The Marriage Agreement

Chapter 8: You and me from the night before

"I think you should just stay here at my apartment tonight. Lets give him the story that he wants."

Tine's POV

"What?"

"Just stay at my house tonight. Wouldn't it show the reporter that we are genuinely and seriously dating? I mean, why else would someone like you leave your massive house and stay in my one bedroom apartment?"

"One bedroom apartment...." Sarawat repeated my words. The quietness of the night and the closed windows of the car were echoing his voice.

"I mean, its pretty small... What you saw the last time was basically most of it —" I confessed. "You know what, nevermind, you are probably not used to living in cramped spaces. You'll just be uncomfortable here. Lets forget about it and—"

"No. No. No. Wait..." Sarawat interrupted me suddenly. "I don't mind staying. I won't be uncomfortable at all."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Yes. Definitely. Lets just parked the car and go."

.

.

.

.

When I opened up the door to my apartment and switched the lights on — It finally hit me what I had done in the haste of the moment. I had just invited Guntithanon, the man I had been trying to keep a safe distance from, for weeks, and the man I had just 'almost' made out with in the middle of the street, to my god damn apartment.

Why? I had no idea. May be I was a masochist.

In that moment, when I saw the photographer in a black van following our car, it seemed like a really good idea to make him think that Sarawat was staying at my place. But what I didn't realise until now, was that making a random photographer believe Sarawat was staying in my house would involve Sarawat actually staying in the apartment for the night.

Oh fuck.

When the lights flickered on, I remembered the mess I had left in my bedroom — I had spent 2 hours searching for just the right shirt to wear for my 'date.' I wasn't stil sure if I had picked up the right shirt but I did know that my bed was now just a pile of clothes.

"Ummm..." I finally muttered up the courage to speak as I placed his bouquet of roses on the living room table. "Why don't you make yourself at home? I just need to change and all."

"Yes. Yes of course." I looked back at him and realised he was already looking around the house.

Fast walking to the bedroom, I closed the door and somehow pushed the whole pile of clothes into the closet. I cleaned the bedside table and double checked to make sure there wasn't anything embarrassing. Then, I changed the bedsheets that I hadn't changed in over a month and took out a new blanket — Basically, I did a whole set of chores that would have ideally taken me a whole day, but I finished up everything in almost half an hour.

When I finally changed my clothes, and stepped out of the bedroom, Sarawat was sitting on the sofa with his shoes off, legs up, and a book in his hand. Wow, God really took his own sweet time with him, didn't he?

"What are you reading?" I said, as I sat down on the chair near the sofa.

He looked up from the book, noticing my presence. God, he looked so adorable.

"Picked a book from your bookshelf. Hope that's okay?" He said.

"That's okay by me. But I am not sure if you would find anything worth reading in my boring law books because that's all that I have."