My Boss Is Secretly A Softie - Chapter 60

Chapter 60: Payback
Star felt a layer of sweat slide down her forehead as she sauntered out of the gym to the living room. Her eyes caught a flashy color of peach, capturing her attention. She peeked curiously and was left squinting at the comical situation before her. Terra sat on the couch with her feet wide apart, holding a lollipop in her left hand and a bottle of Coke in her right. She threw her head back, finishing the Coke in one gulp before tossing the lollipop into her mouth and munching it to pieces.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she blurted out before she could hold herself back.

Terra’s sad eyes slid toward her slowly before moving away, leaving her feeling awkward. Was she really sad? And that’s how she handles her sadness? Looking at the floor littered with Coke bottles and a bunch of chocolate and candy wrappers, she couldn’t help but cringe.

“All these sugars, how are you not getting fat with every minute gone?”

Terra let out a tear-filled groan. “I quit alcohol and smoking. So how else am I supposed to handle my sadness?”

A question mark hung on Star’s face. “I could have sworn I saw a finished pack of cigs when I went into your room to clean it out.”

“Fine, I just felt like having a sugar crash out,” Terra admitted in defeat.

Star kicked aside the empty bottles, the crisp sound startling her to calmly move them away before sitting beside the gloomy lady.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly.

Terra looked at her with a sniff and leapt into her embrace at the next instant. Star sighed. Great. Now she was doing Elara’s thing. She patted the lady’s soft locks in a bid to calm her down, which worked as her sniffs came to a rapid halt. Something did confuse her, though. Why was she sniffing if there were no tears? The question grew until she couldn’t hold back anymore, pulling up the lady’s face to find her eyes as clear as day.

“….”

“Get out of here!” She shoved aside Terra, who fell to the other side of the couch with heavy laughter.

“Okay, what the fuck was that?” Star asked angrily.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Terra apologized amid laughter. She waved her hands erratically to appease the seething brunette until she eventually calmed down. “But I am sad,” she persisted.

Star grunted. “Sure you are.”

Terra sighed, clicking her tongue. “Elara suddenly started treating me like she does you guys, perhaps even worse. I just woke up one morning, she glanced at me dismissively before ignoring her presence for the rest of the day. What did I do? I even took her, albeit forcefully, to a candy shop and she ditched my ass.”

Star blinked. “That explains yesterday.”

“Huh?”

“She suddenly invited us out to the amusement park, and when I asked about you, she casually brushed it off.”

Star pondered. “What the heck did you do?”

“Nothing!” Terra defended. Her eyes filled with the suspecting look of the blue-eyed woman, which had her groaning. “I swear, I did nothing. One morning, I just woke up and bam! It just happened. There were no signs! In fact, we had agreed prior that we would go to the movies. She even picked out the one she wanted with excitement and then she… I….” She burst out wailing dramatically like a child throwing a fake tantrum to appeal to their parents until a slap on the back of her head stopped her.

“Hey!”

“Keep calm. You are disturbing the peace of the morning,” Star cautioned. “You know how erratic her behavior has been since the accident. Refusing to look through her properties or anything that’d trigger her memories because she isn’t yet ‘ready.’ Mostly ignoring us and then giving attention whenever she pleased. Her push-and-pull attitude with Terrence, playing favoritism with you. Damn, she became a fucking brat.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Terra shook her head with crossed arms. “Maybe we should call her parents?”

“Absolutely not. I’d rather spank her. I don’t snitch.”

“Yeah, yeah. That too, I guess.”

There was a moment of silence between them before Terra spoke. “Do you think she’s still weary of us?”

Star hummed. “I don’t know. But what I do know is that we can only do our best to tolerate. She probably has her reasons.”

“Yes, you’re right. We should ask her. It’s probably something we missed, you know? A reasonable explanation for all of this….”

***

They were wrong. Very wrong. When she was asked, her response was as ridiculous as her attitude.

“I just felt like it,” she said so straightforwardly with a blank face that it left both ladies stunned. And John, who was drinking a glass of water, choked fiercely.

“Are you kidding me?” Terra asked while Star helped the choking man.

“Who…?” John coughed. “Thought you such bad behavior, kid.”

Elara pouted with crossed arms. “Which bad behavior?”

“I don’t want to hang out with her anymore because she’s now boring. What’s so wrong about that?”

“Ha!” Terra gasped in anger. “I’m boring?”

Elara chuckled like a little menace. “Yup. Now I want to hang out with Star and John. Do you not like that? Fine. I’ll hang out on my own then.”

The trio was left in shock by the whole thing, but Elara couldn’t be bothered. She merely picked up her food, ignoring the chaos she had let loose, and slid into her room with a little dance.

…Yes, she DANCED.

Star took a harsh breath. “I can spank her now, right?!”

“You better not, last time you spanked people your aunt permanently banned you from babysitting her kids.”

“She’s a helicopter mom, what did you expect?! All I did was spank their butts with a ruler! In my house that’s level 1 punishment.”

Terra shrugged. “My family doesn’t do that. Our punishments are special. One particular one my parents were fond of was throwing you into a cheap hotel to live alone and fend for yourself with a meager amount of allowance to go with while still being kept on watch to avoid doing certain things. My mama has always been real creative when it came to discipline. Haha.”

The two brunettes stared at her silently.

Watching the lady sigh with nostalgia, John almost couldn’t say his mind but did anyways. “Yeah… no.”

“I agree as well.”

Terra was confused. “What?”

“That definitely borders on abuse….”

“No, it doesn’t!”

Star interjected. “Even I, an avid advocate for discipline, have to agree that it does.”

“Speak for yourself! Like your family is better!”

“But we never entered the realms of abuse, so~” Star stuck out her tongue at Terra, who rolled her eyes with a huff.

John was left feeling awkward. These ladies were always too much. He once thought Elara was dramatic enough, but boy was he wrong.

“Regardless,” Terra spoke, “What do we do about this?”

“Go along with it,” John suggested. “That’s all we can do.”

“Nope,” Terra refused. “Then what about me?!”

“Oh my!” Star chuckled. “You sure didn’t think about that when you were having all that fun without us~.”

“It’s different!” Terra defended. She pursed her lips and played with her hands cutely. “At least you guys had each other. I have no one.”

“You can go to Terrence…” John was cut off rudely.

“Don’t even joke like that.”

Looking at the dark, almost demonic look in the lady’s eyes, he gulped. Well, there goes his goodwill.

Star shrugged, then sat on the table to continue with her meal, leaving Terra standing all on her own, feeling exasperated. She observed the duo: the female calmly coated her toast with butter before taking a bite and washing it down with her cup of tea.

Meanwhile, John was having waffles instead. He had always had the habit of eating differently from everyone else, with his erratic appetite that flipped about without pattern. That was apart from his other behavior of spicing up everything…

He picked up his phone and was browsing through it while chewing—completely ignoring the issue at hand. As if to tip her over, Star even added, “Since she probably won’t be dragging you about anymore, might as well make yourself useful and do the chores you shoved to me with the excuse of hanging out with her, hm?”

She snapped. So that’s how it is, huh?

‘You all will pay for this…’

And she made sure of it.

The next day, after they were done preparing to leave with Elara to the movies, which she picked out herself, she watched them complete their preparations, start up the car, even waved goodbye to them when they left, and then picked up her phone.

“Hello, yes. I’d like to cancel my reservation. Oh, nothing much, I just don’t feel like it. Yes, and if any group comes up to use the tickets, reject them. It’s probably my cousins going about taking my stuff without permission, haha. Thank you.”

She turned off her phone with a wide grin stretched across her face. Two can play that game, assholes!