Ariana's phone interrupted their moment, prompting her to push Holden away abruptly. “I need to take this," she declared, her tone curt.

Holden remained silent, nodding in acquiescence. He answered the call, put it on speakerphone, and passed the phone to Ariana.

Ariana bristled at his actions but held her tongue. Mitchel's worried voice filled the room. “What's going on? Where are you? Why weren't you picking up my calls?"

The tension from her encounter with Holden lingered as Ariana took Mitchel's call.

Clearing her throat, Ariana instinctively glanced at Holden's sullen expression. Then, in a casual tone, she said, "I'm home. I must've silenced my phone by mistake just now.”

She swiftly concocted an excuse to dismiss the situation, worried that Mitchel might detect something amiss. Then, she asked, "Why are you calling me at this hour?"

Mitchel seemed to exhale a sigh of relief before explaining, “Rodney wants to know if you're free next week. The farm just received a shipment of top-notch bait, and Rodney knows that Melon is quite keen on fishing. He's offering the best bait. Would you and Melon like to come over next week and go fishing?"

"Alright, we'll come over next week," Ariana replied.

The conversation between the two sounded remarkably familiar and intimate, similar to that of a family.

They exchanged a few more words, but Ariana detected Holden's face turned colder. Sensing his mood, she quickly said to the phone, “I have something else to attend to; I have to go now."

“Okay, I'll pick you up this weekend," Mitchel replied.

With that, they ended the call.

As Ariana tucked away her phone, her back turned to Holden, she felt an unexplained sense of guilt. The room descended into a heavy silence.

Ariana found herself under the weight of a gaze she couldn't shake off, feeling like she was caught in the act of something she hadn't done. The discomfort swirled inside her, leaving her unsure of her next move. She couldn't bring herself to meet Holden's eyes.

Just when she was trying to muster up something to break the silence, a cold huff interrupted her thoughts. Holden moved to sit on the sofa, his expression stormy.

With her heart pounding and a sense of guilt creeping up, Ariana cleared her throat and edged closer to Holden. In a voice barely above a whisper, she asked, "What's going on? Why the silence? Have you decided we're not fighting anymore?"

Holden shot her a frosty look and kept his silence.

Ariana had initially brushed off the matter with the phone call as a product of Holden's baseless accusations and jealousy. Yet, after the call, she felt guilty.

She approached Holden tentatively, tugging at his sleeve. "Are you mad?" she asked.

“I'm not mad," Holden replied, his voice icy, his face a mask of sullen jealousy.