Slime Evolution

Chapter 448 - Special Gift

After finishing off the last piece of meat, Isabella leaned back in her chair, satisfied and visibly content, lightly rubbing her own stomach.

"That barbecue was so worth the wait," she declared, a genuine smile on her face. "You definitely exceeded expectations, Halon. I might even consider forgiving all the previous times this got canceled."

"Glad you liked it," he replied, proud, starting to stack the empty plates.

After helping quickly tidy up the mess, tossing out the burnt out charcoal and putting the leftovers in the fridge, the time finally came for Isabella to head home.

The two of them walked over to the rooftop where the black Porsche 911 was still waiting, gleaming under the dim light of the lamps on that floor.

As soon as Lohan got close to it, his gaze was drawn to the car again, the same fascination from before shining in his blue eyes, which without him realizing it, literally glowed magically in the dark of the night, his fingers almost unconsciously moving toward the dark bodywork.

Isabella watched that reaction with a small smile forming on her lips, slightly fascinated by how handsome his face looked with his eyes glowing like that.

"What do you think of this car?" she asked, casually, leaning against the driver’s side door.

"I love this car," Lohan replied, without hesitating, lightly running his fingers over the hood. "Someday I’ll have one of these myself. Maybe not this exact model, but something similar."

"Well," Isabella said, her smile widening in a way Lohan couldn’t immediately figure out the reason for, "then you can already cross that goal off your list."

Lohan furrowed his brow, confused by that random sentence, but before he could ask what she meant by that, a discreet notification popped up in his vision through his ocular device.

[Ownership of vehicle Porsche 911 Turbo S transferred to: Lohan R. Hayes.]

[Visual representation of how I see this car on Discord.gg/NunuXD]

He froze completely, his eyes fixed on that notification for quite a while, unable to fully process what was happening, his mind spinning in circles trying to understand it.

"Wait," he finally managed to say, turning to her with an expression of absolute shock stamped on his face. "Isabella, you didn’t..."

"I did," she confirmed, pleased, unable to hold back her own laughter at seeing his completely frozen reaction.

Watching him standing there, still as a statue, completely speechless in front of that unexpected gift, was simply too adorable for her to ignore.

"Why would you do that?" Lohan asked, still trying to understand that sudden decision, his fingers still resting on the hood as if glued there.

"Ever since the first time you saw this car in my garage, I noticed the genuine fascination in your eyes," Isabella explained, crossing her arms. "I kept that idea in the back of my mind since then, waiting for the right occasion. And considering tonight was a special night, I figured it would be a good time to bring a gift worthy of it."

"Isabella, I can’t accept this," Lohan protested, still shaking his head, in disbelief. "It’s a car worth millions, I can’t just accept something like this for free."

"Halon, you’ve seen the size of my garage," she shot back, not fazed in the slightest by his objection. "One less car isn’t going to make any difference to my collection, I promise. I’ll probably not even notice it’s gone."

He still tried to argue, opening his mouth to protest again, but Isabella cut off any possible objection with a casual remark, a mischievous glint appearing in her golden eyes.

"And, well," she added, "now that I don’t have a car to get home in anymore, I’m going to need a ride, aren’t I?"

Lohan was momentarily exasperated by that twisted logic, but knowing she was right about the car staying with him now, and recognizing that for someone with her fortune, it probably really didn’t represent even a fraction of what it would to anyone else, he finally gave in, letting out a defeated sigh.

"Fine," he said, though a smile was already starting to appear on his face. "I accept. But only because you literally have no way to get home now."

"Only because of that, of course," Isabella replied, laughing openly.

With a completely deliberate theatrical exaggeration, he walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her with an exaggerated bow, bending down as if welcoming a lady of the highest nobility.

"Your carriage awaits, milady," he announced, in a deliberately fancy voice.

Isabella laughed openly at that gesture, getting into the car visibly pleased, happy to see he had actually accepted the gift instead of continuing to stubbornly refuse it.

For someone with a fortune like hers, it was far more pleasant to have someone beside her who knew how to receive gifts and be grateful for them, than a proud person who would rather struggle than accept her help for whatever reason.

It wasn’t just men who liked providing and seeing the happiness of someone who cared when receiving something they liked, Isabella too had started liking the feeling that brought more and more the more time she spent with Lohan.

As soon as Lohan got into the driver’s side, starting the engine with a smooth purr that echoed pleasantly through his ears, the car smoothly lifted off, cutting through the night air toward Isabella’s mansion.

During the ride, with the two of them sitting so close together inside that compact, elegant space of the car, the mood between them seemed to grow even more charged than it had been throughout the whole dinner.

Curious, furtive glances crossed paths with increasing frequency, each of them trying to disguise their own nervousness while pretending to be completely focused on the lit up road below them.

Even with the air conditioning keeping a perfectly controlled temperature of twenty two degrees, for both of them, somehow, the inside of the car seemed to get warmer and warmer as the minutes passed.

"Hey, Halon," Isabella remarked, trying to break that charged silence with something casual. "You know how to drive this properly, right? I don’t want my gift turning into scrap metal in its first week of use."

"You’ve already seen me driving this car, don’t come at me with that now." Lohan replied, a confident smile on his face, eyes fixed on the road. "I learn fast, and besides, my reflexes are way better than any ordinary human’s now."

"That doesn’t put me at ease at all, considering your tendency to get into trouble," she teased, laughing quietly.

"Hey, that’s not fair." he complained, but without losing his good humor. "I’ve already survived much worse than calm city traffic."

"Surviving isn’t the same as coming out unscathed," Isabella shot back, crossing her legs inside the car’s tight space. "I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve come back from a hunt looking like you got in a fight with a truck."

"Details," Lohan replied, shrugging. "What matters is I always come back in one piece, one way or another."

"I’d rather you keep coming back in one piece without needing to test the limits every single time," she murmured, her tone taking on a sincerity that slipped out from underneath the teasing.

Lohan glanced at her, surprised by that hint of genuine concern hidden in there, but chose not to comment, silently filing it away as one more small sign of what he had already been noticing all night.

The conversation kept flowing in that light, playful tone for the rest of the way, but underneath that easygoing surface, both of them remained deeply aware of the physical closeness between them, and of how that small shared space seemed to amplify every feeling that had already been quietly growing throughout that whole night.

Finally, after a few minutes of smooth flight over the lit up city, Isabella’s imposing mansion appeared on the horizon, the well kept gardens lit by elegant lampposts scattered across the whole property.

Lohan carefully guided the car down to the reserved landing spot near the mansion’s entrance, landing with a smoothness that even surprised him, considering he was piloting it far better than the first time.

But as soon as the car came to a complete stop on the ground, and Isabella lifted her eyes to look at the entrance of her own house, she felt her whole body freeze instantly.

Parked right in front of the mansion’s main door, gleaming under the garden lamplight, a red Rolls Royce waited, perfectly still, as if it had already been there for quite a while.

"Oh no, you’ve got to be kidding me, of all days, precisely the day I least wanted to see her, she decided to drop by unannounced? And why on earth didn’t any of the maids send me so much as a text to let me know she was here waiting for me?" Isabella stood frozen, unable to believe what she was seeing.

To make matters worse, just as the car touched down, the front door of Isabella’s mansion opened.