It'll Come Naturally

Morning light lit the living room, bathing the interiors with a soft warm glow. The house was quiet and calm. Annie stood by the door and scanned her phone. Leena had called and offered to pick her up. Although she wasn't familiar with S City, she politely declined Leena's

offer. She didn't want to bother her and besides, she could always use the vehicle GPS navigation.

Soft footsteps were heard from the stairs. Annie turned around and saw Huey, who was dressed in his casual clothes. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and asked curiously, "Mommy, is the auntie who invited us your friend?" He hadn't seen his mother hang out with her friends before. "Uh, sort of." Annie shrugged. She really didn't know it either. 'Is Leena my friend? We just knew each other the day before yesterday,' she thought to herself.

"Mommy, will daddy be there too?" Huey asked hopefully and broke Anna from her thoughts. His eyes glittered with hope at the prospect of finally seeing his father.

"Maybe." Annie shrugged again. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure if Rain would be there. The thought made her feel uncomfortable and uneasy, and her stomach churned because if he was there, how was she supposed to tell or explain to him about the children? "Will he accept Joyce and me?" Huey asked again, anxiety evident all over his little groggy face.

"I don't know either." This time, Annie shook her head with a frown. She honestly had no idea what Rain thought about. Perhaps he had changed a lot during the past four years.

Two little feet excitedly ran down the stairs and stopped in front of the two. "Mommy, look! Am I pretty?" Joyce had gone out of her room and went down. She twirled around and flashed a big grin at Annie as she showed her the princess dress and white fur cloak she wore. "Wow! Are you a little princess, Joyce? You look gorgeous!" Joyce was just like a little version of Annie. Annie couldn't help but remember how she used to be carefree at that age when she looked at her little girl. Now, she had too much trouble to handle on her plate. "Mommy, will there be some other boys there who can play with me?" Joyce playfully asked as her grin grew wider when her mother praised her look for today.

"Yes, they are younger than you. You can play with them." Annie's hand stretched to smooth out her daughter's hair. She didn't know how to deal with the people later yet and here her little girl was, already thinking about playing with the other children there. "But I don't like younger boys. They are so annoying!" Joyce grumbled in annoyance, her lips pursed into a tight line. She remembered their neighbors' kids on Phuket Island who used to cry all day long. She really felt frustrated at the thought of dealing with that. "You can't say that before others, okay? It's not polite," Annie chastised little Joyce and beckoned her to turn around. She gathered a lock of hair from her daughter's head and made twin tails. She then adorned the hairstyle with a beautiful headpiece she designed herself. She held Joyce at an arm's length, who now looked like a princess.

"Okay, Mommy." Joyce gave a peck on her mother's cheek with her soft little lips, and she felt extremely happy at this moment. Maybe it was because Joyce was a girl, so she was not that looking forward to meeting her father like Huey. She was already perfectly content with just her mother.

"Okay guys, let's get going." Annie grabbed the twins' hands and walked them out to her car. Leena's house was quite far away from hers, so they needed to hurry up and leave if they wanted to make it there on time.

Leena frantically juggled cooking food and calling Rain repeatedly. She turned the knobs on the stove while dialing a number on her phone. She already called him the day before and demanded Rain come to her house this morning. When she called him again, no one picked up the call. Maybe he was still sound asleep because he had worked late the last night. Finally at her next attempt, the receiver picked up.

"Hello." Rain spoke, his voice still thick and husky with sleep.

"Rain, why haven't you woken up yet? It's already 10 AM," Leena said as she went to the kitchen counter to chop and cut up the other ingredients.

"It's only 10 AM? Why did you call me this early? Let me have more sleep." Despite saying so, Rain still struggled to sit on the bed and groggily rubbed his eyes with his other hand as he stifled a yawn. The sun shone brightly through the heavy curtains. Today was a good day.

"But Annie will be here soon. You need to entertain her for me." Kevin still had some work to finish, so he had gone to the army base early in the morning. Richard had been pestering his father to bring him to the army base for a while. Kevin, with no other option, took Richard with him and said they would come back before lunch.

"What? They'll arrive so soon? All right. I'll be right there in half an hour." Rain's apartment was near Leena's, and it only took about 10 minutes for him to get here.

"Okay. Hurry up! See you." After hanging up, Leena rushed to the stove as the food she was cooking was about to be burnt.

Rain heaved a sigh and lay back on his comfortable bed again. After several minutes, he sprang up and rushed to the en suite bathroom.

After a nice hot shower, he wrapped the towel around his waist and went to his walk-in closet to get dressed. He decided to look great for Annie and scanned his expansive clothing and shoe collection. It took him about a dozen minutes just to select his clothes. He finally picked what he wanted. He then pulled on the pair of dark pants and a casual looking dress shirt as he thought about Annie and her children. It made him quite nervous.

Even though he knew she was married and had two children with another man, he just couldn't move on and forget about her.

He shook off his thoughts and got out of the apartment as soon as he finished prepping himself up. He went to his car and drove to Leena's house. After a few minutes of driving quietly, he spotted his destination and turned to the curb in front of Leena's house. When he pulled over, he saw Annie's car approaching.

Annie had really set out earlier than Rain, but because she wasn't familiar with S City, she got a bit lost and arrived a little later than him.

Her heart pounded loudly in her chest when she saw Rain, and she almost crashed with another luxury car.000000000000