The truth was, she was tired and confusingly high, and the moment she'd seen that first bus she'd chased it down like a mad man, boarded it and realised, as the vehicle screeched to a halt at traffic, that it was surrounded by five taxis. Taxis that she could have flagged down and climbed on at the start. Taxis that she could have called but were somehow overbooked in her current location.
It was a bad move because the path to her destination was tight and she had to catch a few buses to reach two hours pass time. All of which she'd later missed along with a few other taxis that were flagged by others better at T-posing.
She reached for her phone, desperately typing in a quick apology to her seven, and a pleading message for them to apologise to MinJae's mom. They didn't reply, in fact, they didn't even read the message and that sent her swiping through the app to catch anxiety-filled glimpses of clues for their possible reaction to her latest mistake.
[7:20 PM] Oliver: Tell us what happened later!
[7:30 PM] Ezra: You're reaching soon right?
[8:05 PM] Hikaru: Our reservation has a time limit; they've just started serving the food!
[8:30 PM] Casper: Where are you? It's getting late.
[8:40 PM] Sieon: You need to show up soon...Baby...
Fuck! It was already 9 at this point, and she was losing her shit.
The flash of MinJae's name on her phone had her heart leaping into her mouth and Amber hastily swiped over the name to answer the call. Okay, fuck that bus. She was going to get that taxi no matter what it took. She raised her arm up as she ran across the curb waving madly at the clutter of metal boxes in a thousand shiny colours.
The odds of any being a taxi in this area were close to zero. She'd spent half an hour here, long enough to know the truth.
"I'm so sorry!" She squeaked flustered and guilty to the bone; the sleep wiped from her eyes like data from a crashing computer. "First, I overslept, then I missed the a few busses. I'm halfway there. I'll take a cab now. When it comes..." she trailed off as she glanced around. Shit, getting a cab would be hard. "I know I should have called a taxi in the first place but—"
"It's okay, my Mom already left, she has a plane to catch." MinJae's voice was low, so damn fucking low that it rumbled out of her phone in an angry biting rasp. Fuck, he was mad as hell. "We packed up some food for you, so just go home."
Fuck!
"I'm sorry Minnie," she whimpered, fingers digging into her arms. "This isn't like me—"
"Do you want us to pick you up?" The snap was undeniable, and she winced, recoiling at the anger. But she deserved that anger and that made her heart shrivel into a ball and cry, feeding the mushrooms she was already growing in her dank, musty, tear-filled heart.
"I-I can get home by bus...It's close enough," she whispered.
"Where are you?"
"Um-A little too close for you to be happy about it." He'd be mad if he knew.
The groan was a disappointing, defeated sigh that made her chew on her lips a little too hard. "Just stay safe, okay? Take your time to come home, I fucking love you." The last bit was an angry snap that she knew he didn't mean as much as he did this morning. In fact, it seemed like he might just want to kill her tonight. And that delicious caramel was now the bitter burn of blackened sugar.
"L-love you too," she whispered as the line cut with a dramatic tongue to teeth cluck. And Amber groaned slamming her head against the pole. She deserved that. She really did. He'd been so happy and excited about it too.
MinJae had been eagerly waiting for the day he could introduce her officially to his family, and his Mom had been in town en route to a business trip in Indonesia. It should have worked; a dinner that had taken months to organise just so that all of their schedules were open and available. And if she weren't 3 hours late the show would have been a success.
But the 'star' hadn't even shown up because she'd overslept.
She dropped her phone into her pocket with a sigh, eyes moving to the opposite bus stop. She wrinkled her nose when cold wet rain sprinkled over her skin. Was it seriously raining? She raised her palm catching a few droplets from the grey sky that was the colour of sludge. Aw fuck, she sped up, feet moving quickly as she darted towards the traffic light.
The sudden slap in the face by a puddle of muddy water sitting beside the curb was unexpected, let alone the fact that it was a taxi that did it. One that seemed to groan into an awkward halt having caught her previously raised hand as a sign of a customer. But it soon sped away when it'd soaked her in dirt water, frantically running from the crime scene.
She screamed at it to wait, something that the taxi probably took as a sign of agitation than need. She eventually stopped when it disappeared, panting with her hands on her knees. Her hair dripping with black water, and her already swollen eyes burning and blind from the dirt.
This was so not her day.
*
She was towelling her hair when they came back home, and she perked up, expecting and hopeful for cheerful banter and teasing. Signs of safety, signs of forgiveness. But the soft click of the door and the quietness surprised her. What scared her more was the two that entered the room, one in lazy slaps of feet and the other with the soft grace of a dancer. She gulped; voice perky with feigned pretence of normalcy—her attempt to staunch the flow.
