BASH


    The door swings open. My eyesnd on the redhead old version of Trinity. She looks stressed, but she sees me. Her eyes widen, and her contorted face lights up like a girl staring at the Christmas tree.


    Aunt Zoeyunches herself at me and hugs me tightly. I always call her aunt even we aren’t blood-rted since Trinity and I grew up together.


    “Thank God you’re safe! No one answered my calls when I tried to ask if the news was true,” she says after pulling herself away. She wipes her tears on her face then gives me a peck on my cheek. “Pleasee in, Bash.” She opens the door wider.This is property ? of N?velDrama.Org.


    I hear Edmund greet Aunt Zoey from my back.


    “Where is Trinity?” I immediately ask when I let my eyes scan the entire living room. Panic swims in the pit of my stomach when I can’t find her.


    “Trinity!” I start shouting while I quicken my pace to search for her. I don’t wait for her mother to answer my question.


    I feel my world is swinging when I can’t still find her. I walk to the kitchen where she always there drinking water when she was upset. Nothing really changed to this very same kitchen where we used to spend while waiting for the chocte chip cookies to bake.


    I always came here with Trinity during winter break after visiting my grandparents. This house served as a vacation home for her since her parents were still staying in New York until Trinity started her high school.


    Her parents moved back here when Dad finally agreed to let them work at the Boston branch. I press my hands to the beige-colored countertop. We have so many memories here, mostly happy ones.


    “Bash!” My body freezes when I hear a familiar voice—a voice that makes me feel love, that makes my heartbeat goes frantic, and the voice that screams and moans my name.


    I swallow hard and slowly turns myself to face her, but before I can finally face Trinity, I’m smashed and stumble back due to the strong impact of her body against me.


    I feel alive again. Honestly, it feels like all the exhaustions, frustrations, tensions, and aches vanish like a strong blow of wind. I finally breathe freely without a squeezing pain in every breath I take.


    Her cry pulls me back out of my thoughts. I don’t even notice her body clings on me like a cling wrap, her legs wrap around my waist, her face pressed against my shoulder, and her arms wrapped tightly around my neck.


    My arms were already wrapped around her tiny body. She sounds like crying for a long time–she’s not only sobbing with a hup, but she’s also mumbling something foreign to me.


    “Hush, Trinity. Stop crying already,” I say to make her calm, but she cries even more. I rub her back then run my fingers on her messy red hair.


    “Baby, stop crying. I’m here now, please?”


    She shakes her head on my shoulder. I look around, but I can’t see anyone. “Tri, are you crying because you thought I’m dead? Or are you crying because you feel guilty for leaving me alone there in South Korea?” I ask with a teasing tone.


    She tightens her wrap on my neck.


    I move near the countertop. “Tri, please say something?” I ce her little ass on the countertop, then she loosens herself around me. I look at her, and she looks so messy with ubed hair, tears running down her face, puffy eyes, and a red nose, but what catches my attention is her red lips.


    I swipe away the hair that falls on her face. She doesn’t say anything yet, just gripping my shirt with her both hands like holding her life into it, but she’s still crying.


    I wipe her tears with my thumbs, and I can’t wait any longer. I nt a kiss on her forehead after cupping her face. I move closer, leaning my forehead against hers, inhaling the smell of Trinity that I missed for almost a day.


    This day is worse than hell, but I finally release the breath that I hold for so long. I press my lips on hers, kissing her harder, and it feels like years of being apart from her. I rake my fingers through her hair as I hold her head to deepen my kiss.


    She kisses me back—kisses me harder as if she lets me feel everything; the longingness, the fear of losing me, the love she has for me, the regrets, and her apology. She doesn’t have to say a word. I love her so much to keep my anger for her. It’s all gone.


    “Don’t leave me again, Tri. What if I did die in that tragic crash? What would you do?” I ask, panting and tracing sweet kisses on her lips, eyes nose, forehead, cheeks, and back to her lips again.


    “I’m so sorry,” she answers with a shaky voice.


    “I know,” I reply almost immediately.


    “You do?” she asks, and finally looks at me in the eye. There’s still a hint of despair but mostly flood with happiness.


    I nod slowly and smile. “Theunch says it all, and that kisses too.”


    She smiles timidly, cups my face with her cold and trembling hands. She caresses my cheeks with her thumbs. “Can I ask something?”


    Nodding, I smile. “Of course, Tri.” I feel suddenly nervous about her question. What if I won’t like it?


    “The offer, does it still stand?” She looks at me in the eye.


    My brows furrow. “The offer?” I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.


    “Yeah,” she replies quietly.


    “Which offer?” I ask again, raising my brows quizzically.


    “Tri, I really have no idea what you’re asking. Maybe because I’ve been in hell these past hours, and my brain still foggy.”


    She feels nervous, biting her lip. “Um, because we agreed on a, um.” She blows a breath that makes the strand of her hair flies away from her face.


    A smirk spreads from my lips. “Oh, a week in Korea? Is that what you’re asking?” I ask, and she looks seemingly surprised.


    “Well, we’re not in Korea anymore, so,” I look at her reaction, and she looks disappointed. “That, it ended there too,” I continue slowly, and that’s when I notice a hint of light pink blossoms on her cheeks.


