This Crazy Rich Boy - Chapter 162

“What do you mean?” Claire says, unsure if she’s heard it correctly.

“We’re leaving,” he says, squeezing his hand. “We’re getting away from all this muck.”

“Are you being serious, Gab? Like, we’re leaving now?”

“Of course, I’m serious! I’ve never been this serious in my life.”

“But what about…everything?”

He shrugs. “I’m tired. I’m tried of trying to balance everything in my life. I’ve never had a day for myself. I’ve never had a day with you alone. Now, we’re going to a place where they won’t find us.”

“But what about your employees? All those people who depend on you?”

“Don’t worry,” Gabriel smiles. “I’ll just send Mrs. Gomez a single line of text. And it would all be fine.”

At this point, Clark returns excitedly. “May I ask where you’d want to go?”

“Well…” Gabriel turns to Claire. “Where were you supposed to go this afternoon?”

“Home,” she says.

“And where is that?”

Claire tells him. Gabriel then turns to Clark, “There you have it. First class tickets to that destination, please.”

Clark smiles and makes a slight bow. “Right away.”

“Are we sure about this? I don’t have any clothes with me. Everything is back at my place.”

“Aren’t you even excited?” There’s a mad gleam in Gabriel’s eyes. “New slate. And I’m excited to meet your old folks. And…

“And my younger sister. She’d be excited to meet you.”

Gabriel stops. “You have a sister?”

“Yes! And she’s much cuter than me. So I’ll have my eye on you, Gabriel Tan. Don’t even dare.”

Gabriel laughs. “I only have eyes and heart for the big sister.”

“I wonder how my mother would react to you,” Claire says. “I had never brought anyone home to meet her.”

“Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

“I must be extremely lucky, then.”

She smiles. Then her face scrunches up as she remembers something. “Wait, I totally forgot about Dean!”

“Dean drove you?”

“Yeah, and he’s been watching out for you at the entrance. Can you call him up?”

“I don’t have Dean’s number on this phone,” Gabriel says, thumbing on his iPhone. “So maybe that’s why he didn’t call me up on the way here. Forgot to bring my public phone.” He slips his phone into his pocket. “Wait for me here. I’ll personally go and tell him. I owe him a lot for you, you know.”

“Okay,” she says.

She lovingly watches him slip through the crowd. Her heart pounds in her ċhėst; she doesn’t know exactly what she feels, but all her feelings are good feelings. She couldn’t even describe how excited she is. Is she even awake? Or is this one of those dreams?

“Miss Claire, here are the two tickets,” Clark says as he suddenly appears. His face is filmed with sweat, as though he had wrestled with someone just to finish his task.

“Are you alright, Clark?”

“I’m fine,” Clark says, smiling. “I just had to argue with someone over those tickets. But it has all been settled. No worries.”

Claire gazes at the tickets in her hand, feeling the surreality of it. Tickets back home, with the man of her dreams. “I don’t know how to pay for this.”

Clark laughs. “Oh no, everything’s settled, as I said. Mr. Tan’s company has a corporate account with one of our major airlines. It’s all fine.” He looks around. “I don’t think I can wait for Mr. Tan. Duty calls. Can you tell him my regards. Tell him it has been a pŀėȧsurė.”

“I surely will,” she says. “Thank you so much!”

“Enjoy the journey,” Clark says. He leaves.

Once again, Claire looks at the tickets. She has never held a pair of airline tickets in her life, much less first-class ones. “This is my very first time,” she mutters to herself.

“Your first time for what?” A voice says. It’s Gabriel, back from his errand.

“First time to fly,” she says, smiling. “How’s Dean?”

“He’s over the moon with happiness,” he says. “He’s driving back to The Residence and wishes us a memorable journey.”

“I should have spoken to him, too. I owe him one.”

“There would be lots of time for that, in the future,” he says. He smiles. “But for now, our first travel together! I see you have the tickets.”

“Yeah. Clark had to go. He says it was his utmost pŀėȧsurė to be of service.”

“Clark’s a good man,” Gabriel says. He looks up at the information screen. “I believe it’s boarding time, Claire. Let’s go?”

“Okay,” she says. She smiles. “This is it!”

“Yes, this is it,” Gabriel says.

As they walk toward the queue for outbound passengers, with nothing but the clothes on their back and a hope for something better, Gabriel takes out his phone and taps a quick message. “It’s for Mrs. Gomez,” he says to Claire’s inquiring look. “I’m giving her control.”

Meanwhile, at her home, Mrs. Gomez is stabbing at her TV dinner, a sad affair of ersatz tomato sauce, synthetic cheese, and soggy pasta, which the manufacturer had dared to label as “authentic Italian lasagna.” Her husband is out fetching her a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Rocky Road at the corner grocer, which is what she feels she needs to cap this rather long and tiring day. Matilde Tan was such an energy-draining presence in the office—Mrs. Gomez hopes Matilde suddenly decides to not spend time anymore digging up the company’s paper trail, because after all, what does she expect to find? Everything’s in order. It’s not like her own son, Gabriel, would do something irregular in his own business.

On the TV, Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman’s character in the movie, ‘Casablanca,’ “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Mrs. Gomez smiles as she holds her fork aloft; she’s always loved this particular scene in the movie. Brings back a lot of memories.

Suddenly, her phone beeps. She looks at it with suspicion—she’s not expecting anything, except maybe her husband is at the grocery store trying to decide which Ben & Jerry’s flavor could be a worthy replacement to Rocky Road.

She picks it up and sighs, already bracing up for disappointment—her heart is already set on Rocky Road, though. But she finds it’s from Gabriel. Her brow furrows—what could this be?

“Why not?” Gabriel’s text message simply reads.

Mrs. Gomez gazes at her phone’s screen for a long moment, wondering if this is it. This is one of Gabriel’s coded messages, the most important, yet this could also be a mistake. Maybe he’s drunk. You have a mother like Matilde Tan, you’d always get drunk.

She reads it again. “Why not?” Gabriel had texted. And there’s only one way to be sure they’re both on the same page as far as the message’s meaning is concerned.

So Mrs. Gomez texts back the only agreed-upon response she knows, “OH. Wow.”

Then she waits. If Gabriel responds with their agreed upon “code,” then it’s going to be an incredibly busy day tomorrow—for her, at least.

Her phone beeps again. The sound almost makes her jump. She takes a deep breath for a moment, bracing herself for what she might read on the phone. She taps it and looks at the message.

It reads, “Let’s roll.”

“Jesus,” Mrs. Gomez mutters. “He’s really going away. Matilde Tan would not be amused.”

Mrs. Gomez stares at the dark for a few moments. Slowly, she smiles. “Good for you, Mr. Tan,” she says, shaking her head. “Good for you.”