You Are Hot Then You Are Cold

Vol 5 (Side Story 2): Chapter 1.1

[How's your day going, Lyle? I miss you. It's hard to last a day without you. Call me when you have time. I want to hear your voice.]

After a few seconds of agonizing whether to text more, he checks Shanghai's time. There is an 8-hour time difference between England and Shanghai before summer timezone starts, so Karlyle'll have time to call when he finishes his work. This will give him the much-needed boost to get through the day.

Looking at his cell phone once more longingly, he schools his expression back to neutrality and walks to the bathroom.

It's late afternoon but there are quite a lot of people in the studio. The reason being that in addition to planning a new exhibition for Tate Modern, they are busy with branding for a newly established food company. As long as they do their jobs well, what they do in the studio doesn't matter, so weekend work is especially free-spirited. The fact that the bosses, Mackenzie and Ash, don't really intervene also contributes to this.

"Director, are you here?"

"We were waiting for you!"

Ash smiles awkwardly as he sees people rushing towards him as soon as he enters the studio. Karlyle doesn't like him smiling too much in public so he is trying to reduce his smiles per day, but that habit can't exactly disappear overnight. However, seeing people say that he doesn't show his smile much these days, there seem to be some results.

"What's going on?"

Ash calmly asks as he takes off his coat. Since he announced his marriage, everyone has been curious about the progress, so it's probably just the usual fussing and begging to reveal details about the wedding, or work-related thing today.

"Your fiancé appeared on TV!"

But he didn't expect this.

"Lyle did?"

He asks, frowning slightly at the sudden remark. He doesn't know why, but some designers around him make a fuss when seeing him make that expression. Hearing off the talk of nicknames and whatnot, Ash goes to the main point.

"Yes! Your extremely handsome lover!"

It's true, Karlyle is the kind of rare handsomeness that is hard to find around, and he is his lover. But it's not very pleasant to hear that compliment from others. Ash Jones of the past would have easily overlooked this, he wouldn't have got jealous. However, the desire to monopolize Karlyle keeps blooming in his heart. As time passes, it keeps taking root in him rather than fading away. He wants Karlyle only to himself.

"What show is it, Sena?"

But he won't show that in front of his colleagues, so he skillfully changes the subject. In fact, the word "on TV" keeps bothering him. Fortunately, Sena also changes the subject.

"It's the Shanghai Grand Prix this morning. Giovanni watches Formula One often, right? I was playing the replay and he appeared a little bit in the interview. I also caught a glimpse of him in the spectators' seats!"

Giovanni, who is sitting at the desk, raises his hand.

"Oh, it's coming again!"

"You didn't know this, director? Come here and see."

At the same time as Sena urges him, Ash slowly drops his smile and goes to Giovanni's place. The clear image on the screen shows the results of today's qualification. The screen, which summarizes the starting positions for each racer in tomorrow's final according to ranking, soon switches to a camera screen showing the spectators.

And Karlyle is there. Wearing an elegant navy blue suit and a black coat with precise angles, he is truly the picture of aristocracy. With an expressionless face, he's listening to a man sitting next to him. That man has rare silver hair. At first glance, he is a great beauty.