Her throat choked up, and she swiped the moisture from her eyes with the back of her arm as her body weakened with relief. “Then I am happy and grateful to marry you. But we do not need a nice wedding.” Honestly, she wanted a cheap one. She was going to owe Quan for the rest of her life, and she didn’t want to add an expensive wedding to her tab.
He shook his head at her. “I can see you worrying. Don’t.”
“But—”
“It’s really fine, Esme.” And this time, there was a hard edge to his tone and expression.
She nodded. “Okay, no worrying.” But that was a lie.
Marrying Quan was the solution to all her problems. Once she married him, she could apply to schools as a legal resident and work for her tuition. She wouldn’t need a scholarship in order to pursue her new dream.
But a large part of her still hoped Kh?i would intervene, and worried that he wouldn’t. Her future, even an empowered one, wasn’t perfect unless he was in it. And not as her brother-in-law.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Today was the day.
Khai had done everything humanly possible to find a way out of this mess. He’d spent money, pulled strings, found encouraging leads—if he bought a racehorse, he could say Esme was a horse trainer and get her a special visa that way—but he needed more time. He was out of time.
The wedding started in an hour.
He’d changed into his tux and was ready to go, but he couldn’t bring himself to get into his car. That old playground song kept looping in his head. Esme and Quan sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G …
He’d lose his fucking mind if he saw Esme and Quan kiss. She was his to kiss, his to have and to hold, his to—
His to what?
He couldn’t stand looking at the now-empty glass on his coffee table, so he fled. He didn’t have a destination in mind, but of course, he ended up there.
In the garage.
He pressed the garage button, and as light filled the dark space, he advanced toward the bike. Dust particles sparkled in the sunlight like fireflies, and he breathed the old mustiness and gasoline-on-concrete smell into his lungs. For a moment, he shut his eyes, letting the scent take him back to a different time.
He yanked the tarp off the motorcycle and ran his fingers over one of the black handles. Bumpy texture, the grooves fingers had worn into the rubber, cold, lifeless. It was always this way. Always disappointing. Just like when he’d walked it home after Esme took it to the store.
He ran his fingertips over the deep scratches on the side. He half expected to find blood in there, but his fingers met nothing but rough metal. Against the odds, this was all the motorcycle had to show for its collision with a four-ton semitruck. Andy hadn’t been so lucky.
He’d been that 0.07 out of 100 who ended up in a fatal motorcycle accident. Because of Khai.
Khai had asked him to come over. Maybe asked wasn’t the right word. He’d said something along the lines of, “Come over. Let’s do stuff.”
There’d been grumbling about summer school homework, and Khai had told him to bring it and they’d do it together. More like Khai would just do Andy’s homework for him, but Khai didn’t care as long as Andy was there.
“See you soon,” Andy had said.
The drive from Andy’s parents’ place in Santa Clara to Khai’s mom’s place in East Palo Alto was about twenty-five minutes if you took Central Expressway, and Andy always did. He said the trees made him feel like a badass.
But twenty-five minutes had passed. Thirty. Forty. An hour. And still no Andy. Khai had paced back and forth, aggravated and impatient, sick, and he’d flipped through the pages of every book he could find until the corners were permanently upturned like ski slopes. When the phone had rung hours later, an incomprehensible knowing had claimed him. He hadn’t picked it up. He’d stood still, rooted to the floor as his mom answered the phone. When she’d gone pale and sank against the counter, she’d confirmed his suspicion.