"I don't know." Alan Hoyle answered honestly, "but for the sake of all the years he's taken care of you
two, I’ll try."
"Alan, I haven't had many friends around me over the years. Chloe is one of them and so is he."
Although she didn't know Ivy Aldington that well, she believed that he was a man with a good heart.
"Don't worry, I won’t go too far on him as long as he won’t try to steal my wife from me."
Olive giggled, "Who do you think your wife is? Some kind of angel?"
"You certainly are an angel." Alan Hoyle smiled.
"So, you better be nice to my mommy." Annie threatened, "If you ever break Mommy’s heart again, I
wouldn't mind having someone else be my father."
Alan Hoyle laughed and he pinched up her little nose, "Don't even think about it, you won’t have that
chance."
While Xenia Boswell went to the bathroom, Dave Chou pulled his cigarette case out and smoked,
leaning idly back in his chair.
On the table were the leftover remnants of food and drink.
Ivy Aldington frowned but eventually remained quiet. It wasn't polite to smoke in a public place like a
restaurant, yet being in a private room now, he decided to let it go.
"So, what are you going to do next?" Dave Chou sprayed smoke and for a moment his expression was
hazy.
Ivy Aldington answered him with another question, "What do you think of Alan Hoyle?"
"Him?" Dave Chou dusted off his cigarette ash, "Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?"
Ivy Aldington rolled his eyes, "Of course I want to hear the truth."
"Well, not a good guy, but neither a bad guy. He’s like half good and half evil." Dave Chou pressed his
cigarette out on the table and smiled abruptly, "What, you've gone soft because of Olive Steele? Didn't
you ever think about getting that chick back?"
While lost in his thoughts, Ivy said to himself, "How could it have happened that the man Olive Steele
had been obsessing over for five years had to be Alan Hoyle?
Dave Chou raised one of his eyebrows, "Didn’t you approached the mother and daughter deliberately?"
Ivy Aldington shook his head and managed a smile bitterly, "No."
If he'd known from the beginning about Olive's relationship with Alan Hoyle, maybe he would control
the feelings for her.
"You're screwed," Dave Chou said sympathetically, "You're obsessed with that woman."
"Yeah, but what about Xenia?" Ivy Aldington eyed him back sharply.
Having heard the name, Dave Chou sighed, "Come on, I'm not laughing at you, you know? We're stuck
in the same mess. Shit, I mean, ain’t women weird? How can some creatures be both so attractive and
annoying? We men give them all our hearts, while it turns out to be trash to them. In the end, you get
all the sufferings, but you can't hit them, you can't yell at them, you're so full of anger, yet still, you just
have to deal with it."
Ivy Aldington's sunken face eased a little and smiled softly, "It seems Xenia hasn't fully accepted you,
huh?"
"Tell me about it. She's head over heels for you but not me. She would never allow me to hold a pinky if
I didn't cheekily pester her and cajole her every day. If I hadn't known you didn't mean that for her, I'd
definitely punch you in the face, bruh." Dave Chou gritted his teeth in hatred, and Ivy could hear the
click in his joints as his fingers became fists.
"Yeah, yeah. Like we hadn’t fought enough yet. By the way, you did go too far the other day." Ivy
Aldington replied to him coldly.
Though Dave Chou decided to be responsible for Xenia for the rest of his life, what if Xenia couldn't
accept him. That would be a lifetime trauma for her. Besides, a friend had entrusted the closest sister to
his care out of trust, while he not only failed to protect her but also nearly be the one hurting her, so Ivy
had swung his fist at Dave without even thinking twice at the time.
"I told you I was drunk," Dave Chou muttered under his breath.
"Don't you dare say you didn't mean it." Ivy Aldington outed him at once.
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