Let Me Take You Home
"You live in this building?" Tian asked as he slowly parked the car in the parking lot of Building A, at the East City. Ellise, keep her eyes straight on the dashboard of the Jeep and keep quiet.
Tian observed her from his peripheral vision and realized that she won't talk to him, because she's unhappy that he insisted on driving her home, to find out where she lives.
"I know someone who lives here too.", he said. "No need to get feisty." "Remember you're the one who talked to me first." 'I just don't want to worry about what would happen to you, if I leave you in that hotel." he said but still got no response.
He got out as soon as he parked the car, opened the trunk, and took out her luggage. He watched her exit from the passenger seat.
"Show me the way," he said as he pulled her black sleek luggage that rolled smoothly in the uneven path walk. "The faster you show me where you live, the faster you can get rid of me," he said as he stopped to look back at her.
She walks briskly and overtakes him, enters the revolving glass door on the main entrance of one the biggest and possibly one of the most expensive apartment buildings in the East City.
His teammate Grand, both parents born rich, lives in this building, where this girl, with a sour face lives.
He walked quickly to catch up with her, he encountered an employee who gave a deep bow to him as he maneuvered his way to the elevator.
She still has a poker face as the elevator goes up to the eighteenth floor. They quickly get off and walk the long hallway then turn right. She presses her thumb on the door handles and it opens with a soft thud. She keeps the door open for him. Stood a few steps away from the door, still with lips pressed tightly together.
He decided not to force her to speak anymore. He went directly to the huge living room, facing a huge glass balcony overlooking a lake in the distance, plants are strategically placed all around the wall, not to obstruct those huge wall paintings of colorful women.
There is a lonesome armchair on the left side of the room, across the piano, that looks like a sad leftover chair from the usual traditional Chinese sofa set you could find in most family living rooms.
The room has a feeling of open space, and serenity with a hint of loneliness, which is strange for Tian, for the greenery of the plants and the colorful paintings show otherwise.
As he scans the room, he breathes slowly and asks the dreaded question.
"What do you want me to do to keep quiet on what you saw last night?" he asked the question while watching her.
He tries to suppress the smile from his lips, as Ellise looks so damn cute, in her lost expression, no trace of the sarcastic drunkard girl from last night. A quiet stir on his chest was felt by Tian, which made him scowl in confusion. The scowling face is what Ellise saw when she finally raised her face to look at Tian.
And just like last night, Ellise felt like being possessed to pissed this man in front of her. "You must hang out with me here in my apartment, play games with me, and do whatever I want," she said as she tilted her face in a snobbish stance she perfected from her classmates in Nissen, an all-girls school in Oslo.
"You want me to just hang out and play computer games with you?" Tian's asked in disbelief.
"It's what I want, you can refuse if you don't want, but even though I've been here in Shanghai for just about two months, you can check my Weibo that I already had hundred thousand followers," she said while cringing deep inside. She knows how shallow she sounds, boasting about things such as followers on social media. But as she watched the ridiculous expression of disbelief in Tian's face the more she felt compelled to ask for unreasonable things from him.
"It's not like you're busy." she continued when she didn't get a reply from Tian.
"How do you know I'm not busy?" he asked, the lack of belief visible in his tone.
Ellise walks to the left side of the room where there's an open bar space that looks to the apartment next door. As Tian watches her, he finds the floor plan of the apartment strange. The huge living room is just a room, he can't see any kitchen in here and except for the red door beside the piano, he can't see any more rooms in the house.
Ellise stands in front of the vending machine of snacks and drinks beside the bar table, with a silver press button, to get some drinks for her and Tian. She chose orange soya milk.
She walked back to Tian, who's standing still in the middle of the room.
"It's not like I need money from you, to keep my mouth shut. I have money as you can clearly see, the thing I don't have right now is company." "So that's what you will give me," she said with the clear undertone that her demand is only for now, but could easily change in the future.
Before Tian could answer, his phone rings. He answered it while accepting the cartoon of soya milk from her.
"Let me add you in WeChat," he said right after he finished his call. He stretched his arm to get her phone. "I need to go back for a team meeting, let's just talk in WeChat about how we will do your demand," he said while scanning the QR code of Ellise WeChat account.
Ellise with her mouth slightly open with excitement and disbelief that she could hang out with this man, that Ellise finds interesting enough to waste her time, is something new and strange. She never feels any strong interest in anything, hence she never liked the same things for a long time that resulted in such diverse interests in her life, let in be with sports, music, arts, or language.
She speaks six languages fluently because she just keeps on learning new things once she gets bored. Nowadays, she's learning Mandarin and she's doing coding and programming too. As it's the only "language" she learned that doesn't choke her.
"What's your internet name in Weibo?" he asked as he returned her phone.
"Sour Candy," she answered while she openly watched Tian's face.
"I'm registered as DT," he said staring back at her. Then he suddenly bent down right on her face and said, "You better keep your promise in keeping my secret."