One Wild Night

"Why don\'t you return Tom\'s call?" Evelyn suggested at the same time as Jade, but even as she was speaking, Lucy was already following Sonia out of the house.

"Hello! Can you hear me? Babe?" Bryan asked when Sonia didn\'t say a word.

Once Sonia stepped out of the door, and Lucy shut the door behind her, she raised the phone to her ear, "Babe?"

"Where are you?" Bryan asked the moment he heard her voice.

"I\'m sorry," Sonia spoke at the same time, and they both paused as they waited for the other to go on.

"What did she say? Where are they? And why isn\'t Lucy receiving her call?" Tom asked Bryan, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt now, standing outside the movie hall with a crowd of people he did not know staring at him and taking pictures.

"I\'m very sorry for misunderstanding you and for the things I said. I didn\'t mean to hurt you. I don\'t want to take a break...."

"I\'m sorry for leaving the way I did. Let\'s talk some more when we see. Where are you right now? And where is Lucy? She is there with you, right?" Bryan asked since he could tell that Tom was beginning to get upset from the way he was scowling at him.

Sonia looked at Lucy, who was standing next to her, "She is here with me, and we are together in Ludus," Sonia said, not bothering to let Bryan know that she knew where he was.

Lucy, on the other hand, cringed as she imagined how the brothers would react to the information Sonia had just given.

"Ludus? You are in Ludus right now? Why?"Bryan asked in shock, and even Tom looked taken aback by the news.

"Ludus?" Tom asked as he snatched the phone from Bryan.

"Hello, Sonia! This is Tom. Where are you right now? And where is Lucy?" Tom demanded briskly, and hearing his voice, Sonia quickly passed the phone to Lucy.

Although she was usually the courageous one, she wasn\'t really sure she could face Tom right now. It was best to leave that up to Lucy. It was Lucy he had a soft spot for, not her. So Lucy should do the explanation.

"What?" Lucy asked with a slight frown.

"Tom wants to speak with you," Sonia explained, and Lucy\'s heart raced as she raised the phone to her ear.

"Ace...."

"Where are you right now?" Tom cut in calmly.

"We are at Harry\'s apartment...."

"Harry\'s apartment? Does Harry have an apartment in Heden?" Tom asked with practiced patience as he tried not to ground his teeth.

"His apartment in Ludus. Sonia wanted to surprise Bryan, so we came back together to...."

"You made me believe that you were in the cinema," Tom reminded her, his blood beginning to boil at the level of their deception as he remembered how she had claimed she was inside the cinema seeing a movie.

"I\'m sorry. We were going to go there to see the movie, but Sonia changed her mind, and she didn\'t want me to...."

"Since you are at Harry\'s apartment right now, that means you must be aware that I\'m in Heden, am I right?" Tom cut in.

"Yes. We just...."

"I\'m right here making a fool of myself at the mall where you said you would be, and you are over there...." Tom paused, took a deep breath, and without saying another word to her, Tom returned the phone to Bryan and walked away.

He couldn\'t believe that she had found out about the mix-up and had not only failed to call him but had also ignored his phone call.

She had gone to Harry\'s place to see Aaron yet had failed to call him when she found out he had traveled that distance to see her.

He was mad at her and angry at everything else. Here he was, trying his best to do all he could to be with her and spend time with her, yet she didn\'t care about him.

"I\'m sorry...."

Not knowing what to say to her, Bryan sighed, "He is no longer with the phone. I need to go...."

"Alright," Lucy said in a quiet voice as she returned the phone to Sonia.

"Babe...." Sonia called, but Bryan had hung up the call already.

"Is everything okay?" Sonia asked with a concerned frown when she saw the distress on Lucy\'s face.

"Yeah," Lucy murmured as she looked at her own phone, contemplating whether or not she should call him or give him time to cool off.

This whole surprise thing was a bad idea, and she had known it from the moment Sonia suggested it. She should have told Tom about it. Knowing him, he would have kept the truth from Bryan and possibly helped Sonia plan a better way to surprise him. Now he was mad at her.

He had been upset when she merely left the office on an official assignment without informing him first, talk more of traveling from one city to another without his knowledge.

"What did he say? Did they go to the mall?" Sonia asked, and Lucy nodded, tears gathering in her eyes.

As minor or funny as it might seem to anyone else, Lucy knew Tom wouldn\'t take it so lightly. She couldn\'t take the fact that she had done something like that so lightly either. Despite how stressed he was, he had made that trip to see her.

He had believed her so quickly because he trusted her, but she lied to him and made him go all that way for nothing.

"I will explain to him and let him know it\'s all my fault," Sonia offered, guessing from the look on Lucy\'s face that Tom was upset with her.

Lucy shook her head, "There won\'t be any need for that," Lucy said as she decided to settle for a text message instead.