    Is she embarrassed? She nods slowly with dismay stered all over her face.


    “You said you want a week. Just a week and the deal is off when we’re back from South Korea, or did I understand it wrong?” I continue ying dumb.


    “Yeah, you’re right.” She bites her bottom lip.


    I nod in agreement.


    What the hell is she thinking? That I’ll let her go after giving my soul to her? After telling her how I feel, does she really think it’s easy to confess how I feel for her all these years? Sometimes she’s just so dumb.


    “Aren’t you going to ask about the email?”


    She shakes her head, and that’s when her tears roll down her cheeks.


    Jesus! “Don’t cry, please?” I beg as I wipe her tears.


    “Am I always like this? I always ended up broken? I never get what I wanted.” She pauses, sniffs, and ys with her fingers while looking down at her hands on herp.


    Shit! She’s killing me.


    “I never get your attention since we’re kids. I always wanted to draw and paint, but when you left, I stopped because I thought what was the point when my only inspiration was gone too. I also wanted to prove to myself that I could solve numbers without you.”


    I stand still at what she’s revealing in front of me.


    “Now, it’s toote, and I’m never going to have you,” she finishes with a shrug.


    “You know what I felt when I called you, and you’re nowhere to find? I thought my world stop, and I couldn’t function. I felt the world fell apart. I lost my strength like I lost everything, and you are my strength, Trinity.” I pause, breathing deeply. “Thest thing I know is I’m already on my flight back because I need to see you. I need to exin why, and that I need you in my life. It’s not easy to open your soul to someone who you thought loves you back. It’s not easy, but I’ve never lost hope when ites to you. It’s been years, Trinity, that I never made a move. After all, I thought you don’t like me because I was dating girls, and I’m a bully. So, I just love you by looking at you and loving my best friend was already hard. I dated because I wanted you to notice me and tell me to stop dating and date you instead. Then, you left me alone. I thought we could go to college together and that was my n because I was nning to ask you on a date now that we were both eighteen at that time and if we were far from our parents, we could live our lives together and started together as a couple.”


    She listens carefully, and I can see the shock on her face.


    “I always love you, even if you would never love me back. Nothing’s gonna change that. You will always be my first love and my only love, Trinity.” I take a deep breath when my eyes sting and blur. “If I diedst night, I would regret that forever for not telling you, but half of it was I’m d that I love you until the day I die, and you are thest person I think of.”


    She shakes to cry, and this time I feel a tear falls from my eye. She sees it, and she looks even surprised. She throws herself at me. “I love you, Bash, even how many times you made me cry every night, even how many times you bashed me, I still love you.”


    “God.” I release a sigh—a sigh of contentment and relief.


    ***


    I feel so exhausted after our confessions. After breakfast, Aunt Zoey prepared for us. I excused myself to take a rest. Edmund already arranged for the hotel. It was not a problem because the King Hotel is one of the five-star hotels here in Boston. Her dad came to join our breakfast since he was busy with a new case, and he didn’t share much because of the confidentiality of ssified my ass as he called it.


    I yawn for the third time while Edmund is busy sharing his funny moments back in South Korea during his so-called Bash’s breakdown at the hanok. The Mallorys are very much entertained by his presence, I must say.


    I roll my tired eyes when he mentions I kissed Trinity’s shirt that she might forget to slip in her bag because that’s not true.


    “Bash, you can stay here, and we still have a room for you.” I hear Aunt Zoey says.


    “I’ve cost you enough trouble already.” I shake my head and answer politely.


    She rolls her eyes. “You’re always wee to give us troubles.”


    Iugh at her. “Well, you’re the first person who wants me to give you troubles.”


    Trinity grabs my hand and stands up. “Get up, and you need to freshen up,” She says, sniffing me.


    My brows furrow. “I don’t smell bad, do I?”


    Uncle Logan groans. “Let Bash take a rest, but this is not a five-star suite. No room service and the walls aren’t too thick.”


    My face burns. “My parents taught me well,” I retort with amusement as I walk away with Trinity.


    “I didn’t say anything!” Her dad yells when we are both near the stairs.


    After taking a shower and changing into sweatpants and a in blue shirt, I sit on the bed in the room that Mallory’s offered me.


    I walk toward Trinity’s room. The very same room where we almost kissed years ago. That was the first time I can’t anymore hold my feelings toward her, and maybe missing her for a week during our Christmas vacation did that.


    “Tri?” I knock softly.


    “No sex in my house, Hughes!” I hear her dad’s voice instead. I groan, facing him who’s ready to go to work.


    “I’m not gonna do that here, Mallory,” I say to emphasize the here part.


    He smirks, shaking his head. “I think she’s in the shower. I bet her door is open,” he replies, walking down the stairs.


    I open the door slowly, and it squeaks a little. Her room has changed—the color from bed to the small walk-in closet and those sketches of me are not on the walls anymore.


    I sit on the small chair of her white dresser, and that’s when I notice a ck rectangr card is on top of it. I grab the business card scribed with golden sans letters. My blood boils when my eyes scan the name written in bold.


    SEAN FUCKING REXWELL