A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Also, since this chapter will be in Ella's POV, I thought that it would just be proper to give her a face and so I chose Aim Satida Pinsinchai who played the role of Plern Pleng in the MaxTul BL series "Together With Me".

Ella's POV

I was window shopping at the mall when my phone rang. It was a generic ringtone but I decided to fish out my phone from my purse just to see who was calling anyway.

Oh wow, it was Tul. We had exchanged numbers during our dinner get together at Max's house but I had forgotten to give him a personal ringtone.

"Hey," I said.

"How's it going," I heard him say in his very pleasant attractive voice.

"Well, I just got out of work," I replied. "Since it's a Friday, I decided to go window shopping before going home."

"Oh, you're splurging this week's paycheck right?" he said with a chuckle.

"You're psychic," I said just to humor him. Actually today was not paycheck day. It wasn't going to be till next Friday. "So what's up, dude?"

"Listen, do you have any plans this weekend?" he asked.

My heart jumped.

"No," I replied.

"Our client has generously sponsored a beach party tomorrow and we were told that we could bring a friend along," I heard him say.

"That's cool!" I said. "Are you planning to bring Max with you?"

"Would I be calling you if I were bringing Max with me to the beach?" he countered.

"I would never know," I replied, playing coy.

"So are you free to come with me to the beach party tomorrow?" he asked.

"Can you give me a chance to check my calendar?" I asked, still playing coy.

"Sure," he replied. "Call me whenever you're able to confirm your availability."

"Thanks, talk to you later," I said before cutting the call.

I did need a little time to think things through. I usually spent the weekends with Mook except for those times when she and Max had decided to go somewhere on a date.

Maybe I needed a little change in my routine. Maybe a weekend without Mook would do me some good.

I did a little bit more of window shopping before I took out my phone from my purse once more.

I went to my list of contacts and tapped on Tul's number.

"Hello again," he said in that really pleasant and attractive voice that I was starting to really like.

"It's a go," I said without preliminaries.

"Yay!" I heard him exclaim which brought a big smile to my face. "You wanna send me your address so that I can pick you up?"

"Sure, I'm gonna text it to you," I said. "What time should I be ready?"

"The charter bus will be at our company premises at seven in the morning so I need to know how far your address is from our company location so that I could estimate my time of pick up," he replied.

I told him where I lived.

"That would be about half an hour away from my place of work," he remarked. "Therefore I would have to pick you up at six thirty."

"Fine with me," I said. "I'm gonna be waiting for you outside my apartment building promptly at six thirty."

"Fantastic," I heard him say. "See you tomorrow. Don't forget to text me your address so that I can put it into my GPS."

"Sure thing," I said before cutting the call.

=      =      =      =      =      =      =      =      =

I got to know more and more about Tul as we chatted on the way to the beach.

The charter bus had very comfortable seats and the air conditioning temperature was perfect.

To my pleasant surprise we had so much in common. We laughed at the same jokes. We liked the same kind of music. We even liked the same food.

We helped Tul's co workers to carry the  food and drinks to the large covered area with long wooden tables and benches.

I stopped to enjoy the fresh sea breeze.

"Let's bring our food and drinks over there beside that large rock close to the water," Tul suggested.

"That's a great idea," I said, taking two tall bottles of beer while he piled two platters with food. One platter had spicy chicken wings and the other had skewers of barbecued pork.

"So what would you have been doing today had you not decided to come with me to this beach party?" he asked.

I decided that it was time that I had confided in someone about my deep dark secret. I decided that Tul was the best person to confide in. I could tell from the long chat we had on our way here to the beach that he was a trustworthy person.

"Promise me you won't tell anyone if I told you a secret," I said.

"Cross my heart, hope to die," he said solemnly.

"Well ... " I started to get cold feet but after a brief second I decided to advance bravely. "I usually spend weekends with Mook except on those times when Max asks her to spend the weekend with him. I have decided that I should slowly break away from Mook."

"And why is that?" Tul asked.

"This is where my secret comes in," I said, my heart pounding fast and furious in my chest. "Mook is obviously very much in love with Max and I am very much in love with Mook."

"What in bloody hell, Tul!!!" I yelled in horror as I watched him spit his beer all over the platter of spicy chicken wings.