Chapter 122 - Too Many Coincidences

Although Tom had seen this coming since he receive the dinner invitation, and that was the reason he had asked both Jasmine and Alicia to not tell Lucy that he was new to the neighborhood, but he hadn't imagined Lucy would as the question so soon. He tried to think of the conversation from the start to figure out what could have prompted her to ask such a question, but he couldn't come up with anything. 

Seeing how he remained silent, Alicia stepped in to save her potential sperm donor, "We should head to the dining since I served dinner already, and we don't want it to get cold," Alicia suggested with an awkward smile, wanting to give Tom enough time to come up with an appropriate response. 

"Yes. We should," Jasmine said, motioning for Tom and Lucy to follow them to the dining.

Although Lucy was gullible and naive, she wasn't stupid enough to not realize what was going on. Tom was yet to answer her question, and both ladies were trying to distract her, leaving her to wonder what was going on. If they thought she was going to let the question slide, then they had another thought coming. 

Once Tom pulled out a seat for her, and they were all seated around the dining table, Alicia busied herself with dishing out the meal.

Lucy turned to Tom, "I suppose I have given you enough time to come up with a response, haven't I?" She asked with a sweet smile, surprising all three of them who had thought they were done with the subject.

Thankfully Tom had been able to come up with a response, so he didn't hesitate to respond this time. 

"I've been here for about a year if I'm not mistaken. Why do you ask?" Tom asked innocently when Lucy kept staring at him like she was suspecting him of something. 

"How long have you all known each other?" Lucy asked, looking from Tom to Alicia to Jasmine, and then to Tom curiously.

Tom suddenly realized what was going on in her head. If he had been living in the neighborhood for as long as he claimed, and both Jasmine and Alicia has also been in the neighborhood for two years, then it wouldn't make sense that Jasmine had chosen to introduce herself to him just the other day in front of her. How was he going to fix this?

At that same moment, Jasmine and Alicia realized their error. Jasmine had mentioned to Lucy just some days ago that they had only just met Tom, hence they were trying to get to know him before asking him to be their sperm donor. How were they going to fix this?

Lucy waited patiently to hear what they would say. She half expected them to try to lie to her by claiming to have known each other for a long time. That way she could remind them of the conversation Tom and Jasmine had in front of her, and also remind Jasmine of the discussion they had both had in her apartment concerning Tom.

Tom cleared his throat so that neither Jasmine nor Alicia would blurt out any wrong response while he was talking at the same time, "Actually, I'm barely ever around because of the nature of my job, so I've never really met them until recently, and that is only because I got a new job and my boss happens to live in the same building too," Tom explained, making Alicia and Jasmine stifle the urge to sigh in relief. His explanation made lots of sense. 

"That's true! Remember how surprised we were the other night when he told us that he has been living here for some time?" Jasmine asked Alicia who quickly nodded. 

"Yeah! You are right," Alicia said with a burst of awkward laughter, which made Lucy's brow arch slightly.

Were they all telling her the truth or was this a lie? Sonia had said she was too naive and gullible, and right now she wasn't sure she believed what they were telling her. Something about their initial silence told her that they weren't exactly being straight with her. 

Deciding to act like she bought their explanation, Lucy flashed them a smile, "Ah! I see. I'm like that too...I mean, I could stay indoors without people knowing about my existence," she said with a peal of small laughter, meant to diffuse the tension her question had caused, and as expected the others laughed with her. 

"I guess we are all like that sometimes," Alicia said, feeling relieved that all was well again, "Let's eat please, I didn't cook just so we can talk over the food," she said as she picked up her cutlery and started eating. 

Going forward she was just going to pay more attention to everything going on around her. She was going to question everything she saw and heard, Lucy thought as she ate.

"Hm, this is delicious," Tom said giving Alicia a polite smile, and she preened with pleasure at his compliment.

"I've been very curious about something. If you don't mind me asking, how come he is your driver?" Jasmine asked, directing her question to Lucy instead of Tom since she had just witnessed firsthand how Tom could make a lie sound like it was the truth. 

"Coincidence. It just happened," Lucy said with an indifferent shrug. 

"You mean he just happened to be your next-door neighbor and driver?" Alicia asked curiously as she exchanged a look with Jasmine.

Before Tom and Lucy arrived earlier, they had both been discussing what the relationship was between Tom and Lucy, since it seemed to them like there was something more going on between the two. Hearing Lucy say it was a coincidence now, they confirmed one of their suspicions, and that was the fact that Tom liked Lucy and had moved into the next flat because he wanted to live closer to her. The only reasonable explanation was that he was her driver, but was in love with her, hence he had moved to where she lived so that he could monitor her. Although Jasmine liked Tom, she wasn't very comfortable with the idea that Tom was stalking a lady who wasn't interested in him... Or maybe she was? Whether she was interested in him or not, there was a thin line between love and obsession, and Tom was dancing near that line. Was that the kind of person whose sperm they needed?

"It's funny, isn't it? I moved here and he was the first person that came to greet me, and then the next day I'm at work and my boss introduces my official driver who just happens to be him too," Lucy said with a small smile while she tried to read the expression on Alicia and Jasmine's face. 

"Oh! You found out he was your neighbor before he became your driver?" Jasmine asked with a confused frown. What was going on? None of it made sense. She would easily have believed it was a coincidence had Tom not asked them not to let Lucy know that he had only just recently moved in. What was Tom hiding?

"It's complicated," Tom said with a small smile directed at Jasmine who was beginning to ask too many questions for his liking.

"Oh! Okay. It's just that you both don't seem like you just met..."

"We actually met at the club the first night I arrived here," Lucy said, not seeing the need to hide it from them since she believed they were likely going to find out eventually. All she needed to do was to leave out the details of all that had happened between her and Tom. 

"The first night?" Alicia asked, wondering why there seemed to be so many coincidences. There was no way this was natural.

Tom turned to look at Lucy curiously as he wondered just how much she intended to tell them about their first meeting. 

"Yes. I sat next to him at the club, and then the next day I was surprised to see that he was my neighbor, and the next thing I know was him being my driver. Unbelievable, right?" Lucy asked with a smile when she saw the disbelief displayed on both Alicia's and Jasmine's faces. She remembered how she had also thought that he was stalking her because of how he kept turning up everywhere she was.

"And you got a job the next day at her company?" Alicia asked Tom, feeling like none of it was adding up. 

"You didn't think the coincidence was just a bit too much?" Jasmine asked Lucy, making Tom sigh.

They were beginning to make him feel like he was being sneaky, and he didn't like that. What was so wrong with him wanting to know the lady he wanted to commit himself to? Was it so wrong? Or was he going about it in a bad way? How else could he get to know her true nature without her knowledge of who he was?

"I thought you said you didn't prepare the meal just so we can talk over it? Or perhaps we are here to be interrogated?" He asked Alicia with a polite smile when it seemed like nobody was eating, instead everyone was talking. 

"Why are you so touchy all of a sudden? I guess they were just trying to know their neighbors better," Lucy scolded Tom before turning to flash Alicia an apologetic smile as she sipped from her glass. 

From the questions they were asking it was quite clear to Lucy that the lesbian couple didn't believe everything was coincidence, maybe they knew something she didn't know? She couldn't help wondering what they knew, and why it had seemed to her a moment ago that both ladies were helping Tom hide something.

"He is hiding something," Jasmine said as they watched Tom and Lucy leave after dinner.

"Yeah. I think so too. But what do you think he is hiding?" Alicia asked her partner. 

"I have no idea.. Let's just wait and see before asking for his sperm, okay?" Jasmine said, and Alicia nodded.