A Promise Of Romance (MewGulf AU)

🌞Chapter 10🌻

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"Your fiancee?" he asked.

He was beginning to lose confidence in his English skills. He had no idea what Mew was saying.

"As it happens," Mew explained, "I'm being forced to marry someone I have no interest in whatsoever, and so to avoid that, I'm looking for a fake fiancee. You told that you're enrolled in a theater school?"

Guld nooded. "Yes."

"So then you're good at acting," Mew reasoned out. "How about it? I'll pay you 300 pounds a day to pretend to be my fiancee. I think that's pretty good."

"Good idea," Mild chimed in. "This kid would look great dressed up like a girl." He laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach.

"Wait a minute," Gulf protested. "I'm a boy. And why do you need to make up a fake fiancee? I'm sure you could find a lot of eligible women,"

Mew smiled ruefully.

"I don't think that would work."

"Most women wouldn't stop at just pretending to be a fiancee for a rich, handsome aristocrat," Mild explained.

Mew sighed wearily. "We were planning to ask Brenda. She was a prostitute after all. She would have understood her position."

Gulf felt the blood rising to his face. How pathetic Brenda seemed now, thinking of him as her God! Mew wasn't just being dismissive, he was insulting her.

"I can't do it," Gulf said coldly. "Please find someone else." He yanked his hand free, pulled the ring off, and set it on a table. "I've returned your ring now, so I'm going home."

He couldn't hide the sharp tone in his voice.

"You seem to be upset," Mew said coolly. "Let me take you home as an apology."

"No, thank you!" Gulf replied immediately.

Mew's rudeness might have been an example of that British conversational technique called 'wit', but it had gone too far.

Gulf wanted no further part in this conversation. He had already formed a bad opinion of Mew.

'He might look good, but he's got a rotten personality.'

Mew smiled winningly. "Don't be shy."

Gulf really wanted to say no. But in the end he wound up being taken home in Mew's car. The main reason was he didn't know how to get home. And it would have been impossible to find a taxi in the middle of the night in a residential neighborhood.

The only bright spot was that Mew had been drunk  and so Mild drove Gulf home. This man was a bit mystery himself, but compared to Mew, he seemed perfectly normal.

"Do you feel a little calmer?" Mild asked as he drove. "He doesn't mean any harm. Just remember he was drunk and forget all about it."

"Brenda wanted to see him very badly. But the things he said..." Gulf broke off. He couldn't help complaining.

"What was your name again?" Mild asked.

"Gulf."

"Gulf, then. I'm Mild Suttinut. I work for a third-rate tabloid paper."

"You're a journalist?" Gulf asked.

Mild nodded, then fell silent.

The car sped through the night.

Outside the window, Gulf saw that all of the stores were closed and no one walked the streets of the city as it slumbered. Mild seemed to be focused entirely on driving and showed no inclination to chat, and so Gulf fell silent too. They arrived at Gulf's building without ever resuming the conversation.

When he climbed out of the car, Gulf dug out what remained of the tip from his pocket.

"Would you please give this money back for me?" he requested.

"Why?" Mild wanted to know.

"There's no reason for me to keep it," Gulf pointed out.

"You're pretty honest, aren't you?" Mild remarked. "I don't think he cares about the money though."

"I care about it," Gulf insisted. "I only used some of it to pay for the taxi to his place."

"All right." Mild accepted the money. "I just have one piece of advice for you, since you're so sincere. Don't get mixed up with him."

"We'll I don't think I'll be seeing him again," Gulf threw back.

"Let's hope so," Mild said ambiguously and then left.

TBC