Contract Marriage starring Love and Revenge
Chapter 138. Side story 2: Alan’s curiosity.

Chapter 138: 138. Side story 2: Alan’s curiosity.

After taking the kids ice-cream shopping, Alan decided to treat them further by taking them to the amusement park, much to their extreme satisfaction. Gio said he did not have the strength to be going around with them so he went home first.

By the time they were done with their Sunday date, the twins were singing praises of Alan, chanting how he was the best uncle in the whole wide world.

On reaching the house Gio already prepared dinner for them so Alan took the twins to bathe and wash away all the Sunday date sweat from their bodies.

"Careful Renny, you’ll get soap in your eyes if you keep moving." Alan says as he washed her hair for her. Shelly sat in the same bathtub with Renny, and while her hair was being washed, he was busy bursting all the bubbles that were flying around them.

Renny wished to do the same so she kept moving even though Alan was working on her hair.

"But I wanna burst bubbles too." She pouted and Alan chuckled at the sight of her small mouth pushed forward and her nose scrunched.

"Cute." He murmured the words to himself and an image suddenly flashed before his eyes. Yellow short dress, rusty short brown hair that stopped at the neck, big brown eyes, and countable freckles below the eyes.

He’d managed to get the image out of his head once he was having fun with the twins all through the afternoon, but just like how he had no idea when he’d stopped thinking about her, he could not for the life of him understand why and how he was suddenly thinking about her again.

"You’ll burst bubbles too if you just wait a little while." He shook the image out of his head. "I’m almost done with your hair." He explains gently to her and she just quietly sits down waiting for him to finish.

After washing and rinsing thoroughly he announces, "All done." He says and Renny beams with joy as she can now move her body freely in the tub, bursting bubbles as much as she wanted. "Alright, come here champ it’s your turn." He says and moves to Shelly’s head.

"Look, Shelly, Look!" Renny exclaims gleefully. "I found a big bubble." She says while holding up a big bubble in her small palms. She’s carrying it carefully so it wouldn’t burst.

"Wow!" Shelly exclaims. "It’s as big as the ones we saw at the park!" He says and moves to go closer to his sister and Alan holds him back.

"Not so fast, flash. Let’s finish with your hair first." He says and Shelly grumbles and at that moment, the bubble in his sister’s hands pops much to both their disappointment.

"Alan, when will you come to church again?" Shelly suddenly asks.

"Church? Why? You want me to come again?" He asks and his mind instantly trailed back to a young lady who said to him... ’see you next week.’

"Yes! That way we can go to the park again!" Shelly says enthusiastically.

"Ah, you little rascal. Here I thought you sincerely liked seeing me in church. You just want to use me don’t you?"

"Noooo." The boy drawls while his sister focuses on capturing another big bubble.

"I also want you to come to church with daddy too. Maggie said my uncle is handsome and Elliot sat daddy is handsome too. Even Janey said so too." At the sound of her name his hands on the boy’s head paused, his eyes blinked and for a second he forgot what he was doing but then quickly, he regained composure and focused on the child’s hair.

"Alan, doesn’t know Maggie and Elliot. He only knows Janey." Renny says and Shelly turns to stare at his uncle.

"Shelly, I told you not to move." He scolds the boy.

"Sorry Alan but do you not know Maggie and Elliot?" He asks his uncle.

"I think I remember Maggie a little, but I don’t know Elliot." Alan calmly says.

"But you know Janey?" The boy asks.

Alan paused for a second before answering, "I’m not sure. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t." He shrugged.

"Of course you do!" Renny says. "You talked to her too. Janey is that pwetty lady who teaches in our class with mumny. You saw her today, don’t you weemember?" Renny asks with eyes that completely could not understand why her uncle could not remember someone he talked to on that very same day.

"Oh, you_you think she is pretty?" He asks and Shelly nods vigorously before Renny can answer the question.

"After mummy, Janey is the most pretty girl in the whole wide world. And she yikes me too." The boy declared much to Alan’s surprise. The child was blushing as he spoke.

"So buddy you like Janey?" He asks and the boy just holds his lips between his teeth with a bashful smile on his face.

