I squeeze my eyes closed. I thought I’d built up my professional detachment, but it didn’t survive the horrors I uncovered in London. And the sour kick of Spence’s lies was a constant film at the back of my throat during my entire trip. Shitty men are everywhere.
I need one more minute with Alec. He was real with me. I thanked him for the ticket and wine and sex but never for that. I never said, You’re a good man, and for some reason, calling it out when it happens feels important now.
The wheels touch down and I turn my phone on, texting Eden about my angst, needing to diffuse it somehow.
I think I’m being a weirdo.
How?
I want to tell him that what he did last night was great but what he did this morning was better.
The seat belt light goes off, and we all stand, stretching in the aisle. I bend, reading her reply.
Oooof, girl. What did he do this morning?
I’ll explain later, I type. He was just a good guy. He took care of me.
Are you still drunk?
I pull my bag from the overhead bin and turn around to look at him. He’s still in his seat, showing no signs of hurrying to exit the plane. Our eyes meet for only a second before someone steps between us, blocking my view. It isn’t long enough for me to get any sense at all what he’s thinking. No, I reply. I’m tired. And emotional. Maybe I should just get in a cab.
Get in a cab versus what other option?
Wait for him, I text.
Don’t wait for him. This way lies madness.
Eden is right. If I even lean in the direction of hoping for more contact, I’m destined for disappointment. We both made it clear that last night was a onetime thing, and Alec has done more than enough for me. Up front in row one and already standing, I have no choice but to exit when the plane door opens. If he wanted to he could, with his long legs, catch up with me once we’re both off the plane. But a glance over my shoulder reveals he isn’t in the cluster of passengers making their way up the Jetway, and he isn’t in the mass of people behind me as we make our way through the terminal. It’s possible I lost track of him, but the terminal we flew into isn’t very crowded, and it wouldn’t be very easy to lose track of a man who looks like Alec Kim anyway.
Which might explain why, when I emerge out into the arrivals lobby, there are at least two hundred people—mostly women—standing with signs, banners, and clothing all bearing his name.
Five
Welcome to CA Alexander Kim!
SARANGHAE ALEXANDER KIM!
MARRY ME, DR. SONG
USA LOVES JEONG JINWON
I blink in disbelief, feeling like I’m floating outside of myself as I stare at these cryptic signs, trying to figure out what any of them mean.
Finally, with my heart hammering in my chest, I wheel my suitcase behind a pillar and do what I probably should have done in the lobby of the hotel last night, before he carried me into his bed, before we had drinks in the bar, before I even followed him upstairs to shower.
I google Alexander Kim.
And holy shit.
My phone’s browser immediately fills with photos and links to articles, interviews, fan sites in Korean and English. Photographs of him in Seoul, in London, in New York. And then, I see one image in particular and register that I am the world’s biggest idiot.
Yes, maybe I recognized him because he’s Sunny’s brother and my first crush, but that wasn’t the only reason his face was familiar to me. And the reason I felt like I’d just seen him was because I had. His face is on promotional posters in probably every other tube stop in London.
BBC exec coming here for meetings with American networks?
That’s shockingly close, actually.
I fall back against the pillar, deflating. I am astoundingly stupid.
It’s called The West Midlands.
If I could find a way to make the floor of LAX open up and eat me, I would.
In the background, pulsing frantically in time with my heartbeat, the crowd begins to chant, Alexander Kim! Alexander Kim!
The roar grows louder and then the entire terminal explodes into screams as four men in black suits step through with Alec just behind them. His security team keeps the crowd away with arms outstretched, creating a path to pass through to, I assume, a car idling at the curb. But Alec stops short, gaping in surprise at the scene waiting for him. Sure, he was able to move around Seattle largely unnoticed, but had he forgotten the way Los Angeles loves its celebrities?
With a winning smile, he accepts a few items to sign, pauses briefly for a couple of photos, and then tries to press his way through the crowd. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in place in an empty stretch of floor about thirty feet from where he’s surrounded, realizing that I spent the night with a man I really should have recognized for the right reasons; realizing I’m apparently so deep in my journalism niche that I didn’t recognize one of Korea’s, London’s—and now the world’s—biggest stars; realizing Alec could have told me a hundred times who he was but didn’t even try, didn’t bother to share that part of himself with me while I went on and on about my job and Spence and—