Take My Breath Away

Freshly Made Coffee

Since Adalson was in another city, he couldn't check on Blair personally. He had called Wesley and had asked him to check on her as a favor for him.         

    

Wesley didn't know how to respond to that.     

That night, Blair slept with a wide smile on her lips. What she didn't know was that, across the hall, due to her little kiss, Wesley had to go to the bathroom a few times in order to take cold showers.     

At four in the morning, he put her name on his list of troublesome people. Most of the people on the list were the unruliest criminals. Two minutes later, touching the corner of his mouth, he moved Blair's name to the top of the list, which meant, to Wesley, Blair had just become the most troublesome person on the planet.     

The next morning, Blair got up very early to create a chance to meet Wesley. She had found out his entire schedule—when he would return from his morning exercise and what time he would enter the elevator.     

However, none of that happened. The man didn't show up as she had expected. Actually, to avoid her, last night, he had decided to take the stairs from that day on instead of riding the elevator.     

For the next three days, Blair didn't meet Wesley even once in the building. Just when she started to think that he probably hadn't been home lately, she heard the sound of his door closing as he left the apartment in a hurry.     

She wondered when he had come home and why she hadn't met him earlier.     

Blair had art lesson that afternoon. She didn't want to go, but Joslyn liked art and wanted her company, so Blair agreed to attend the lesson.     

In the drawing studio, Blair doodled on the drawing board with her black crayon. Half the lesson had passed and she still hadn't drawn anything worthy.     

The young female guidance counselor walked over to her and frowned. "Blair, what are you doing? What is that?" she reprimanded.     

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The white drawing paper on Blair's board was filled with useless doodling. She quickly tore it and tossed it into the waste basket. "It's nothing. I'll start over now."     

The guidance counselor walked away, grumbling under her breath. Watching her figure receding, Blair made a face behind her back.     

The counselor wasn't theirs to begin with, and the drawing studio wasn't where her duty was. She was only in the studio because their art instructor had been occupied elsewhere lately. Since this female guidance counselor knew a bit about art, she had been substituting for the art instructor for the past few days.     

However, for some reason, the guidance counselor seemed to have a problem with Blair since the very beginning, which was part of the reason why Blair didn't want to attend this class.     

Joslyn snorted and mumbled, "I think she is jealous of you. You're prettier than her and you have a lot of admirers."     

Blair gave her a sideways glance and drew a big cross in the air with her black crayon. "No way! She and I are neither the same age nor in the same grade."     

"That is so irrelevant. She is much nicer to the others." Joslyn rolled her eyes at the guidance counselor.     

Blair said, "She is mean to you as well."     

Joslyn replied, "She's only mean to you and me, Blair."     

"Joslyn! Blair! What are you two whispering about?" the guidance counselor yelled as she pushed her glasses up her nose bridge. The entire studio heard her.     

Joslyn swung the crayon in her hand and replied, "We're drawing."     

The guidance counselor wasn't going to let them off yet. "Don't ever come to my class again if you two only want to chat in here!"     

Blair snorted and said in a voice low enough for only her and Joslyn to hear, "That would be so great!"     

Joslyn chuckled.     

The drawing studio was quiet once again. The guidance counselor wandered among the students to see how they were doing. She lingered behind Joslyn and Blair for a long time to keep a sharp eye on them. Blair rolled her eyes unhappily. When the guidance counselor was busy talking to another student, Blair busied herself with something secretly. After a while, she held a cup of coffee-colored liquid in her hand and gave it to the guidance counselor. "Miss Zheng, I made a cup of coffee for you. Please have a taste," she said nicely.         

    

Seeing the girl acting so gallantly in front of the whole class, the guidance counselor snorted proudly and took the "coffee" from her.     

"It's iced and freshly made. And it's yummy. Please take a sip and see how you like it," Blair urged. Then, she watched the guidance counselor take a big mouthful of the brown liquid.     

"Pfff!"     

The lady spat it all out and spilled much of the dark-colored liquid onto Blair's clothes.     

She smashed the cup onto the floor and rushed about looking for tissues and a bin.     

The students snickered. Joslyn didn't even bother stifling her laughter.     

Blair was so satisfied that she didn't even mind her white chiffon shirt being stained. "Miss Zheng, what's wrong? Didn't you like my coffee?" she asked in a feigned innocent tone.     action

It took the guidance counselor a long while to clean herself up. She purpled, pointing at Blair and Joslyn. "You— you two! Go to the sports ground and run five kilometers!"     

'Five kilometers? Under the scorching sun? No way!' Blair thought. "I won't go. If you feel like running, please feel free to do so. Besides, you're not even our guidance counselor. Why should we listen to you?"     

"Blair Jing! Joslyn Zhu! Don't make me flunk you this term!"     

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Blair and Joslyn didn't see that coming. Joslyn didn't care about her grades. But Blair had always been a model student. She would feel embarrassed if she flunked any of her subjects. And she was worried that a bad grade would affect her future job-hunting.     

Blair hesitated. She haggled, "Five hundred meters! It's as hot as an oven outside. And you would be the one to blame if we got heatstroke."     

The guidance counselor was in a fit of rage, so she wouldn't budge. "Five hundred meters?! You wish! It's hot. So what? Learn from those freshmen! They're receiving military training in the sun every day. If they can deal with the heat, you can too! Five kilometers. No less!"     

"Then you run with us too," Joslyn demanded. If she was going down, she was going to make Miss Zheng go down with her too.     

The guidance counselor approached Joslyn and retorted, "Run with you? I'll watch you run! Move now!" With that, she grabbed the two defiant girls' hands and led them out of the drawing studio.     

Blair felt uncomfortable. 'Could you let go of my hand? We're not that close.'     

She tried to wriggle out of Miss Zheng's grasp on the way to the sport ground, but failed to do so. With so many students and military instructors on the ground, Blair didn't want to make a scene, so she stopped struggling when they got there. The guidance counselor took the girls to the middle of the ground.     

She specially walked to Wesley. "Officer Li, I'm a guidance counselor of this university. I heard that you were the strictest military instructor here. These two have been misbehaving in class. I leave them to you. Please see to it that they'll finish their five-kilometer run."     

Blair and Joslyn were bereft of words.     

"I'm too busy." Wesley rebuffed after giving the two girls an indifferent look.     

The guidance counselor was embarrassed. But she wasn't going to give up that easily. "Officer Li, please consider them as a couple of new attendees in the military training. Thank You." She said with a smile.     

The students Wesley was training were standing in a military manner. Blair observed them. Although the training had been going on for merely a few days, they had made obvious progress; their formation was in much better order than the other students.     

After giving it more though, Wesley decided not to make things too difficult for the guidance counselor, so he nooded and said, "Okay."     

The guidance counselor left, but Wesley still didn't speak to the two girls. Blair and Joslyn stood in the sun, waiting for him to give orders.     

However, he turned around and walked back to the freshmen to give them more instructions.