"H-Hi," she murmured, nervous for her mistakes. "W-where are the rest?"
"Working," Ezra spat, dropping her dinner on the counter like a sack of stone. His answer was clipped and hard, nothing out of ordinary from how he usually answered her questions, but it seemed so much more hostile today. Ezra didn't appreciate wasted time, not that anyone in this world did. But Ezra was just as volatile as a cat, and he got irritated easily.
He was also running on a depressing lack of sleep from work.
Their entire household was.
Amber's eyes darted to MinJae. He had his back turned to her as he washed his hands in the sink, and he made it a point to look down, darting his gaze away from her. But she could see the throb of muscle at the edge of his jaw and the tightness in his shoulders.
Oh, he was still mad. Really, really mad. Mad enough to not give her a kiss on the lip before he entered the house. Mad enough to lose even the constant sprig of flowers hidden in the fluff of his hair. Or was that a tiny little bud of greenery— Her thoughts were broken by a hand to her chin, one that jerked her gaze away from MinJae and into eyes of wildfire and heat.
"What is this?" he murmured, brushing his thumb over the evidence of sleep imprinted on her skin and she blushed red with shame. He tugged at her chin, twisting it this way and that, observing the marks that were pink from the heat of the shower.
He was so close to her that she could smell the mint on his breath and the manly musk of his skin. A result of, not the expensive shampoo nor the awkwardly cheap body wash that he liked, but something that was all him. She knew that because she'd had that scent stuffed deep in her throat and squirted all over her cheeks.
Her sadly horny clit lurched.
"Keyboard," she explained. "I was sleeping on my computer." Her voice dipped into a guilty sigh.
"Alarm didn't work?" His eyes narrowed, gaze digging into her skin. "Was it even turned on?"
Anger flared in her chest.
"It was ringing when I woke up. Probably was for a while."
"Softly or loudly?"
Damn it. She grew defensive.
"I'll let you know now that it was my clock! The thing with the metal arms and bells."
"So you turned it off after three seconds?"
"I slept through it! For an hour!"
"And when were you such a deep sleeper hm? Princess?"
"I was exhausted okay? Bone-tired—"
He stabbed his thigh between her legs, his arms caged the sides of her body, trapping her against the kitchen island. Her breath caught in her throat as he gave her a slow, lazy smirk, lips spreading into a smile that dribbled poison all over her rapidly raising heart. His eyes darkened, fire dancing within depths of ice. Don't tell me he's...
"Hungry?"
She faltered.
"No, actually...I just woke up so—"
And her dinner was slammed into the freezer by MinJae with a frustrated bang that had the shelves clattering and shaking. She jumped, startled by the sound that gave her an escape from the eyes of the man trying to eat her alive. Her gaze darted up to the bristling dancer that stood a distance away. He turned, nose twitching as he sauntered over, leaning against the table.
And now she was trapped between two angry men.
"I'm still mad," MinJae growled in his throat, a sound that should be formed from the depths of sin because her horny ass had the audacity to burn with lust. His lips twitched, soft full mounds forming into the thinnest, angriest line she'd ever seen on him.
"I'm sorry," Amber murmured, expression dropping into one of desperate urgency. She shouldn't be the one mad, and she knew she shouldn't make excuses to cover up her mistakes. They were mistakes that shouldn't have been made in the first place. God, she shouldn't even try to be defensive. It was honestly, all her damn fucking fault. "I messed up—"
"Momma was looking forward to seeing you in person, you know? She's been listening to me talk and talk and talk about how much I love you. And I know how much you hate meeting our parents because it scares you so much—"
"No, it wasn't that! I didn't just bail on all of you." She gaped at him, horrified that he would think that way. "I get social anxiety—"
"You hate new people. You detest strangers. You freak out even when it's the pizza man."
"Okay, fine. Yeah, it does hit me harder when it's your parents because I care about what they think. But it's precisely because I care about what they think that makes me lying through my teeth about being late impossible—"
"Admit it. You're glad that you didn't have to show up," MinJae snapped, almond eyes void of light and sparkle.
"Of course, not—"
"The moment you knew you were late as fuck and we started eating, you didn't try as hard to get there because you honestly didn't want to."
"Fine, yeah," she said with a soft sigh. That was partially the reason why she'd boarded the bus in the first place without a second thought. "But—"
"I know you better than you think, Ambrosia," he growled and her heart stuttered at his anger. "I know you so well," he stalked up to her, sweet voice dipping down into a low growl. "I can paint you naked in my fucking head without even looking at you."