.

I was speechless...

Suddenly another voice came from the other end of the line: ‘Natalie, what are you doing?”

Then there was the ’beep” sound of the phone hanging up abruptly, but I didn't hang up the phone right away. I could tell that was Brittany's voice.

Finally the phone hung up automatically. A little while later Natalie sent me a text message: “You heard Brittany's voice just now, didn't you... It scared the hell out of me. I called you on the phone behind her back. I need your consent to communicate, so I can help you connect. Otherwise, it will seem like I'm quite inconsiderate!”

I didn't reply to the message. I just extinguished the cigarette in my hand in silence. Her voice still lingered in my ears, and I thought of the happy us on that rainy evening.

In fact, whether we communicate tonight doesn't really matter to us. After all, we will meet in person tomorrow with our real bodies. And three years have passed, so what's the point of worrying about another anxious night?