Take My Breath Away

Blair glared at Wesley. "It's not like I'm washing it by hand. The washing machine will do it. You're impossible! Just give me your clothes!"

Being harangued by someone else for the first time, Wesley wanted to retort but her angry look zipped his mouth. He turned around and walked to his bedroom.

As he opened the door, he paused. "Let me get a shower first." He meant to say that he would shower first and bring his dirty clothes to her afterwards.

Blair nodded.

Wesley walked inside the bathroom, and turned on the shower. Steam floated from the water, settling on the mirror and fogging it up.

After a moment, when Blair heard nothing from his bedroom, she pushed open the door and found his dirty clothes in the hamper. She removed them and left quickly.

Despite the sounds of the shower, Wesley could hear Blair futzing around outside the bathroom. He finished rinsing the soap off and cut the water. The stream terminated quickly, leaving a dripping Wesley behind in the tub.

When he came out, he found that his dirty clothes in the hamper were really gone. He put on his pajamas and walked out of his bedroom. The washing machine was going, and it was already on the second cycle.

He was going to knock on Blair's bedroom door but then he heard noise from the kitchen.

Blair was making noodles. Hearing him come in, she turned and told the man, "Wait a minute. Almost done."

"Okay."

He leaned against the door, watching her busy figure. A smile formed on his lips.

In no time, she brought a bowl of delicious-smelling noodles to the dinner table. "Go ahead and eat. My turn for a shower."

Wesley took a look at the noodle dish. Topped with tomato slices, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and chopped green onions, the look and smell made his mouth water. He grabbed her hand as she turned away. "You don't want any?"

Blair lowered her head to look at her hand in his. She smiled and said, "No. I don't usually eat this late at night."

He let go of her and nodded, "Okay."

Wesley then sat at the table and ate the noodles himself. He was hungry after his adventure, and those noodles really hit the spot.

When she came out of her bedroom dressed in pajamas, Wesley was nowhere to be found. The washing machine was off, and his clothes were all hung up, drying.

The kitchen was clean; the dishes washed and stacked in the right cabinets. Wesley had taken care of all the chores.

She stood outside his bedroom, thinking, 'Forget it. He needs to get up early. He's probably already asleep.'

Then she headed for the study. Turning on the computer, she kept busy trying to finish up what she didn't have time to earlier. She'd be doomed if she didn't do it quickly or well. Her supervisor, Filberta had it out for her. She'd make Blair's life hell if given half a chance.

At midnight, someone knocked on the door. Blair jumped, her heart racing from the sudden, sharp sound. She was hyper-focused on what she was doing, working in her own little world. She took a deep breath and realized it was probably Wesley. She wasn't used to him being around.

"Come in, please."

With her permission, Wesley opened the door and walked into the study. She was looking at her laptop. "Still up?"

"Yeah. I ran into a snag. The paper is in German, and I can't quite get a handle on the translation. I'm doing some research on it. I'll go to bed soon," she replied with her chin propped on one of her hands. She ran it through Google Translate on mobile, SDL technology, Reverso Context, Multitran, and various other translation websites and software, but none of them translated it well. There were still some German words that remained untranslated.

These were commercial documents written in German. Jargon simply didn't translate well, and that was part of the problem. A mistake could cause losses to the company. But Blair wasn't as proficient in German as in English.

Seeing her frowning, Wesley silently walked to the desk and grabbed the piece of paper from her hand.

Blair widened her eyes in surprise as she asked, "You know German?"

"A little."

She asked again, "Did you get a KDS certification?"

"Yeah. I passed C2," he said curtly, eyes on the paper. While in military school, he passed the middle-level B2 test. But then he was assigned an important mission where he needed extra fluency, talking to actual German operatives. In order to fulfill the mission objectives, he studied hard and passed the high-level C2 test.

Blair was utterly shocked. She had only gotten to B2, and it was her job to translate things! But Wesley passed the C2 exam! "Seriously?"

He simply said, "I never lie." It was an easy enough answer.

'Maybe he never lies, but he doesn't always tell the whole truth. A little? He's way too humble, ' Blair thought. "Have you studied in Germany?" She was so curious about his past.

"Uh huh. 6 months." To improve his language skills, he had stayed in Germany for nearly seven months, together with Curtis.

Blair envied him so much. With her chin propped up on both of her hands, she stared at the man adoringly. "I learned by rote, cramming the vocabulary into my brain. I used to practice with my German teacher at university. She liked me, I think." In fact, back when she was about to end her studies in England, she wanted to continue with the advanced studies in Germany. But that was a chunk of change. She didn't want to ask so much money from her uncle, so she gave up on the idea, and came back to Y City after she got her master's degree.

Wesley threw her a glance. "You look wistful. Any regrets about studying abroad?"

Blair shook her head. "No." After all, it wasn't easy for her to study abroad alone. She didn't want to go through that again. She envied Wesley because he had an easier way to learn the language.

Wesley sat opposite her and grabbed a pen. He pointed at a paragraph in the article and explained, "This is how a theatrical troupe is set up, and the different parts of a play that might need to be performed... It also has a brief introduction about the development of German comedies, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment period. If you come across similar articles next time, use this as a starting point..."

Blair listened attentively to his explanation. Together with the context, she finally had a full understanding of the article.

No wonder she felt something was wrong with her translation. She didn't understand a few sentences. Wesley's explanation helped her out a lot. Her excitement was beyond words. She had spent almost an hour trying to understand the logic of this paragraph, but Wesley figured it out in just a few minutes. Besides, he had even shared some shortcuts to translate German into Chinese. Blair stared at Wesley with gratitude. "Thank you so much, Colonel Li! You saved my life again."

'Saved your life?' Wesley was stunned by her exaggeration. Surely this couldn't be a matter of life and death.

Blair lowered her head and began taking notes. Wesley walked around the desk and stood next to her.

Under the light of the desk lamp, Wesley was like a parent helping his child with homework. Whenever he saw a mistake, he pointed it out and made sure she corrected it.

A half hour later, Blair finally finished translating all the documents. She stretched as she asked casually, "So what other languages do you know?"

As she began to clear the desk, he replied, "English, French, German, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Arabic. But I've only earned high-level certificates for English, French and German. As for the rest, I know enough to get by."

Blair marveled and suggested, "If you retire from the military one day, you should be a high caliber translator for the government or some multinational corporation. You could earn a fortune."

'He's a friggin' genius. He knows martial arts and eight languages. There's nothing he can't do, ' she marveled in her mind.

Wesley gave her a long look. "I'm not planning on retiring anytime soon." Or anytime later, for that matter. He was dedicated to his career.

Seeing his serious look, Blair shut her mouth.

They went back to their own bedrooms. It was then that Blair noticed a message from Joslyn. She'd sent it an hour ago. "Bless, your cousin booked a room for me. Room 616 at Orchid Private Club. 7 p.m. tomorrow. Be there or be square."