Girl Get Rid Of That Jerk (Williams and Shawn) novel Chapter 258

"Ah, you know how love goes, right? Who can predict these things?" Linda chuckled, waving at the little boy playing blocks with Lizzy. "Hey Johnny, come over here to Auntie."

Johnny dropped his blocks and hurried over to Linda.

With a warm smile, Linda scooped up some candies from the fruit bowl and handed them to Johnny. "So, Johnny, how did your exams go? What's your rank in class?"

Johnny was the younger son of Linda's curly-haired sister. He was a lively sixth-grader, always up to some mischief, often leading to parent-teacher meetings.

Curly-haired Aunt's non-stop chatter came to an abrupt halt when Linda mentioned her son's grades, and she looked a bit embarrassed.

Unfazed by his less-than-stellar performance, Johnny replied honestly, "Auntie, I got forty-five in math, thirty-six in English, fifty-one in history, and my class rank is..."

"Alright, that's enough. If you're not embarrassed, I am," Curly-haired Aunt cut him off.

"What's there to be embarrassed about? I've made progress," Johnny shot back. "Last semester, I was third from the bottom, and this time I'm up to fifth from the bottom."

Laughter erupted among the relatives.

"Kids really do say the darnedest things," someone remarked.

Curly-haired Aunt pulled Johnny close and whispered fiercely, "Go play with Lizzy. Why are you here showing off? Fifth from the bottom isn't something to brag about."

Linda just smiled, finally putting a lid on her sister's chatter.

Javier glanced over at Allison, concern in his eyes, but she just smiled and shook her head, signaling she was okay.

...

After dinner, Allison wandered into the garden for a breather and unexpectedly bumped into Joshua, who was also out for a stroll.

Not particularly expensive for him, at over sixty thousand dollars, yet he'd worn it faithfully, even after they split up.

Whenever he knew Allison would be around, he'd usually tuck the watch away to keep her from seeing it, like on New Year's Eve and at the Southern Ridge Golf Club.

But he hadn't expected to run into her in the garden during his solo stroll.

So, the watch ended up exposed to Allison's view.

He knew what she wanted to ask.

He wanted to tell her he missed her, that he couldn't bear to take off the watch she had given him.

Caught in a tangled web of emotions, Joshua finally managed to say, "Oh, I forgot to take it off."