This Crazy Rich Boy - Chapter 164

“The thing about first class,” Gabriel says, as though patiently explain the rules of the universe to a child. “Is that they treat you like royalty. For example, that limousine over there—” he points to a black, elegant-looking vehicle, right outside the lobby’s doors, where a serious-looking man in a black suit stands by—”will bring us to your parents’ house’s very doorstep.”

“Really?” Claire feels it must be too extravagant; she begins to worry about what her parents would feel about this. She hasn’t warned them that she’s coming home; right now, all they know is that their dear old Claire is still in the big city, working her cute ȧss off in one of those office buildings.

“It’s actually the safest means of transport, Claire. We’ll just tell our guy our destination, and he’d drive us no matter the distance.”

Claire looks at Gab with her head tilted. “But you’re used to all this. Why do you sound like it’s your first time?”

Gabriel laughs. “Because it’s your first, and I just feel so excited for you.”

Claire giggles. She takes his hand. They’re such an odd-looking couple, walking without care in the world, completely sans luggage.

The chauffeur already knows it’s them as they approach him. “How’s the trip, Mr. Tan, Miss Monteverde?”

“Splendid,” Gabriel says. “Couldn’t be better.”

The chauffeur snappily opens the door for them.

Claire eases into the luxurious backseat, looking around. There are a number of tiny bottles of what look like miniature liquor. “Can we drink those?”

“Yes and no,” Gabriel says. “Yes, we can. But no, we shouldn’t. We’re meeting your parents in about an hour, right? We don’t want to make a bad impression to my future in-laws.”

Upon hearing what Gabriel just said, Claire feels like her heart just jumped, like it’s the sweetest thing in the world, what she just heard. Yet, she doesn’t let him know that; she just smiles and squeezes his hand, a subtle way to let him know how much his words mean to her.

“Where to, sir?” the chauffeur asks as he takes the driver’s seat.

Gabriel looks at Claire, who gets it. She tells the chauffeur the destination.

The chauffeur’s face furrows upon hearing the address. “Hmmm. Isn’t that the hilly region almost at the boundary to the next province? There’s nothing but farmlands there.”

“It’s not just farm and animals there, Mister. I grew up there. My parents tend the land.”

“Oh, sorry, madam,” the chauffeur stammers. “Not meaning to offend. Merely trying to be clear about the destination. Frankly, this is the first time I’m driving this limousine to that region, although the truth is, I also grew up near there. In a farmland. Pardon the misunderstanding.”

“Pardon granted,” Claire smiles.

Gabriel laughs at this exchange. “Interesting,” he says. “This just excites me more.”

And so their limousine journey begins. And it’s never boring, as it turns out. At each milestone they pass by, Claire points at it and tells Gabriel a cute little backstory, something that had anything to do with her and her childhood. There’s the old public marketplace, now largely abandoned, where Claire and her mother used to buy freshly gathered honey from the surrounding bee farms usually a week before Christmas, which her mother would use in making her famous gingerbread. There’s the old school building, where Claire attended primary school, and Ground Zero of many of her earliest heartaches, usually in the form of schoolyard bullying. “One of my classmates used to tease me that I looked like a clown.”

“A clown? Maybe the world’s loveliest clown, was what he meant.”

She shrugs. “I was ugly, was his point. I looked funny. But strangely, when we grew up, he sent me a couple of love letters in high school.”

“Poetic justice, then,” he says, “but only if you rejected him.” He grins.

“Of course, not!” she shrieks, giggling. “But what’s even weirder was he turned out to be gay. As in, he liked other boys. Last I heard, he’s working as a local gay stand-up comedian in some city in Thailand.”

“Really?” Gabriel shakes his head. “That guy’s life must be a hell of a journey.”

Then they pass by another milestone or local landmark, and Claire’s stories continue. And to these delightful revelations, Gabriel laughs and nods and tries to remember every single thing. This is the point of this journey, to get to know her much better, and so far, it has been grand. Everything just feels oh so right.

What had been presumed to be a short-ish trip turned out to last much longer than anticipated. They must have been traversing country roads for more than an hour now, and the vistas seen outside the limousine’s windows have been one stretch of farmland after another. Even Gabriel has fallen deep in thought as he gazed outside; he remembers the early years when their business empire was still nascent, when he’d accompany his mother to these far-away places to establish partnerships with crop farmers for the first few food manufacturing plants they’d established. It was truly hard work, and the people he’d met in those years are still the people he trusts even now. People like Dean and Mrs. Gomez.

He turns to her and discovers she had fallen asleep, her head on his shoulder. Walking down memory lane must have exhausted the poor princess, he thinks. He gazes at her, at the fine contours of her face, and the sight still takes her breath away. He wonders if Claire even has an angle that isn’t pretty—it seems however which way he looks at her, he likes—nay, loves—what he sees. Or maybe it’s only love?

“Uhh, Sir,” the chauffeur clears his throat. “I’d just like to let you know we’re already in the general area of the destination. But it seems the houses here don’t have exact addresses. So maybe if Miss Monteverde could point me to the exact place…”

“Claire?” he taps her gently to wake her up. “Claire, I think we���re almost there.”

Claire rouses. She looks around, seemingly disoriented. Then her face lights up. “Oh, my God! We’re here!”

“You mean, we’re here? At your place?”

“No, I mean, we’re only about three towns away from our house.”

“Three towns?” Gabriel turns to the driver. “Count three more towns, Mr. Chauffeur.”

“Three more towns?” the chauffeur repeats, as though disbelieving. “I’m not even sure where one town ends and another one begins. There are no clear markers, Sir.” The limo hits a bump as the road becomes rougher and rougher. “And it seems we’re almost at the end of the world, Madam.

“That’s about right,” Claire laughs. “Because that’s where I grew up. Near the end of the world.”

Gabriel gazes at her with that amused look on his face.