A little surprised by his words, I squinted my eyes at him. “A City?”
The corners of his lips quirked up into a smirk. I could see the bloodthirst and fury swimming deep in the depths of his eyes, even if he was doing his best to hide them.
“We can’t let the child’s pain be for nothing, can we?”
Oh. He was finally going to make a move on Armond. After a slight pause of hesitation, I asked, “Can I come with you?”
“Why? Will you miss me too much when I’m gone?”
I nodded, smiling up at him. “I guess. So, how about it? Can I go with you?”
As long as the issue with Armond was left unresolved, we would both have sleepless nights. Although we would have preferred to live a peaceful and mundane life, we knew that we might face even more pain and suffering in the future if we didn’t handle the issue as soon as possible.
So, Ashton agreed to let me accompany him on his trip.
Joe didn’t even stay for the remainder of the meal, merely telling Ashton the date of his and Zelene’s engagement before dragging her away with him. It seemed that their marriage had been confirmed.
I hadn’t expected two weirdos like John and Emma to get along, but to my surprise, they exchanged contact details before they left, and even made plans to eat dinner together tonight at the Stovall residence. John later approached Ashton and me to inform us that he wanted to host a small party to celebrate Kiki’s birthday, thus coming up with the idea of inviting everyone over to the Stovall residence for dinner.
Hannah and Chandler were likely to be there because of Kiki. Hannah had also moved on from everything, so what was John’s motive in bringing Emma along?
After leaving the restaurant, Ashton handled some work issues before going to the shopping mall with me to make sure that we didn’t show up to Kiki’s birthday party empty-handed.
We strolled around the mall for a bit, where Ashton ended up choosing a Transformers toy as well as a customizable black race car. His reasoning was that all children enjoyed driving around tiny vehicles of their own, and the Stovall residence’s yard was large enough for Kiki to do just that.
We bumped into some familiar faces as soon as we left the mall. It was Sally, and with her was the professor that we’d seen once before at the restaurant, Jim.
Having met once prior to that, the atmosphere between us wasn’t as awkward anymore. Sally waved at us, politely inquiring, “It’s rare to see Ashton in the malls. Did you come to buy something in particular?”
Ashton nodded, but said nothing.
His dark gaze fell upon Jim, an unrecognizable emotion in his eyes as he stared at the man. I didn’t understand these sorts of non-verbal cues between men, so I chose to ignore them.
I couldn’t help but feel like Sally was glancing down at my tummy on and off as she spoke. “I know we’ve all been incredibly busy recently, but I’ve been thinking if we should all return to J City and celebrate the new year as a family. Ashton, you know Uncle Charlie and Aunt Helen are getting older with no children to accompany them. Besides, you’re usually so occupied with work that you rarely visit them. It’d be nice to take a break for a family reunion. I doubt you’ve even been to the old Fuller family home these past few years.”
Ashton nodded, simply replying, “We’ll see.”
“By the way, Jim and I are planning to hold a wedding soon,” Sally told him, sounding slightly apprehensive. “Do you have any opinions about that? We’re both in our late forties already, and we want to start living a happy life…”
“Have the Murphys agreed to you two being together?” Ashton interrupted, turning his attention to Jim.
“That is solely between your aunt and me,” Jim answered, as elegant and self-composed as ever. “The Murphy family has no business interfering with our relationship.”
The Murphys?
There were very few “Murphy” families in K City. Was the Murphy family he mentioned the same as the one on my mind?
Ashton’s mouth quirked slightly, but the rest of his expression revealed no emotion. “Maybe you should wait until next year. It’s still too early to make this decision.”
Sally’s face fell, presumably feeling as confused as I was. “What are you talking about, Ashton? There’s nothing problematic between Jim and me, so I didn’t think you’d oppose our relationship.”
“Scarlett and I are busy. Let’s talk about this another time. I suggest you ask him about his family and find out more about his background before deciding on anything.” Not wanting to continue the conversation any further, he tugged on my arm and we left the mall.
While in the car, I spoke up, “Let’s make a stop at the local pet shop. I think Kiki would like to have a small puppy friend to play with.”
He nodded in response, pressing the gas pedal and driving off.
We sat in silence for a while before I stole an uncertain look at him. “Are you sure Uncle Jim is one of the Murphys that we know of?”
Ashton made a sound of admittance. I continued on, “Did you find out after looking into him, or did you know since the beginning?”
Even though the Murphys had a lot of children and Armond was likely one amongst many descendants, they had always been a very lowkey family that rarely made any public appearances.
