The Man He Chose

Chapter 33

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Third Person POV

Cooheart turned down Mrs. Puangmalee's offer for him to stay for dinner. He was confident that Santa would have a delicious dinner waiting for him at their unit.

Cooheart breezed through the early evening traffic, whistling along with the radio music in his car.

A/N: The YouTube upload above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on YouTube.

Cooheart wondered what dinner was waiting for him at home. Lemon butter salmon fillet perhaps? Or teriyaki salmon? Santa knew that teriyaki salmon was Cooheart's favorite dinner dish, so maybe that was what Santa was fixing for him this evening.

Cooheart parked his car in his allotted spot in his building's parking lot.

Still whistling, he walked into the lobby, waved and smiled at the receptionist before walking towards the area where the elevator was, and pressed the button for service.

Still whistling the melody of the radio music that he had been listening to, because he was having LSS as people termed last song syndrome, he unlocked the front door and walked inside, lifting his nose in the air to try to guess from the smell what kind of dinner Santa had prepared for him.

A sudden chill ran through his spine.

The unit was eerily quiet and there was no smell of anything cooking from the kitchen.

"Santa?" Cooheart called softly as he walked straight into their kitchen area.

The kitchen counters, the kitchen sink, the stove, they were all empty, clean as a whistle.

"What the hell," Cooheart said under his breath.

He walked into the living room.

The TV screen was blank, Santa was not on the couch, where the hell was he.

Cooheart went inside the bedroom. It was also empty and eerily quiet.

Wait, did he hear water running inside the bathroom?

Cooheart rushed to the bathroom and flung the door open.

The bathroom faucet was dripping. Cooheart tightened it to stop the dripping.

He peered into the shower stall.

What was he expecting? Of course, Santa was not there. The shower head did not even have a single drop dripping from it. Cooheart must have imagined the sound of water running inside.

He dug into his pocket for his cell phone and tapped on his contacts and tapped on Favorites where Santa was first on his list.

Are you bloody kidding me??? His call went straight to voicemail. Did he fucking block me???

Cooheart went on to tap on the second person on his Favorite list. It was his mom's number.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, MOM!!! His call went straight to voicemail as well!!!

Cooheart stood rooted in his spot, thinking hard on what to do next.

He was not yet hungry enough to think about buying food from some fast food place or ordering something online to be delivered to his unit. But he was definitely feeling enraged at the idea that these two favorite persons on his contact list had the nerve to block his calls!!! Or was there some acceptable reason why his calls could not go through either one of them.

Still feeling upset, no more than just upset, really really exceedingly furious, but at the same time somewhat confused, Cooheart decided to go pay his mom a surprise visit.

He grabbed his car key which he had absentmindedly tossed on to the coffee table. He would usually drop them into the small copper bowl at one end of the kitchen counter because his kitchen was the first area that one walked into upon entering the front door.

Then he locked his front door before making his way back to the building parking lot.

He didn't whistle along to the radio music this time. In fact he kept the radio turned off as he drove at high speed to his mom's house.

He slowed down a little when he saw a traffic officer's motorcycle parked by the curb up ahead.

Finally, after a few more minutes, he found himself easing his car into his mom's driveway. His mom's car was in the driveway which meant she was home. He parked right behind it. He was so intent on getting into his mom's driveway that he had not noticed Santa's car parked by the curb just about a block away from his mom's house. It had been hidden from view by other cars.

Cooheart got out of his car and walked up to his mom's front door and buzzed on it.

Why was his mom taking so long to open the door???