Like Tony, Brian's eyes were fixed on the side mirror until Molly's figure disappeared in the night rain. He peeled his eyes from the mirror and felt humbled and grieved over what he'd done.
He snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of his cellphone ringing. Brian picked it up and answered the call.
"Little devil, has your little devil said he wants to see Richie and me?" Shirley asked anxiously. His mother dispensed with "hello" and went straight to the point.
The question suddenly irritated Brian, who brows knitted tightly. Before Shirley could say another word, he coldly responded, "We don't even get along well together yet and you want to take him from me?"
"What? What's taking you so long?" his mother said testily. She couldn't wait to see her grandson and was losing hope that it would happen any time soon. The last thing Shirley wanted to do was pressure the boy. She didn't want Mark to end up hating her just like he hated Brian because that did not bode well for their future relationship. So Shirley demanded, "Then why don't you just send some photos to me?"
"Hasn't Richie shown you any pictures?" Brian inquired. He smirked knowing that Shirley would not just be sitting around waiting to be handed photos of the boy.
Knowing his mother, she would have accosted Richie to see them. Annoyed by her son's jeering, Shirley replied, "I want the picture of you and your little devil!"
"I have nothing of that sort, and am not interested to have one!" Brian told his mother. The car was pulling up at the gate of the villa, so he told her flatly, "I have something I need to do. I'll call you when Mark agrees to see you."
Without waiting for his mother's response, Brian hung up while he could hear Shirley scolding him over the phone. When she realized he was gone, she turned her ire on Richie. "It's all your fault. At that time, I disagreed with your decision to send Little Molly away, but you talked about politics and so on... Well, you sent my little devil away with her. Now, I don't even know if I will ever get the chance to look at that little devil," she wailed.
Her husband sat listening to her endless complaints but kept his expression blank. Beside him, Wing and Weston looked at each other without saying a word.
"If I didn't send Molly away then, that child might not have survived," Richie rationalized. He gauged that Shirley's ranting was nearly coming to an end. "Brian was injured then. Do you think he would have been able to protect her and the baby at that time?"
Still annoyed, Shirley kept quiet for a while. But then she decided to vent her feelings, "But you had the capability to do that!"
Richie scoffed and said in a low voice, "Their relationship was, and is not firm enough… Brian had his temper to deal with, and what about Molly? If they couldn't overcome those challenges given Brian's position and status, they would never be happy together," Richie explained.
His wife said nothing. Wing nodded in agreement and said, "I like Molly, too, but just like Richie said, they'll surely not be happy if they go on treating each other this way."
"I know that, too," Shirley finally sighed. "I'm just anxious. I wish I could give each one a slap to wake them up!"
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