"She is so pwetty." Shelly says and Alan scoffs as he couldn’t even deny what the boy said...

The kid was right, Janey was pretty. And it was quite comforting to know that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

...

After putting the twins to bed Alan showered and sunk into his bed too but sleep didn’t come easy that night. He was tired, taking care of the twins was exhausting and usually whenever he was in charge of them, as soon as he was able to put them to bed he’d take a shower and sink into sleep instantly.

However, that night, sleep didn’t come that easily. As tired as he was, he just couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned from one edge of the bed to the other, trying to find the perfect spot for sleep, the perfect posture that sleep would have no choice but to envelope him.

It was futile.

His eyes and mind remained wide awake and the more he tried not to think about it the more he thought about it... about her.

It was quite disturbing because the source of his sleepness night wasn’t even a woman! It was a girl, a young teenage girl and this was not normal. It made him rethink his preferences all over again.

He wasn’t into weak young women. He preferred strong women, goal-getters, women who wouldn’t flinch even though a thousand men were professing their love to her.

That was his preference.

Not young, immature, probably in puberty stage teenage girls!!

This was a crime!!

He was certain what he was feeling wasn’t some kind of pure, sweet, romantic interest... No, nothing like that.

Rather it was just curiousity. Simple good old fashioned curiosity.

But such curiosity towards such a young girl could lead to at least two years behind bars with a fine!

"Snap out of it Alan." He tells himself. Reminding himself that he was just intrigued because she was cute and seemed to harbor a crush for him, that was all. And the reason why he wasn’t angered by the attention he was getting from her was simply because he was in his Sunday clothes, and was exhibiting his Sunday behavior. That was all, that was it...

Eventually, a little past two in the night, he fell asleep and they say sometimes when you think of something too much, you dream of it. He prayed not to dream of her but it seemed God was playing a trick on him for she was the only thing that filled his dream.

Her bashful smile, her countable freckles...

And Alan knew... This curiosity would kill this cat in the end.

...

It was after Mary arrived that morning that Alan left for work and although he didn’t plan to return to that house after work, because he knew Duke and Champagne were already back home, he found himself in the house at dinnertime.

And as the twins went over what happened that day while they were all away from home, his lips parted and the question came out of his mouth, "But Champagne, are teenagers allowed to be teachers in the children’s church?"

The silence that followed his question made him lift his head from his plate of food to meet the eyes that were staring back at him and that was when he realized he must have actually said those words out loud.

Shit!

"W_what I was trying to say is—"

"Oh, you must be talking about Janey, right?" Champagne asks with a bright smile. "I know she looks quite small and cute but—"

"Right?! You think she’s cute too, right?!" He blurted the words out before he realized what he just said and his eyes widened as he realized he was acting pretty suspicious. "I_I mean, Shelly said he thinks she’s cute too, so I agreed and now you’re saying you also find her cute so I was just saying... YeYeah, Uhm, yeah."

At that point all Alan wished for was a hole to fall into. A hole that would hide him from Duke’s scrutinizing gaze.

"Ah, our little Shelly has a crush on Janey, you must have noticed." Champagne giggles and Shelly blushes at her words. "Oh look how cute he is. I wonder who he takes after." She stares at Duke with playful eyes.

"Don’t look at me, I don’t blush, he’s sitting right next to the person he takes after." He points at Alan.

"What?! I don’t blush." Alan scoffs and picks up his glass cup and gulps down some water.

"Well, they do look alike don’t they?" Champagne says with a light laugh, and Alan could feel his face starting to burn truly. "They even have something else in common. Janey likes them both." She announces and Alan scoffs at her words.

"Well, when you put it like that, it’s only normal that girls like us. We were blessed with such good looks after all. You can’t blame the poor teenage girl for falling for our good looks,"

"Who’s the teenage girl? Janey?"

"Yeah. She looks seventeen tops."

"I was going to say this earlier but you’re horribly wrong. Janey will be twenty this year. In fact her birthday is not even two months away."

And Alan thought to himself... ’This curiosity of mine will have wings now.’