anwhile...
"Why, you—" Atlas glared daggers at Penny, who was seated in the passenger seat. Penny lowered her head, looking at her brother like a pitiful child afraid of getting smacked.
Atlas took a deep breath and cald himself, gazing at the photo on his phone. Since Penny hadn’t brought anything with her last night, she had to use his phone to get a copy of her marriage license. If she hadn’t, Atlas would have gone to the Civil Bureau himself. Well, they were already in front of it.
"Why..." he breathed out, running his tongue along his inner cheek as he stared at the copy of the certificate on his phone. Slowly, he cast her a look of disbelief again. "Why didn’t you tell about this when you got married?"
Penny pouted. "I didn’t know, okay?! I was just as shocked as you are right now! To make matters worse, I didn’t get my money back from the guy who was supposed to marry ! Do you think I’d spend that much money if I knew?!"
"You—" Atlas stopped, feeling his neck tighten. He clasped his nape, tilting his head back as he tried to keep his temper in check. His sister was giving him an early onset of hypertension at this point.
How could she have gotten married?!
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath to calm himself. It wasn’t as though he didn’t understand how she ended up married. At least Zoren had the decency to explain the situation, unlike this troublemaker of a little sister.
Penny pressed her lips together, hoping her brother had cald down a bit. But when he reopened his eyes, she flinched as he cast her another deadly glare.
"You..." Atlas hissed, at a loss for words. "You really are going to be the death of ."
"First Brother—"
"Don’t call that right now." Atlas pointed a finger at her, wishing he had learned how to discipline his younger siblings. It would be easy to flick her ear right now. Penny, on the other hand, zipped her mouth.
As Atlas leaned back in the driver’s seat with his hands resting on the steering wheel, Penny studied his profile quietly. She couldn’t help but wonder,
’Just what exactly did Renren tell him?’ she thought. ’Why would he tell him about our marriage?’
Not that she was upset with Zoren. If anything, she was secretly relieved that soone from her family knew about the marriage. After all, she hadn’t even told Hugo about it, despite having a chance when Hugo went with her after her date with Zoren.
anwhile, Atlas let out another deep sigh as he recalled his eting with Zoren.
---
[During Atlas and Zoren’s eting...]
Both n had been chatting about Penny, with Atlas mostly listing her bad traits. Not that he was trying to turn Zoren off, but if that happened, it would save both Zoren and Penny the trouble of dating without direction.
Eventually, the conversation shifted to Penny’s drunken state.
"She is quite a troubleso drunk, so it’s best that you don’t offer her any alcoholic beverages—ever," Atlas said again. "I’m telling you this because you two have been eting a lot. Unless you want to repeat the trouble you had last night, consider any alcoholic beverages the most dangerous poison for her."
Zoren smiled. "Actually, last night was fine. As I said, any trouble she throws my way is fine. I can handle it for her. However, there’s one thing I need to tell you about her drinking."
"Hmm?" Atlas furrowed his brows, sensing an unusual nervousness creeping into his heart. "What is it?"
"I don’t know how to tell you this, but Penny ntioned sothing about her marriage."
"Oh." Atlas nodded, almost forgetting that detail about Penny. Now that she was dating, Penny was effectively cheating on her fake husband. Although it was a marriage of convenience bound by a legitimate contract, it was still legally valid.
"About that," Atlas cleared his throat, ready to defend his sister and take the fall. After all, Penny had gotten married partly because of him. "There’s a reason for that—"
"We’re married."
"..." Atlas stopped, blinking as if he hadn’t heard correctly the first ti. "Huh?"
Zoren kept his lips thin before repeating, "We’re married."
Atlas thought his ears were deceiving him at first. Hearing it again, he was montarily unsure how to react. It didn’t make sense to him unless Penny and Zoren had been seeing each other for a long ti.
"I didn’t know about it until not long ago — before we started dating," Zoren clarified. "Penny also didn’t know about it until the day of her supposed sham wedding."
Zoren paused, sensing a shift in the mood before adding, "At least, the sober Penny didn’t know about it."
"The sober version?"
"Yes."
Hearing Zoren’s description of Penny, Atlas began to understand the situation. After all, he knew that Penny was like two different people when sober and drunk. The drunken Penny seed to live in an alternate reality, constantly spouting nonsense.
"Don’t tell ..." Atlas trailed off, watching Zoren nod slightly. "She got you and her...? While drunk...?"
Zoren nodded. "Five years ago," he muttered. When Atlas heard that date, all the unpleasant mories of five years ago — the last ti he visited her — ca flooding back.
"I don’t mind now because that marriage turned out to be a good outco. The only reason I’m telling you this is that she’s still investigating the mystery behind it. I’ll contact you once I’ve confird the story she told last night," he added, though he already believed the drunken Penny’s mumblings.
"Where is she?" Atlas asked under his breath, as if he hadn’t heard everything Zoren said.
"I left her at ho."
Atlas snickered. "Oh, no, she’s not there." He shook his head as he began to look around. "With that temper of hers, she wouldn’t sit idly at ho knowing who you’re eting with."
As those words left Atlas’s mouth, he spotted a group ducking suspiciously.
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