“Silence, you.”
The phone vibrates in his pocket again and this time he pulls it out with a muffled curse. “My mother again.”
“Answer it.”
He stares at the screen and doesn’t move.
“Sam, take the call.”
“For you.” With a sigh, he answers. “Wei?” There’s a long silence that stretches. I try to read Sam’s expression, but all he does is squint into the middle distance like an old-time pirate scoping out the horizon for land.
Then comes a burst of Mandarin and more silence. I walk over to the water’s edge to give him some privacy, because whatever the two of them are talking about is causing Sam so much tension his entire body is clenched tight. Sam, worldwide star, has mega-mother issues. I never would have thought his life was anything but charmed.
Instantly, I’m ashamed at how shallow I am. This is what Sam was telling me in the car, that I had trouble seeing beyond all the trappings of fame. No matter what, money will help smooth over whatever problems Sam and Fangli experience—that’s not even up for debate—but the more I see of them, the more they become people rather than characters. The more I care about them.
I glance back. Sam’s frowning at the sky as he listens and he doesn’t need me spying on him. When he looks over, I make a gesture that I hope will be correctly interpreted as Take your time; to give you space, I am going to go for a quick walk. At his nod, I head down toward the tall ship moored at the end of a pier about fifty meters away.
He’s waiting for me when I get back. “That was interesting,” he says, tossing his phone from one hand to another. He doesn’t use a cell-phone cover so I need to turn away because all I can picture is the screen shattered on the ground when it drops.
We walk along the water and I thump the palm of my hand on the thick pedestals that line the edge of the path, which apart from more runners in the distance, is empty at this early morning hour. “Were you honest with her?”
“I was.”
“Not a success?”
He kisses the top of my head and I do my best not to melt. “You can say that.”
“She won’t get off your back about joining your father’s company?”
“Lili only mentioned it once.” He pauses. “She has a new goal now.”
“What’s that?”
“She decided I’m going to marry Fangli.”
“What?” I twist around to see him laughing, but not in a happy, life is good way.
“She mentioned it before but I headed her off. Now she’s determined because she saw clips of us in Toronto and knows we’d be a successful match because of how we looked at each other. Except, in those clips, I was with you.”
“She didn’t see that I wasn’t Fangli?”
“I told you, you’re good. Also, the image she sent me as proof of this predestined love wasn’t a close-up.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’d better warn Fangli.” He takes out his phone and frowns. “Too late. Her father called her.”
“Your mom and her dad know each other?”
“Fangli’s father is very influential, which means Lili absolutely knows him.” His expression is less a smile than a line formed by his lips pulling tight.
I shrug. “Well, what if they do want you to get married? You’re thirty. They can’t make you.”
“I wouldn’t put it past them to announce it on our behalf,” he says grimly. “My mother would see it as helping the family business, given Fangli’s father’s role in government.”
“Does she live in the Victorian age?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You think these marriages don’t happen all the time?”
“I never had to think about it.”
“Lili does.” He looks at the sky. Clouds have swept in with a heavy wind. “We should head back. Looks like rain.”
He doesn’t move, though, and drops his gaze to the harbor in front of us. The boats bob on the water as they strain against their moorings.
“Hey, Sam?”
“What?”
I lean over so my shoulder grazes his arm. “It’s okay to not want all that.”
“I know.” He speaks quickly and gives a harsh laugh that almost hurts to hear.
“No, Sam.” I tug on his arm so he looks at me. “I mean it.”
“I owe her,” he says. “I’ve had an easy ride because of my parents. Their names, the connections. I’d be nowhere if it wasn’t for them.”