Reminisce

A week had passed in the blink of an eye, and Qiao Ruo had been preoccupied with attending seminars and other events. Circumstantially, her article had been a huge hit, and her boss had entertained her with the promise of a huge pay raise if she signed the contract to join them as a full-time reporter. Being the vigilant employee of the publisher she was, Qiao Ruo was assured something was wrong, but before the end of the day, she had received a new job offer from a rival publisher, the Sky Press, who offered her about two and a half times higher of what she was offered for her full-time contract. Prior to this, she had a tough time getting her probation passed, and despite having fulfilled five months working with the company, she had her three-months probationary period extended twice.

She had been to the Sky Press before, and she had made contact with their manager, Mr. Lee, a number of years ago when sourcing for a good internship. However, Mr. Lee had rejected her application due to already having an intern. Hence, she had joined her current employer as an intern, and following the completion of her internship, she had dropped out of university to join them as a reporter. She hadn't expected that it would come up to her being bullied by Wang Tong to the point of being assaulted by her hired men, and for this exact reason, she was determined to join the Sky Press.

Qiao Ruo brilliantly did not want to appear desperate, either, so she left the offer hanging for one day before efficiently tendering her immediate two-week resignation notice to her boss and giving the Sky Press her verbal agreement to join them on the first day of the next month. It appeared that Cree was her lucky star, and although it had started off complicated with him, it was thanks to him that she now had a better job without having to deal with that particular thorn in the flesh named Wang Tong.

Every night, she would initiate a chat conversation with Cree, and his replies were as fast as lightning. She was inquisitive to know what he had been doing every day, but of course, she had to make the questions as discreet and casual as possible, to abstain from creating a misunderstanding. She would start the conversation with a few emoji symbols, and he would repeat with further emoji symbols of his own.

This very night, she had been immersed in clearing up all her pending works in preparation for her handover to a fresh new graduate, who was tasked to assisting her. Perhaps they had not aniticipated she would be leaving so soon, and furthermore, it had been just days after she had made the marvelous article. Cree was dangerously quiet, and had made no move to ask her out. The time would come, and after all, he had wanted her to put on a play for his mother, who was abroad travelling right now, according to Cree.

She had just finished clearing a pile of paperworks when her smartphone rang abruptly. She had assigned the caller a special ringtone, and it recalled her of one of the times they had been inseparable, at the Cafe Mandarin. It was a special day for them both, and she considered it their second date, the first being the date that they had gone to the Wifi Cafe.

"Xiaoruo, did you know that you can set customized ringtones for every person on your list?" he had said.

"I don't know that, Cree. I just started using this smartphone after it was given to me by the company."

He reached out and took the device from her, and she blushed when their hands came into close contact with each other. "Here, this is where you select it."

She smiled shyly when he saw that he was a frequent caller on her call log. How had that even happened? They had only spent three days together, the first day at the gym and where she had slept over, the second day where she had the interview, and the third day, which was this very day. He had arrived unannounced to wait for her at the lobby of the building where her office was, and she had firmly decided to take the rest of the day off. They had went to the arcade and played a few games together, before she slipped and fell backward on him while playing DDR for the first time. He then revealed that it was his birthday, and he had nobody else to spend the day with, so he had come to see her at the office. He hadn't expected that she would immediately take the day off to go out with him, and had been prepared to wait for hours for her to knock off work, after having lunch with her.

He was glad to see that she was wearing the office attire that he had commissioned personally to be given to her previously, and which she told him she liked. For him, merely seeing her this way was the best birthday present for him. She was pleased to see him earlier, and later to know she was his choice for spending his twenty-sixth birthday with. Of all people in City A, it was her whom he had picked, and she was indeed very lucky.

She felt her body warming up to him when he was near her that day, and she was getting more adjusted to his presence, feeling her heart no longer beat as wildly as before. She took it as that she just saw him as a close friend, but she was drawn to his sexuality and charms. Nevertheless, she was a smart girl and a fighter, and she would protect her honour by not allowing him to overstep the boundaries that she had set. On the other hand, Cree had never hinted to her that he wanted to explore their relationship beyond kissing, and so she decided to simply trust him for now.

Cree took Qiao Ruo for dinner at the Cafe Mandarin, and they had taken a few selfies together to record their 'love'. Cree immediately set one of their photographs together as his phone background, and she hesitated on doing so. Nevertheless, she instead utilised a lone photograph of him in his Cree getup, which she found to be increasedly dashing. If anyone asked about it, she could answer that she simply admired Cree Ye.

Qiao Ruo reminisced on how their date ended with a series of steamy kisses in the Mini that night, after dinner. He had driven to a serene spot downtown, away from the bustling crowds of the city.

She had asked out of the blue, "Cree, have you ever had a crush or liked anyone?"

"That's for you to find out."

She was annoyed by his answer, and mouthed her objection, "I don't read minds!"

"Then, read the emotions on my face right now," he laughed, and cupping her cheeks with both of his hands, he kissed her slowly and gently, treating her like a fragile piece of paper. This was the first time his hands slowly moved down from holding her cheeks to trace the outline of her curves outside her clothing, and her body reacted sensitively to his arousing touches. She recalled that this feeling was not new to her, since she had experienced a similar event during their drunken encounter in the bar before.

Her heart raced as he intensified the kiss between them, and her body tremored slightly from how he was touching her. She knew she desired more, but she feared. Up to that moment, though he was touching her intimately and her body had responded with desire, he had not gone past the line to grope her inappropriately and anything that transpired inside the car that night was simply put, consensual. They had kissed and touched each other so many times, for her to classify what happened that night as a steamy encounter between them.

He teased her, "Did you like what happened just now?"

She blushed. A decent girl probably should not give too much details, she thought...

Disrupted by the sudden buzz of her phone from being lost in the memories of their date that night, she looked at the screen of her smartphone to realize Cree had sent her a message.

"You missed my call. Waiting downstairs at the lobby, Won't be leaving till I see my woman."

Again, he was acting like he possessed her, and as if they were an actual couple. She sighed and placed her paperworks aside to be resumed the next workday.

Cree received her reply. "Will be there at once, after I've turned off the PC and packed up."