He leans forward, picking up his glass to take with him as he settles back into the couch. “I remember when you two cut up her clothes for the talent show and Umma lost her mind.”
I laugh, wincing at the memory. “She was… not happy with us. But she could have called my parents and didn’t. We had to pull weeds for a month in her garden every day after school.”
“That was a minor punishment,” he says, smiling wryly. “I took the car without permission once and had to rebuild our back deck out of my own savings. We moved only a week after I finished it.”
Grimacing, I manage only, “Oof.”
“The transition to the UK was hard for Sunny,” he says.
“I bet.” This presses against a bruise I didn’t know I still had. “It was hard for me, too. Turns out making a new friend group in ninth grade is rough.”
He laughs. “Who knew?”
I grin at him, taking another sip. “Everyone?”
This makes him laugh again. I love the sound. His voice is deep and smooth; I bet he’s never yelled a day in his life—his laugh has that same calm resonance.
“She’s doing okay, though?”
He swallows, nodding. “She’s modeling. It’s a hard career, and I swear, fashion in London is brutal, but she’s doing well. You may have seen her in some print advertisements?”
“I wish I’d known to look for them.” I shake my head. “She’s working under her name? I should look her up.”
“Her given name, yes. Kim Min-sun.”
“And your parents?”
“They’re retired, just outside of London. They’re doing well.” Alec’s smile comes in so many forms, and this one is sweetly polite. It’s the one he would give when I’d pass him something at the dinner table, when he was instructed to say good night as I was leaving. “I’ll relay that you asked after them.”
“Thanks. Tell your mom I’m a great weed puller thanks to her.” We fall into a few beats of silence where we both stare into our glasses. “What did you do after you moved?” I ask.
He takes another sip of his drink before answering. “I moved to Seoul after graduating and returned to London…” He pauses, thinking. “Let’s see, a bit over three years ago now.”
I realize that’s what I’m hearing in his accent; it’s beautiful. “Oh, wow. You lived in Korea?”
“I did.” He smiles, and then it dies away. It’s the death of small talk: inquiring about family, doing the easy update, reaching the end of our knowledge about each other’s lives. Sexual innuendos have been awkwardly played out. I dig around for something more engaging to ask, but everything that comes to mind seems deeply inappropriate.
Are you married?
Are those hands as strong as they look?
What do you look like naked?
Finally, I string words together. Unfortunately, he’s doing the same thing and our questions burst out in overlapping awkwardness:
“How long will you be in LA?” / “How are your parents?”
“Sorry,” we say in unison.
“Go ahead,” also in unison.
I clap a hand over my mouth and point to him with the other. “You,” I mumble against my palm.
“I’m in LA for a couple weeks,” he says, laughing. “Actually, some of my colleagues left for Los Angeles two days ago. I was delayed but will meet them there.” He sips his drink. “And now your turn. How are your parents?”
“They’re fine,” I say. “They’re in Europe until next week.”
He narrows his eyes, nodding. “They traveled a lot? Wasn’t your dad a diplomat? Am I remembering that right?”
“Close. He works for the State Department. Mom travels with him as much as she can.” I don’t add that this is Mom’s first trip since Spence and I broke up, that she basically put her life on hold to help me pick up my pieces. I wash the weird catch in my throat down with a sip of wine. “Did you ever meet them?”
“Once or twice when I was picking Sunny up at your house. If I recall, your father is very tall, and your mother is—”
“Very not tall?” I nod, laughing. My father is six-foot-four. My mother is well over a foot shorter. “I was always hoping to get his height, but…” I gesture to myself. “I’m the person who always makes sure the doctor writes down five-foot-three and a half on my chart.”
He smiles at me and licks his lips distractingly. So distractingly, in fact, that it takes me a second to process his next question. And then my heart takes a nosedive off a cliff.