FORTY - FIVE

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IF you asked his wife, she would say that Liêm was a neat freak. He always liked to keep everything clean: every weed in the backyard should be pulled, every appliance empty should be refilled, every spot on the counters should be wiped away.

Okay, fine. Yes, he is a neat freak; and his habits don't have a pause button, even on Christmas day. While Maia keeps insisting that its a 'Dad thing'—where fathers tend to clean up the mess while gifts are being opened instead of after the matter—sometimes, he feels as though it's just a him thing only.

That's why, after getting home from meeting up with their other family members for Christmas festivities, he's found himself frantically grabbing at the bags and wrapping paper on the floor, which were products from all of their gift un-wrapping.

"Liêm," his wife, Olivia, tsks as she snatches one of the gift bags from his full arms. "Don't throw away the gift bags! We can rip off the name-tags and reuse them."

"Ah, sorry. I just want to make sure there's no trash left behind for Suki to mess with," he says, watching as Olivia folds up the gift bag.

Maia sighs endearingly, her new and sparkling earrings moving the directions she goes as she gets up from her spot on the couch, "You still need to open your gifts too."

Liêm nods, "Yes, yes, I know. I'll get to it when I throw these out!"

Maia lets out a small laugh as she passes by her father. Afterward, she runs upstairs with a smile, excited to show Suki a new cat toy one of her cousins had gifted to the family.

With a soft smile, Liêm makes his way to the front door and closes it behind him; even though his arms full of trash were making it more difficult than it needed to be.

Again, a neat freak.

This is just how it goes.

When he finally makes his way to the trash bin by the end of their driveway, he looks up to the house opposite of his own and sees a familiar young face putting some items in the trunk of a car that was a shade of orange so bright, it could be seen perfectly against the sky and its setting sun.

The man shuts the trunk, and before walking over to his own front door, sees Liêm with raised eyebrows.

"Hi, Mr. Hoang!"

Okay, okay, he's aware his daughter can have perfectly platonic friendships with people of the opposite gender, but man, he and Olivia always thought that her and Oscar would date someday.

Call it parental intuition, maybe, but whenever they've had a bad feeling about one of Maia's friends, they always turned out to be bad. So, maybe them both having a feeling about Oscar and Maia being a good love story meant that it could be true as well.

UNTIL THE SONG WAS DONE, oscar piastriWhere stories live. Discover now