Chapter 313 A Gamble with Unknown Results
"You saw all the crap Mia went through, right? She was just loving someone with all her heart, didn't do anything wrong. I really hope no one uses that against her in the future to hurt her or make her feel humiliated," I said, trying to keep my cool.
"No matter how many promises I make, it won't mean squat until I prove it. I don't wanna make empty promises. Jane, if Mia ever gets hurt or wronged because of me, even a little, I'll end it," Yancy said, dead serious, his usual playful eyes now all intense.
Yancy's promise was no joke. But life's unpredictable, right? How many people actually keep their promises?
Mia and Benjamin, Daniel and Zoe—they all started off sweet, but ended up hating each other!
"You're only twenty, dude. There are tons of girls out there you haven't met yet. How do you know Mia's the one?"
Yancy smirked and looked past me, "Why wouldn't I know? I heard Mr. Pitt decided to love you forever since he was six."
I blushed hard, caught off guard.
I awkwardly brushed my hair back, trying to think of a way to end this awkward convo. Then I heard a low chuckle behind me. My shoulder warmed up, and I was pulled into an embrace that smelled faintly of tobacco.
"Mr. Pitt, I'll take these dishes out first." Ignoring my red face, Yancy grabbed the dishes and spun out, leaving me alone with Brad.
"Mr. Pitt, you should be careful not to spill everything to the students," I said, biting the arm around me.
The muscle under my teeth tensed, and the voice above my head was so smooth. "It's not something to be ashamed of. It's all true."
"What did you know at six? Talking about forever, that's just nonsense."
"How could I not know? Ever since the day I didn't mind changing your diaper, I knew," Brad whispered in my ear, blowing softly.
Brad was always messing with me.
I couldn't help but be curious, how did the serious Brad tell the students about this?
Brad raised an eyebrow and smiled at me, "I learned a phrase from that novel you were reading, something like 'love at first sight.' I was smitten the moment I saw you. Isn't that romantic?"
Brad raised his chin and looked at me with those eyes, clearly saying, "Praise me!"
I felt all warm and fuzzy, and that feeling stuck with me until bedtime. After a shower, I lay on the bed, barely able to keep my eyes open, trying hard not to fall asleep.
Brad was still in the shower, and I wanted to wait for him to sleep together.
"If you're sleepy, just crash," Brad said as he finally climbed into bed, making the space beside me sink.
I rolled over and snuggled into his embrace, which still had that warm, fresh-out-of-the-shower scent. Finding the perfect spot, I nestled in. "Brad, your birthday's coming up."
Brad hummed in response, his hand gently caressing my back. He gave me a soft kiss on the forehead and rubbed his chin against me. "Is that why you're not sleeping well?"
"Yeah, you always go all out for my birthday, so this time I wanna do something special for yours."
"It's just a birthday, it comes every year. No need to go all out."
"No way, we gotta celebrate," I argued, even though I was feeling super sleepy.
"Got any plans on how to celebrate?"
"Not really, but you gotta follow my lead."
"Alright, I'll listen to my baby. Whatever you need, I'm in."
After the holiday, I dove into prepping a research project for my graduation thesis.
My focus was on pigments and their applications.
With tech advancing like crazy, there are tons of high-quality pigments out there. But over time, with changes in temperature, humidity, and other stuff, the colors still change. For a killer painting, any color shift can be a disaster. So, creating new pigments with better color retention is every painter's dream.
But this path was long and winding. Would it succeed? Would there be progress? Or would it just flop? Who knew?
It was a gamble with unknown results.
But no matter how tough it would get, since I chose this path, I'm sticking to it and won't back down halfway.
The FutureVision project was still half-done, and the college competition was coming up. The organizers changed the traditional format, so the school's plan needed tweaking, and every participant was gearing up to show their stuff.
This meant I'd need to put in more time to support the college's competition team.
In past painting and calligraphy competitions, especially those for higher ed, participants' names were collected, and works were submitted at a set time. After several rounds of judging, the winners were picked. Apart from creating their works, participants knew nothing about the judging process and just waited for the results.
Not saying there was anything wrong with the judging, just that it wasn't very transparent.
This time, the organizers found a venue and split the participants into groups. We had to create our works on-site based on different topics we drew.
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