Chapter 265 An Embarrassing Match
Victor could only speak against his will in front of the girl. “I was just joking. Are you angry, Charlotte?” Charlotte replied, “This joke isn’t funny at all, Mr. Wade. If you speak of my dad like this again, I’m really going to get angry!”
“Okay, I won’t say that anymore,” Victor replied helplessly. After Charlotte went far away to cheer Samuel on, he said to Rachel, “The only good thing Justin has done is to take pretty good care of Charlotte.”
Rachel was startled; she seemed to think of something. “She’s his daughter, after all.”
“But I feel that it might be better for Charlotte to be with you.”
“Did Jolly say something to you?” Rachel asked. Jolly would sometimes pick the kids up at school, so Victor had talked to her quite a number of times as Charlotte and Samuel’s homeroom teacher. Because of Rachel, the two soon warmed to each other.
Victor replied, “Rachel, I think you’re justified in wanting to take Charlotte away. No matter what you do, I’ll always side with you.”
Rachel was lost in thought before her eyes were drawn to the race in the distance.
All the teams set out after the referee blew the whistle.
Justin nearly tripped Samuel as soon as he took a big stride forward. “Ouch!” Samuel hugged the man’s thigh right away. “You idiot! I almost fell to my death!”
“Isn’t that because you have short legs?”
Samuel’s face turned livid with anger. “I’m a kid!”
“We’re gonna lose if you keep arguing with me.”
“We’ve lost already!” Samuel rolled his eyes at Justin while standing where he was with his arms folded across his chest. “If I had known this earlier, I’d rather give up on the race than join you. This is so embarrassing.”
The other teams have reached the halfway mark, whereas he and I are still on the starting line, he thought. “Let’s forget it. I don’t want to run the race anymore,” he said while bending down in an attempt to untie the strap that tied his foot to Justin’s.
“It’s still too early to give up! Why give up before the end of the race?” Justin replied. Grabbing Samuel’s belt right away, he lifted the boy up in midair and ran toward the finishing line in big strides like a flash, quickly overtaking all the other parents.
The instant they crossed the finishing line, everyone at the scene was stunned.
“Hey! They’re breaking the rules! How could anyone run a three-legged race like this?”
“That’s right! It’s a three-legged race, so how could you run the race with the kid in your arms?”
The teachers nearby hurriedly maintained the order at the scene.
Samuel covered his eyes, feeling extremely embarrassed as Justin tucked him under his arm. He kept struggling, saying, “Put me down!”
Justin put him down triumphantly as he still didn’t know what he had done wrong. “Didn’t we win the race?”
“No, we didn’t! This is so embarrassing!” Samuel shot him a glare. “I’m not gonna take part in races with you anymore!” he said, before running away. Whenever he ran into a classmate, he would say that he didn’t know Justin.
Meanwhile, the referee came over and said to Justin, “You’re Samuel’s father, right? It was against the rules of fairness for you two to run the race like that. We’ll have to disqualify you two from the race.”
“What?” Justin frowned.
“Sorry, but you can’t run a three-legged race with the kid in your arms. Both of you must run the race with both your feet on the ground to be fair to the other teams,” the referee said before crossing out Justin and Samuel’s records in the race in front of Justin, disqualifying Samuel on the spot.
Justin was at a loss for a reply.
Watching the spectacle from a distance, Rachel suddenly gave a laugh.
Justin seemed to sense something, and he looked back to see this scene.
The birds in the mountain woods were chirping nonstop in the height of summer, and the stream was gurgling on. The summer sunshine seeped through the gaps between trees, producing swaying shadows of trees on the ground. At this very moment, however, all this beautiful scenery became the background for the smile.
As far as Justin remembered, if he wasn’t mistaken, this was the first time Rachel had laughed so heartily at him.
Rachel was laughing when she saw Justin looking back at her. When their eyes met, she didn’t manage to stop laughing in time. For a moment, she was startled, and she felt somewhat embarrassed.
Just then, Charlotte took her hand and snapped her out of her thoughts. “Mommy, the beach volleyball match will begin in a while. Let’s win the match!”
Coming to her senses, Rachel replied perfunctorily, “Let’s do our best!”
“Yeah, let’s do our best!”
Rachel was dragged away hurriedly by Charlotte, whereas Victor was still standing in place while calculating the scores with the referee. Seeing that Justin and Samuel had been disqualified, he felt sorry for Samuel, but he couldn’t help but want to ridicule Justin at the same time. However, when he looked up, he saw Justin placing his hand on the tree beside him for support. Suddenly, the man’s face showed a hint of agony, and the instant he turned around with his back to Victor, some blood seeped through the back of his gray T-shirt.
Victor’s eyes shrank slightly. Is Justin injured?
When Justin looked back and saw Victor, he frowned. Immediately, he made a silencing gesture toward Victor, signaling to the latter not to tell Rachel about it.
Victor threw Justin a disdainful look. This is unnecessary, he thought. He knew how softhearted Rachel was better than anyone else did, so there was no way he would tell her about it even if Justin didn’t ask him to keep it a secret.
During the matches in the morning, Rachel and Charlotte got the second highest comprehensive score. On the other hand, Justin and Samuel finished in last place, for Samuel steadfastly refused to take part in any match with Justin again after they ran the three-legged race.
When they were eating lunch at noon, Charlotte couldn’t help but mock, “You’re such a loser, Daddy. How could you finish in last place? That’s so embarrassing.”
Samuel nodded in agreement before twisting the knife, saying, “Our placing in the sports meet doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ve lost face.”
Justin shoved a washed strawberry into his mouth right away. “Can’t you just shut up and eat?”
On the other hand, Rachel brought the food out of the serving cart, diverting the two kids’ attention.
“Mommy, let me help you.” Charlotte jumped for joy before running toward Rachel to help the latter take the bag containing cutlery. “What are we gonna eat for lunch?”
“Potato salad, scrambled eggs, and grilled fish.”
“They’re all my favorites!”
The families spread their respective picnic mats next to their tents to eat on their own.
Victor helped Rachel put down the stuff. While distributing the cutlery, he reluctantly handed Justin a set of cutlery while saying sarcastically, “You do absolutely nothing; all you know is to be waited on hand and foot.”
Justin darted a look at him. “Would you dare to eat the food that I have a hand in preparing?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m afraid that you might lace the food with poison. If I die, no one will collect my dead body then.”
“It’s good that you know about that.”
Seeing that the two men wouldn’t stop squabbling with each other, Rachel interrupted them, saying, “Okay, that’s enough. Justin, stay aside on your own if you don’t feel like eating.”
“I didn’t say that I don’t feel like eating. Why didn’t you tell him off instead? He was the one who picked the quarrel first.”
However, Rachel ignored him completely and was watching the two kids eat. “Charlotte, eat your veggies. Don’t discard them in secret.” The first time she had dinner with Charlotte, she had found out that the girl didn’t like to eat vegetables.
When they were at home, she could blend the vegetables with meat puree and mix them with the other dishes. However, when they had lunch outside together, there was no way she could prepare the food with such meticulous care.
