Mistakenly Eaten

48. Praline Ice cream

Althea chimed, clapping her hands in excitement, feeling as joyful as she could ever. She leaned back on the pool chair that she sat on, with her good leg hanging down by the chair whilst her injured foot remained rested up by the extended edge of the chair.

Garry and Andrew fought one another, as they rushed to the end of the pool, in a race to see who was a better swimmer, since the two wouldn’t stop arguing about who was a better cook.

They were all enjoying their time off from the competition that they had gotten, thanks to Althea's little injury, when the argument broke out between Andrew and Garry and they decided to immediately jump in and swim off, in a little race that Fiona was a refree to.

The two rushed towards the other end of the pool and finally due to his sleek figure, Andrew was able to reach the edge of the pool more quickly.

As he touched the edge of the pool and tried to jump out, Garry grabbed him by his ankle and pulled him back inside the pool, stepping over his lean body and jumped out of the pool.

“You are still weaker.” He pointed out in an atrocious manner, making everyone laugh even more loudly.

Fiona also chuckled lightly and stepped forward, offering her hand to Andrew to take and helping him out of the pool.

She grabbed a towel and began drying his head.

Garry also grabbed a towel to dry his hair off but stopped when he noticed how affectionate Fiona and Andrew were being with each other.

This made him wonder, if they always had been that close and friendly or if it was something in the new.

He couldn’t help but feel slightly bothered by the fact that Fiona didn’t offer her hand to him or didn’t offer to dry his hair.

In the past, she would do anything to get his attention and always be there for him, to save him from Gigi as well.

A pang of jealousy hit his heart and he immediately shook his head.

There was no way that he was feeling jealous of someone having Fiona’s attention and affection.

He actually always used to get irritated the way she would hang around him and cling around, especially when he needed his own privacy.

He felt suffocated due to her at times when she would try too much to get his attention and when she wasn’t paying any attention to him, he should have been happy and instead he felt sad.

He reprimanded himself, reminding himself what he actually wanted.

Once she was done giggling with Andrew, Fiona moved on to Garry, offering him a towel but he immediately shrugged at her and shoved her shoulder in to hers, moving past hers.

“Ouch!” Fiona complained, as she moved away and walked to sit next to Althea, where Serena also sat, feeding her the fruit that she had cut for her.

Fiona rubbed her shoulder, complaining about Garry’s crude manners.

“I don’t know what his problem is and why he is so rude at times.” She whined and Serena shrugged.

“Oh, you know how he is. He was just feeling lousy because of losing to Andrew.”

Althea squinted her eyes at Fiona.

“Why do you even like him that much?” she asked Fiona in an extremely casual manner, taking a grape off the plate that was placed in Serena’s lap.

“What? How did you know… did you tell him? why do you keep telling everyone that I like Garry?” Fiona began complaining but Althea only chuckled in amusement.

“Oh my God! Serena didn’t tell me anything. I just guessed. Or maybe, have you?” She asked Serena, who felt full of guilt for admitting the truth to Althea but fortunately the girl didn’t remember much and didn’t read too much in to the lines.

“Well, either way you are easy to read Fiona, the way you look at Garry and buzz around him. you are putting too much effort in to it. You don’t need to do much, he will come to you on his on.”

“Really?” Fiona c****d and then laughed in a sarcastic tone, “She thinks, Garry will come to me. If anything, he will always run away from me, no matter how much attention I give him.”

“That’s where you are wrong because low key Garry enjoys that attention and craves for it when you are not around.”

Fiona moved closer to Althea, her interest suddenly piqued. It was for the first time, she was listening to someone actually tell her that Garry might reciprocate her feelings.

“How could you say that?”

“Because just now, when you were drying Andrew, I noticed how Garry was craving for your attention and jealousy was written all over his face and also during the challenge when we are usually cooking, his attention is more towards you then it is towards his own dish.”

Fiona scoffed and snorted at the same time, shrugged her hand at Althea.

“You are even more delusional than me.” She laughed out loud.

“Oh, please! If anything I know from experience and for sure that Garry is not interested in Fiona and besides, she has a stupid crush on him and…” Serena began explaining the whole situation to Althea, who only knitted her eyebrows together.

“Really that’s how you guys see it?” she asked.

“And how do you see it?” Fiona inquired, very intrigued by Althea’s casual tone.

“I can always tell when someone is interested in someone. And I can totally tell that Garry is totally in to you. He lowkey enjoys the attention that you give him and honestly, he kind of also knows that you are in to him. you just need to realize him that if he doesn’t man up and confess his feelings to you, after obviously knowing that you like him. it’ll be his loss and trust me, a man will do anything to not to lose the woman that he likes or the woman that gives him attention.”

“So, you are telling me that I have a chance with Garry?”

Althea nodded and Fiona pondered in muddle.

“Oh, don’t be so delusional.” Serena scolded the two girls.

“What?” the two stated back in a unanimous tone.

