After a short while, a hoarse female voice abruptly rang out. “Damn you, Luke! So, you actually weren’t sick? You lied to me and left me alone at the prom? Damn you!”
Then, a strong tornado streaked over.
Luke turned around, and the first thing he saw was an incoming foot.
He lunged forward on reflex and blocked the incoming leg with his shoulder. His arms stretched out in a well-practiced manner, and a lively and flexible body fell into his embrace.
With a smile on his face, he said, “Oh, Jimena, it’s so good to see you again.”
The girl in his arms was currently in a standing split position, and her black underwear could be vaguely seen at the bottom of her ripped, denim shorts.
She didn’t seem to pay any heed to the highly difficult pose she was standing in. Rather, with fury on her face, she bellowed, “Damn it! Let go of me! I need to kill you! Bastard, you ruined my beautiful senior high memory and left me on my own at my graduation prom! You even got Claire to lie for you that you were hospitalized? And when I went there the other night, you even pretended to be asleep? Look at you! Do you look like someone who was hospitalized recently?”
Luke didn’t get agitated. The girl still in his embrace, he gently stroked her back and said, “Jimena, I wasn’t lying. You know me. I don’t like lying. If you can give me two minutes, I’ll definitely allay your anger.”
At that, the young lady called Jimena seemed to calm down significantly as she looked at him doubtfully and asked, “Really?”
Luke replied with a smile, “Of course! Or do you think you’re scarier than that female pig? I won’t lie even when facing that sow.”
“Bastard! I’m no pig!” Jimena burst out laughing before she continued, “I’ll give you two minutes. Hey, what are you waiting for? Let go of my leg!”
Luke smiled and released her leg, allowing the long and slender leg to slide off his shoulder back to the ground. Then, with his arm around her, they sat down in front of the building.
“I didn’t tell Claire to lie for me. I was discharged at ten this morning. I think you just need to ask any doctor there and you’ll have the full story, right?” Luke explained calmly.
Jimena countered, “Then what are you doing being so free and sitting here? Why didn’t you give me a call?”
Luke shrugged. “I just woke up this morning and had to immediately go back to let Catherine have a good look at me. I couldn’t let her continue worrying, right? Next, Robert brought me here to sign up at the department. I just finished the process, and it hasn’t even been five minutes since. I wasn’t able to call you before you got here yourself.”
Jimena blanked out. “Sign up?”
Luke nodded. “Yes, just now, in fact. I’m officially an officer of the department. I’ll start work in a few days.”
Jimena was in disbelief. “I thought you said before that you would go to either Dallas or Houston to further your studies? Why did you change your mind? Is it because of Catherine and the others…”
“No!” Luke interrupted her and explained, “I merely came to realize something. Actually, Robert already mentioned to me about being a police officer a few days ago. I was just thinking it over.”
Jimena sank into a long silence before saying, “Then… good luck to you, I guess.”
Luke smiled and said, “Don’t be too sad. A beautiful future still awaits us. It’s not like I’m planning to stay a cop here forever.”
Jimena forced a smile, but her heart was assailed with sadness.
Her feelings were extremely complicated right now.
Jimena was Luke’s girlfriend.
They were both students of Knox High, and both graduated this year.
As for how their relationship started, Jimena was the one who pursued Luke.
This was a story that started with a hero’s semi-successful attempt to rescue a beauty.
A group of high school students once decided to go camping. That was when the two met each other. However, they still weren’t particularly close at the time.
During the camping trip, Jimena encountered a wild boar.
At that time, Jimena was frightened and started shouting for help. Luke, who was the nearest to her, arrived first. Then, in a head-on confrontation, he stood in front of the wild boar, which also seemed to hesitate. He protected Jimena behind him as they slowly backed away.
Ultimately, the other people on the trip arrived, and an adult with a rifle shot the wild boar down.
In truth, that wild boar wasn’t particularly big. And at that time, the boar was slightly frightened by Jimena’s shout as well. That was why it hadn’t attacked her immediately.
Strictly speaking, the one who had rescued Jimena was the adult with a rifle, not Luke.
But after the two got into a relationship, Jimena said that when Luke arrived and protected her behind him without hesitation, she saw that as a symbol of valor.
If it was any other person, they would have directly fled when they saw the wild boar. Or they might have stopped running and started shouting as well. That was what most people would have done. At the time, Luke only had on him a knife which he sliced beef with; it was impossible for him to be able to do anything to the boar with that knife.
What could Luke say? Should he tell her that he was already used to seeing wild boars on his maternal grandpa’s ranch, and was thus unafraid? Should he also tell her that he in fact knew the temperament of wild boars very well?
If he hadn’t protected Jimena, and had allowed her to continue shouting, the wild boar would most likely have gotten so annoyed by her loud voice that it might have actually decided to attack.
And that wild boar wasn’t too big anyway. At the same time, it was rather timid. Sure, to do what Luke did required some courage, but all along he had been sure his life wasn’t in danger.
And after that incident, Jimena started pursuing Luke.
Jimena was an above-average beauty, and that was only because Luke had different taste compared with the locals here. For a regular person, she was definitely a great beauty.
She had long legs, a slender waist, and a curvy bottom. Sure, her chest wasn’t too bountiful, but her figure was still outstanding as a whole. Coupled with her healthy tan and an athletic body that was the product of constant exercise, she was definitely an athletic-style great beauty.
As a Latina, Jimena was a very passionate young lady, and when she started chasing Luke, she had done so openly.
And Luke was a normal and healthy man. Although he had lived up to 30 years old in his previous life, and had also had a few girlfriends back then, he had never seen such a powerful attack from a woman before.
At that time, Luke had been in tenth grade and still single.
Luke was about 60 to 70 percent similar to Catherine in appearance: they looked unremarkable at first, but the longer you looked at them, the more you felt that they were incredibly pleasing to the eye.
Luke was a high school kid that had decent looks, a decent build, and a decent character, yet had been single all this time.
In the United States, a man in this situation would very commonly be misunderstood as someone with different preferences, i.e. a man who didn’t prefer women.
In truth, although Luke had lived up to 30 years old in his previous life, he wasn’t too good at chasing someone. That, coupled with certain habits of his that were completely out of the norm compared with ordinary American students, had caused him to remain single all this time.
Suddenly, a great beauty appeared to pursue him. He couldn’t resist the attack by the beautiful and passionate Latina, and soon, he accepted her and became her boyfriend.
Only then was Luke free of the rumors swirling around in school about his s*xual preference, and people no longer talked about him behind his back.
But in truth, his and Jimena’s relationship had formally ended after the prom the day before.