"You can go in. I will join you inside," Lucy said as she started composing a text on her phone.

Away from there, Bryan hurried after Tom as he left the mall and caught up with him at the foot of the escalator.

"Tom...."

"Unless there is something else you want to do in Heden, let\'s return to Ludus," Tom said without letting him finish.

"We can leave," Bryan said as he handed the bouquet of flowers to the nearest lady, and they left.

As they got into the car, Tom\'s phone beeped with a text notification, and he took it out. He wanted to ignore the text at first when he saw that it was from Lucy, but on second thoughts, he clicked on it.

[I was wrong to lie to you regardless of my reason. I\'m sorry. Please forgive me. It\'s past five minutes already. Call me. I love you.]

Past five minutes? Tom mused with a slight frown as he tried to figure out what she meant. It didn\'t take long before he figured it out, and he sighed.

They had both promised to try not to stay mad at each other for longer than five minutes (Chapter 285).

Back in Harry\'s apartment, the others gathered around Jade\'s phone as they all read the details on a gossip blog talking about the Hank brothers who showed up at a mall to surprise Sonia Smith, who stood them up.

"It seems like you Hanks can never stay off the news. You lot always attract trouble," Harry muttered to Jade, forgetting that Evelyn and Desmond were there, and three pairs of eyes turned to glare at him. He quickly flashed Evelyn and Andrew a smile.

"I was only pulling your legs," Harry assured them, and the others in the room laughed.

Their laughter ceased, and all eyes turned to the door as Lucy and Sonia, who had insisted on going in with her, walked in, "What did Tom say?" Jade asked curiously as she dropped her phone, and everyone returned to their seats.

Lucy looked at her, wondering why Jade was asking what Tom said when it was Sonia who had left to answer Bryan\'s call. What made them think she had spoken to Tom? She mused as she stared at Jade.

"Did Tom not speak to her through your phone?" Jade asked Sonia since, from the expressions on both their faces when they walked in, Lucy seemed more distressed than Sonia.

"Nothing," Lucy said simply, but they all knew she was not telling the truth.

"I\'m leaving now. I will see you later," Lucy said to Aaron before turning to her parents, "I guess we will meet at Tom\'s house," Lucy told them in a tired voice.

"Oh, dear! Tom must be mad. I\'m sorry, Lucy," Desmond said, looking remorseful now as he rose, but Lucy shook her head.

"No. It\'s not your fault. You did nothing wrong," Lucy said with a sigh.

She wished she could blame this on either Desmond or Sonia, but she couldn\'t. It was not their fault. It was hers.

Tom was her man, and she knew him well enough to know that this was going to piss him off. Especially when his surprise visit to her had been ruined and who knew what else. Tom hated having his plans messed up, and that seemed to be happening a lot lately. She only hoped her text would work.

"Tom won\'t be mad. I told him not to be mad, right mom?" Jamal asked from where he sat beside Janet.

"Yes, you did, pumpkin," Candace responded.

"Don\'t worry too much, Lulu. Once he stops getting mad about his thwarted plans, he will understand. Tom is not unreasonable," Harry assured her.

"We will talk to him not to be mad," Evelyn assured her.

"Harry give him a call right now and let me talk to him," Aaron suggested, and Lucy smiled.

"Thanks...," the rest of her words trailed off when her phone started ringing, and she saw it was Tom.

"It\'s Tom, right?" Jade asked, and Lucy gave her a nod as she received the call.

"I\'m not calling because I\'m no longer mad at you. I\'m still very disappointed and mad. However, I\'m calling because I love you. My anger will eventually pass, but my love for you won\'t pass...."

Lucy\'s heart swelled with love for him, and tears gathered in her eyes. Her lips wobbled as she smiled, "I love you too. I\'m sorry," she cried, and although the other ladies in the room couldn\'t hear what Tom was saying, their eyes were teary as they watched Lucy.

"We are on our way back, so don\'t you dare think of getting on any plane and coming back here," Tom warned, and Lucy sniffled as she giggled while Bryan looked at Tom with newfound admiration.

"What can I do to make it up to you?" Lucy asked as she turned away from the others.

"You could give me the whole of tonight and tomorrow. I want you all to myself. No divided attention."

"I\'m all yours," Lucy promised.

"Cool. I will see you later then. Take care of yourself. I love you."

"I love you more," Lucy said, meaning that for the first time.

"No. I love you more," Tom said before hanging up.

"Wow!" Bryan exclaimed as he looked at Tom.

"What?" Tom asked with an arched brow.

"You\'re impressive. Very impressive," Bryan said, giving him a thumbs up, and Tom smiled.

He had really been upset as at the time he dialed Lucy\'s line, and although he wasn\'t completely past the annoyance of everything, he felt better after speaking with her.