The Men Who Walked Out

I didn't press the issue. I went straight into the lab and got to work.

A fellow intern from my year soon sidled over, phone in hand, his face lit up with gossip.

"Nick, not bad. I heard your family's rich, but I didn't realize you were this rich. That bracelet you gave Sophie must've cost close to twenty thousand, huh?"

I froze. Following his gaze, I saw Sophie's social feed on his screen—a photo of two hands tightly intertwined.

They were wearing matching couple bracelets.

Lately, she had been acting strange. I'd asked her out ten times; nine times she said she was busy.

Now, the answer was right in front of me.

I couldn't see any of these posts on my own feed, so I took my colleague's phone and kept scrolling.

An amusement park.

A Michelin three-star restaurant.

Night drives in a sports car…

And the man's face bore an uncanny resemblance to my mother's.

So this was what she had meant by "something important."

We'd been college classmates. I'd fallen for her at first sight. Later, by coincidence, I learned that her mother worked with my father. It was my dad who had personally set up a dinner to bring us together.

After that meal, he told me to walk her home. She took the initiative and laced her fingers through mine.

"Nick," she'd said, "I actually like you too—from the moment I first saw you."

That night, we held each other tightly beneath the streetlights.

Looking back now, it seemed both my father and I had misjudged people.

This engagement needed to be called off.

…

That evening after work, my dad stayed late at the institute.

I bought some fruit and went straight to Sophie's place.

Karla opened the door. She glanced at the fruit in my hands, then blocked the doorway.

"Nick, Sophie isn't home. You should head back."

I stood there awkwardly. Ever since Sophie and I started dating, this was the first time Karla had turned me away.

"Well, in that case, please take the fruit," I said. "She's not feeling well. It'd be good for her to eat some."

She still refused. "There's too much fruit at home. We can't finish it—it'll just go bad. Take it back for your dad to eat. Goodbye, Nick."

With that, she shut the door.

Through the old wooden panel, I faintly heard her voice, thick with disdain.

"He's so rich, and yet so stingy. After all these years, he hasn't bought Sophie a single decent thing."

Defeated, I walked down the stairs.

Just as I reached the building entrance, a red sports car pulled up in front of me.

Sophie stepped out with the man from her social feed, the two of them clearly intimate.

"Will your parents like the truffles I bought?" he asked.

"Of course," she replied. "My mom knows you're coming for dinner. She's prepared a whole table of dishes."

In that instant, everything clicked.

Karla hadn't turned me away by accident. She simply didn't want me ruining their evening.

Plain fruit, after all, couldn't compare to his truffles.

"Sophie!"

I stepped forward and called out to her.

She saw me and instinctively withdrew the hand hooked around his arm, her face paling.

"Nick? Why are you here?"

I didn't answer. I just stared at her. "Who is he?"

She waved her hands in a panic. "Don't misunderstand—it's not what you think."

"Didn't your mom tell you?" she rushed on. "This is your older brother, Bruce. He just came to Orbor City, so your mom asked me to show him around these past few days."

I turned and looked him up and down.

My gaze landed on the matching couple bracelets on their wrists.