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9 - Not until you realize.

I don't want another fight Dylan thought to himself as he walked towards his car. Especially if it requires me being slapped.

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The cabman kept glancing at Stacey through his rearview mirror and she fought the urge to snap at him.

She couldn't blame him though.

After all, it was once in a while your car got filled up with designer nylon bags.

This brought her to her second cause of annoyance. The fact that they were gifts and from notable designers meant she couldn't give them back or even throw them away. Not that she would have. After all, the clothes weren't the cause of her problem.

They were hers. And for someone who had little money to spare on clothes, let alone designer clothes, whatever she was able to get her hands on, she would wear and enjoy it to the fullest.

Even if the buyer was a sick and annoying person.

She tried to drift towards happier thoughts as they neared her apartment.

A small smile crossed her lips as she imagined the shocked look that will take up space on Alfred's face when she dropped from the cab with all eleven bags. The lanky boy will finally do what he was hired to do after overcoming the shock of seeing her.

Stacey couldn't wait.

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Dylan sighed for the sixth time and placed his chin in the cup of his palm, strongly trying not to nudge the tripod where his cellphone stood on his kitchen island.

His wonderful cousin, Denzel, one who right now was dressed in a blue and green pinafore paired with a green T-shirt underneath, completing the kindergarten look with her strawberry blonde hair parted into two French braids, had been on the phone with him for an hour now and had not given him any tangible solution since he called.

It's been two days since the slap—his cheeks tingled lightly anytime he thought of it — and two days since he last set eyes on Stacey. For someone who he just met last week, his mind had been somewhat filled with her, mostly anytime he looked at himself in the mirror and saw his cheek.

Tired with thoughts of her barraging his mind, he hoped if he found out what he said wrong, such thought might disappear —which was why he had called his cousin. Although, right now, he was starting to regret that decision.

"What were you saying again?" she asked as she dropped some baking items and snacks on the counter in front of her.

"I said—" His words got lost in the sound of her tearing open a pack of chips. "That a girl—"

Now by the crunching of chips.

"Told me"

Crunch.

"Not to talk to her."

Munch.

At this point, Dylan was flexing his fingers. Immediately there was a break in her crunching, he rushed out his words. "Until I realize what I did wrong and I don't know what that is."

Her eyes widened as she licked her fingers then carefully laid the pack of chips down. "Really, who is she?"

Dylan was glad a phone was in between them hence he could put off answering any question without getting injured. "Someone. Look, Denzel, I think I might have said some pretty harsh words but no matter how hard I try," he sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, "I can't figure it out."