“Don’t speak now.” Fiona daunted at Serena, taking her by surprise, “Now, you tell me, how can I make Garry confess that he also feel something for me and likes me as well.”

“Hmm…” Althea pondered for a moment, “Well, first you confess your feelings for him.”

“Okay! That is totally absurd.” Serena declared, not happy with the words of advice that Althea was giving to Fiona, who was like a daughter to her. in fact, the only child that she had ever known.

She wanted to yell Althea for spoiling her daughter and making her in to a wanton but she couldn’t, since she was prohibited from showing her true and real connection to Fiona and had to treat her like a contestant as well and Fiona also took great advantage of the situation.

She knew that Serena would never let her be so bold and open about her feelings and let her drop the usual feminine mannerisms.

That’s why she also decided to follow Althea and see if her tricks to get Garry would work or not.

“Wait! What would I do, if he says that he doesn’t like me back?” Fiona rose her concerns and Althea shrugged.

“Of course, he would deny his feelings because he wants to feel so superior, that you’re the one coming after him and he doesn’t want you. You know, some guys just like feeling in power and they think that if they confess their feelings they would be weak. So, you simply need to overpower him.”

“How do I do that?” Fiona felt like talking to a psychic, who knew everything and held the key to Fiona’s heart and the solution to her problems, related to Garry.

“When you will confess your feelings to him. be candid and casual, as if it is not a ground breaking news and when he would obviously deny it, then you act as if it didn’t bother you and you just wanted to get it off your chest and you pretend that you have already moved on. You stop giving him attention and stop wandering around him as well. And that is when it hits a man that he lost the only woman who ever showed promise in loving him truly. That would then make him come running back to you and crawling on his knees and then, he will do everything, even grand gestures to confess his feelings to you and to make you accept his love.”

“Wow! I am totally going to try that.” Fiona smirked and got up, leaving to prepare a plan of hers and Serena on the other hand felt agitated by Althea and her misleading guidance.

“You know you are putting false hope in the girl’s heart.” She argued with Althea, who shook her head.

“No! if anything, I am only guiding her righteously.”

“How? What if Garry doesn’t come back to her after rejecting her feelings?”

“A. I am confident that he will and B. you have nothing to worry about because if Garry doesn’t, then it would only help Fiona realize that Garry never loved her and having finally confessed her feelings to him in a candid manner, she would also have a heavy load taken off her heart. In this way, she would never regret not even confessing her feelings to Garry and this might actually help her move on as well.”

Serena was left flabbergasted, unable to argue any further with Althea.

“That’s a very intricate plan. Did you just come up with it?” a male voice cooed, making Althea turn around to find Salva right behind her, holding a Tupperware in his hands.

He passed it down towards Althea with a bright smile on his face.

Althea looked at the contents inside the Tupperware, that were visible through the transparent plastic box.

“Ice cream?” she giggled in excitement, grabbing the box from Salva and opening it up.

Her smile even widened, when she saw that it was her favorite flavor.

“Praline!” she chimed in excitement, grabbing a spoon from the tray that Serena had brought earlier with the fruit and immediately dug in to the ice cream.

“This is my favorite flavor. Thank you so much.” She thanked Salva, who simply rubbed the back of his neck, suppressing his smile that automatically appeared on his face, the moment he saw how joyful Althea was after seeing such a simply thing.

“You are welcome. Get well soon.”

With that he began walking back inside the house and Serena followed him in.

“Where did you get the ice cream from?” she asked, in a nonchalant tone.

Salva shrugged.

“I asked one of the guards to get it from the town.”

The two parted their ways, as Salva made his way up towards his room and Serena went inside the kitchen, placing back the tray and other utensils that she had.

Serena was quite annoyed by the large number of counters that they had fit inside the kitchen, as she was used to of the previous setting of the kitchen.

She made her way towards the sink and saw a number of bowls emptied inside the sink with something white and foamy smeared on their edges.

She didn’t bother much and continued working inside the kitchen and once she was done, she went back, missing the opportunity to notice the used and unwashed ice cream machine placed on one of the counters, that had been used a few hours ago to make and freeze the ice cream that was made inside it.

Salva sighed, standing right in front of the window of his room, that looked right down on the pool area, where he could clearly see Althea, smiling and enjoying every single bite of her ice cream.

He couldn’t tell why, but seeing her smile and be happy somehow made him feel satisfied and at peace.

He looked down at his phone in his hands, where he had Althea’s f******k profile opened up, where he had seen her usually making and eating praline flavored ice cream. She had posted many pictures of a bowl of ice cream, enjoying it over different summers in either her home field or on a mountain at a picnic with her friends.

Knowing that it was something that made Althea happy, Salva decided to give her a little flavor of Gragnano, just to make sure she doesn’t feel home sick when she was brought away from home.

But little did even his subconscious know, that he was falling, falling badly for the girl.

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Well this is even more fun for me to write.

You guys do know that I love, love triangles, right? :D

Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3