BEHIND CLOSED DOORS | 18+ |✔

37

c h a p t e r     t h i r t y- s e v e n 

"I should've known Blaine's character by the choice in her clothes," Aileen Clyde scrunched up her nose, "disgusting." and each of the people sitting at the table took turns to add adjectives.

"Repulsive." Raul added. 

"Cheap." Clementine chimed.

"Gross?" Antonia scratched her cheek.

"Laughable." Rhys said finally, but all of the others ignored him. 

"Funny how I still hear my dead son's voice when he is no more." 

"Yeah." 

"Oh, come on! I have apologized at least five hundred times." 

Antonia quietly picked at her salad, hearing him and his mother bicker. It had been around a week since his return, and his family had started treating him like a dead person. 

"So Antonia," Aileen smiled, "have you considered marri-" 

"No." 

"Oh." 

"Antonia?" Rhys asked softly, shocked at her answer. His mother and brother were equally as shocked. 

"But dear," the old lady smiled nervously, "why?" 

"Logically, I have spent only two months of my life with him, and five months without. Also, we have hardly gone on dates and done things as a couple together," the words "except for sex" were right on her tongue but she chose not to speak them, "and I don't know for sure if he's ready to settle down yet. There's also the uncertainty that he won't run away to another country again." 

There was dead silence at the table, with Clementine's chuckles filling in the air. Aileen Clyde gulped and opened her mouth to refute a few claims, but closed it again after realizing that all she spoke were facts. 

Rhys felt his appetite disappear gradually as the timidness grew. He wanted to whack Clementine's face to stop her silent wheezing, but he had already gotten into a brawl with his brother for choking her at their mother's birthday party, and he was not dying for another physical fight with Raul in the near future. 

"But, mee hermyosa myooher," Antonia stifled a peal of laughter at Raul's distorted Spanish of 'mi hermosa mujer', "my brother is a nice man. He tends to disappear at times but-"

"Please stop." Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose. When his mother had invited Antonia over for dinner, the last thing he had expected was the situation to turn so awkward. 

"Raul!" Aileen attempted to lighten the environment, "You speak Spanish? I'm sure lovely Antonia will feel at ease if you speak her language!" 

Oh, God. Clementine, Rhys and Antonia thought simultaneously. Please stop this. 

"I know a bit," Raul cleared her throat, "Mee hermyosa myooher, too myader ya see convertitio in yoona vyaka?" 

Antonia spat out the water on her salad, and choked on the remaining, coughing until Rhys patted her back to calm her down.