Semua Bab One Night Stand With My Hubby's Cousin: Bab 131 - Bab 140

Evelyn's POV“Well,” I said carefully, trying very hard to keep my voice emotionally neutral despite the increasingly vivid mental image forming in my head, “I’m assuming the lemon tree didn’t answer you.”“No,” Frank said calmly. “But the dog did.”I blinked.“The dog?”“Yep,” Dean jumped in immediately, delighted to continue this disaster. “The professor had a dog. Not a normal dog either. That thing looked professionally trained. I still remember its teeth.”He shuddered dramatically.“And the drool. It had the kind of face that made you feel guilty for existing within fifty feet of it.”At this point I could already picture the entire scene far too clearly.A drunken heartbroken Julian emotionally assaulting a lemon tree in the middle of the night while an enormous police-dog-looking monster prepared to defend its family from unstable university students.“What happened after that?” I asked, already laughing.“It started barking,” Julian said calmly.“Loudly,” Frank added.“Like d

Evelyn's POVThe neighborhood felt completely different at night.Quieter.Softer somehow.Streetlights spilled warm pools of gold across rows of low suburban houses while passing headlights swept over driveways and fences in slow flashes, tree shadows stretching and shrinking across the pavement like the city itself was breathing in its sleep.I sat in the passenger seat with the lingering warmth of alcohol still faintly settled in my body, my hair nearly dry now, yet my mind strangely clear despite everything that had happened tonight.The two men in the backseat, however, were clearly operating under very different conditions.Dean had started fighting with the music system almost immediately after getting into the car, aggressively scrolling through playlists with the confidence of a man who believed silence was a personal attack.Meanwhile Frank sat beside him perfectly composed, barely moving except for his thumb occasionally sliding across his phone screen.At first I assumed h

Evelyn's POV“It looks older now,” Dean whispered, suddenly sounding oddly sincere as he crouched there beside the doghouse. “Back then if I got this close, it would’ve already tried to murder me.”I laughed quietly.“Maybe don’t wake it up just to verify that theory,” I whispered back. “Otherwise you’re absolutely getting bitten tonight.”Dean reluctantly retreated from the dog with visible disappointment.A few feet away, Julian stood beside the lemon tree.Quietly.Not speaking.Not joking.The noise from the rest of us seemed to fade strangely around him for a moment as he rested one hand lightly against the rough bark, his expression softer than I’d seen all night. There was a faint smile at the corner of his mouth, but something bittersweet lingered underneath it too, like he’d been pulled briefly into some old memory none of us could fully see.Under the streetlight, he almost looked unreal.Like a statue forgotten by time itself.A man standing beside the remains of a love sto

Evelyn's POVAs Dean and Frank were dropped off one by one at their respective homes, the energy of the night slowly began to fade away with them.Each slammed car door seemed to take part of the chaos with it.Part of the laughter.Part of the noise.And by the time the last goodbye disappeared into the quiet streets, it felt as though the entire evening had started retreating like a tide pulling back from shore, leaving only scattered traces behind.The drive back was much quieter.The music was still playing softly through the speakers, but Julian didn’t turn it up again. His fingers no longer tapped absentmindedly against the steering wheel with the rhythm either. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he seemed to withdraw from whatever version of himself had existed earlier tonight.The version that laughed easily.The version that wrestled with his friends and got dragged into ridiculous middle-of-the-night crimes involving lemon trees and sleeping dogs.The version that felt warm an

Evelyn's POVI bit lightly against my lower lip.So that was it.Until Julian finally managed to win over the woman he loved, I was convenient in every possible way—an excuse to keep other women away, a shield against endless blind dates, maybe even a catalyst meant to provoke some kind of reaction from her.Evelyn, congratulations.Apparently your role in this story had become unexpectedly important.The thought should’ve annoyed me more than it did.Instead, what unsettled me was how naturally I had already slipped into it.“Well,” I said after a moment, forcing my voice back into something playful and light, “I think my performance tonight was pretty good then. I blended into your friend group surprisingly well.”Julian laughed softly under his breath.“Honestly,” he said, glancing at me briefly before looking back at the road, “you and Dean might actually be long-lost twins. The way your brains work is disturbingly similar.”I smiled faintly and nodded, but I didn’t continue the c