He pushed open the door to see the living room empty, which meant that Shelly and Bella were both asleep. Hence, he tiptoed into the room, and sure enough, Shelly was already asleep, with a dim light beside her.
Nox took a shower before slipping into bed. Shelly liked to sleep close to the edge of the bed. Perhaps it was not because she liked it, but because she wanted to be further away from him.
He had been deceiving himself before that she liked him, so he would lean over and hug Shelly tightly in his arms every time. He seemed to be able to sleep peacefully only when he hugged her and felt the warmth of her body.
However, he chose to turn his back to face Shelly tonight. He told himself that he should try to accept the fact that he would not have Shelly on the same bed or by his side in the future anymore.
Nox’s eyes suddenly reddened. He could not believe he was teary-eyed because of the thought of parting with Shelly.
The days after that were the same. However, Nox did not ask about Shelly leaving the celebration party early, and Shelly did not mention anything about seeing Nox with another woman. It was as if everything that happened that day was as it should be. As time passed, everyone gradually forgot about it.
On one of the days, Shelly suddenly received a call from Sarah, who informed her that she had sent the address of the class reunion which was at 6 p.m. tomorrow, and that she should be on time.
To be honest, Shelly had forgotten about it, and when she received the call, every cell in her body was rejecting the idea of going. However, she did not want to go back on her word, so she braced himself and agreed.
After answering the phone, Shelly turned to look at Nox. At that moment, everyone had just had dinner together and was watching television with Bella on the sofa in the living room, whereas Nox was on his phone. Since Shelly did not like to play with her phone, she spent most of her time watching cartoons with Bella.
At that moment, she was a little absent-minded. She turned to look at Nox a few times. Seeing that he was happily playing his games, she hesitated several times.
Finally, when Nox was done with his game, Shelly said, “Nox, I have something to tell you.”
Although he was acting naturally, deep down, he was extremely nervous. In fact, he had long noticed that Shelly was looking at him and knew she had something to say to him. He just pretended not to see her because he was afraid of hearing bad news, such as breakups and so on.
He held his phone and kept tapping on the screen to hide his panic.
“There’s a high school class reunion tomorrow,” said Shelly.
Nox’s hands paused for a moment when he heard it was just a class reunion. However, why was Shelly telling him that one-on-one? He was not one to restrict her freedom.
“It’s tomorrow at 6 p.m., so I’ll be out at around 5:30 p.m. Sarah will pick me up.”
“It’s okay. If you want to go, go ahead,” Nox said generously.
“What I mean is, can you help me take care of Bella for a night? I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll try my best to be back early,” Shelly quickly said. She did not want to trouble him. After all, he was still an outsider to her, and that was why she thought that taking care of Bella would be difficult for him.
Nox was used to treating everything with indifference. Anyway, even if he did not help her with that, nothing would change. Therefore, he might as well take it lying down and accept it.
“Alright, I’ll take good care of Bella. Don’t worry and go have some fun
“Bella.” After receiving Nox’s reply, she smiled and called out to Bella, who was happily watching TV. “I won’t be home for dinner tomorrow night. You and Daddy will be home alone tomorrow night, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be with Daddy tomorrow.” Bella seemed very happy and not the least bit sad that her mother would not be around.
Shelly let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Bella also accepted it.
She then thought for a moment and said to Nox, “Nox, you can order takeout for dinner tomorrow night. Bella has been clamoring for fried chicken a few days ago. But if you don’t want to eat out, you can request the housekeeper to come over and cook. I remember that owners here can request it for free.”