Chapter 160
“What happened? I heard you got sick all of a sudden?”
The moment he walked in, the boss asked the question. Koi scratched his head awkwardly and nodded.
“Yeah... Sorry. I caught a cold...”
Not just the weekend—he’d been bedridden for two more days after that. It was a relief that he’d managed to cancel with Sara early, but he hadn’t contacted anyone else. In fact, he hadn’t even picked up his phone. By the time he got out of bed, the phone had rung itself dead and powered off.
The first missed call, of course, had been from Ariel. At first, she’d been alarmed, asking if he was okay—but once she confirmed he was safe, she immediately got angry. Still, her anger didn’t last long.
“Next time we meet, give me your emergency key. If anything happens, I’m just going to let myself in.”
That was her parting comment before she hung up. While Koi had been unreachable, Ariel was the only person who had come to his apartment. When she got no answer at the door, she assumed he wasn’t home and actually filed a missing persons report. She’d even started to suspect that Ashley might have done something to him—but thankfully, it was all just a misunderstanding. If Koi had waited one more day to get in touch, she might’ve stormed Ashley’s office again.
Unaware of all this, Koi apologized profusely, promised to treat Ariel soon, and then finally called his job.
Apparently, they thought he had just up and disappeared. The manager was clearly surprised when he heard from Koi—and when Koi showed up to work the next day, he was greeted with a not-so-happy expression. But the fact was, he had missed work without any notice, so Koi apologized again and again.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make up for it by working even harder from now on.”
“You better. Just disappearing without a word? You’re going to have to pay that back.”
The boss gave one more scolding, then assigned him tasks. As Koi gathered his tools and prepared to start, another employee, Tony, came over and asked in a low voice,