Chapter 21

"Holy crap, don't scare me like that! My legs go weak just looking at those papers."

"You didn't sleep with her?" Brian asked again, still somewhat dazed.

"She was an assassin! Why would I sleep with her? I'm married to you. I need to stay faithful to you," William said earnestly.

Brian felt the anger that had been building inside him dissipate. He was furious, but William's words calmed him down. He really wanted to smack him, though.

"Can you please learn to tell a story properly and not leave me hanging?" Brian grumbled.

"What's wrong? Look at you, getting angry again. We're just talking. Are you a balloon, ready to pop at any moment? Calm down, you have a meeting tomorrow. Let's get some sleep," William said, not understanding why Brian was so upset.

Brian had a headache. Talking to William required the patience not to strangle him every minute.

"Hey, you should have seen her running naked, covering herself with her hands. Normally, someone would offer her clothes, but everyone was just whistling and watching. Some woman even said her boobs were fake. Clearly jealousy," William continued, laughing.

Brian took a deep breath. He was sure he was going to lose his mind.

"Brian, let me tell you a joke," William said, still chuckling.

Brian lit a cigarette to calm himself down.

William, lying on his side on the blanket, looked up at him with a grin. "When I saw her running with her hands covering herself, it reminded me of this joke. A mother tells her daughter that if a man touches her chest, she should say 'don't,' and if he touches her below, she should say 'stop,' and she won't lose her virtue. One day, the girl's boyfriend gets frisky and touches her chest, and she says 'don't,' and then he touches her below, and she says 'stop.' But then he touches both at the same time, and she says 'don't stop, don't stop!'" William was rolling on the floor, laughing so hard his stomach hurt.

Brian looked at him as if he were an idiot, put out his cigarette, and pulled the blanket over his head.

Having someone else in the house made it lively, but it was giving him a headache.

"Please, just be quiet. Can you not be so childish?" Brian thought.

William's hearty laughter reached the living room, where their mothers were sitting. They laughed too.

"See? Sleeping together is helping them bond. It's not like their issues are unsolvable. They're getting along just fine."

Little did they know how much Brian was internally cringing at William's antics.

"Hey, why aren't you laughing? I've been laughing at that joke for half my life," William said, poking Brian through the blanket. Brian ignored him.

William scratched his head. Alright then. He was tired, and he had a meeting tomorrow. Time to sleep.

William's snoring was thunderous. Brian lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

When he was alone, the house was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat. Now, with all this noise, he couldn't sleep.

He wanted to go out for a smoke, maybe read a book in the study and sleep there. But the two mothers were still watching TV in the living room like guardians. What time was it, and they were still watching TV?

He needed to get used to this. Sleeping with the sound of snoring for the next sixty years? Fifty years? He had no choice.

Just as he was starting to feel sleepy, the blanket began to slip off. He woke up with a start and saw William, cold and searching for the blanket. William had pulled half the blanket off the bed.

Brian was annoyed. If William hadn't been so stubborn about not coming home for three years, Brian wouldn't have gotten rid of his blanket in a fit of anger. And now he was trying to take his?

"Freeze for all I care. That's what you get for choosing to sleep on the floor. Who asked you to be so stubborn? You always have to have your way, don't you? Was it necessary for us to get to the point of divorce?" Brian thought as he pulled the blanket back.

William couldn't pull the blanket any further and thought it was caught on something. He braced his foot against the bed and yanked with all his might.

Suddenly, Brian tumbled out of bed, wrapped in the blanket.

Brian struggled and flailed, finally managing to stick his head out for air. He was almost suffocated.

Angrily, he pushed William's arms away. "Damn it, why do you have to take everything?!"