CHAPTER SIX
When Khai’s alarm rang the next morning, he smacked it off, sat up, and stared blearily at his room. He’d spent his Sunday in the office to escape her, but then she’d invaded his dreams. He was lucky if he’d gotten three hours of sleep. Fantasies had plagued him all night. Sexual ones. Featuring a certain pair of Hammer pants.
He was officially losing his mind, and look at that monster wood. His dick was so hard it was lifting his heavy down comforter all on its own. He needed to take care of this, but how did you do that with another person on the other side of the door? What if she barged in halfway through? None of the locks worked in this house. It hadn’t mattered before now.
Walking with his dick pointing ahead like the needle on a compass, he went to the bathroom, turned on the light, and opened the drawer by the sink where he kept his toothbrush and toothpaste. They weren’t there. He yanked the drawer out all the way, but they didn’t roll out from the back. He knew he’d put them back last night. He always put them back.
Was he hallucinating? Was he in the middle of a nightmare? Or had some really weird person stolen his oral hygiene products? Why would anyone—
His toothbrush and toothpaste were laid out on the counter by the faucet next to a glass from the kitchen. What the hell?
Esme must have done this.
He picked up his toothbrush, squeezed toothpaste onto it, and crammed it in his mouth. As he brushed, he gazed at the bathroom. She must have gotten up at dawn, because there were new details everywhere. It hadn’t been like this last night. His Kleenex box had been rotated so the sides were no longer parallel to the walls, and the tissue sticking out of the box was folded into a
neat triangle. The towels hanging on the racks had been rearranged so they were folded in thirds with a hand towel and washcloth on top. It looked okay, but how was that practical? Barely refraining from growling, he turned the Kleenex box back to the way it’d been before, sides parallel to the walls.
In the shower, he accidentally conditioned his hair before shampooing it because she’d switched the locations of the bottles, and he had to condition his hair a second time, which was thoroughly obnoxious. On the way out, he grabbed his bath towel and sent the smaller ones scattering to the ground. He leaned down to grab them and banged his head on the towel rack on his way up.
By the time he’d dressed and left his bedroom, he was out of sorts, harried for time, and possibly nursing a concussion. He strode into the kitchen, and the smell immediately enveloped him. Pungent. Seafoody. So strong it startled a cough out of him. Esme stood at the stove, splashing fish sauce into a boiling pot of soup as she distractedly wiped at a spill by the flames with a wet towel.
For a stunned moment, he forgot all about the burnt-fish-sauce fumes. She was wearing a T-shirt—and nothing else. Wow, those legs of hers … She beamed at him over her shoulder. “Hi, Anh Khải.”
Her chipperness jolted him out of his dazed state, and the heavy fish-sauce scent descended upon him all over again. So potent. Yeah, it made things taste good, but who wanted to smell this all day? And his name, she kept saying it that way.
She sent him a puzzled look as he opened all the windows and the sliding glass door to the backyard and turned on the exhaust hood over the stove as
well.
“Airing out the smell,” he explained.
“What smell?”
He blinked once, twice. She didn’t notice? It was everywhere. He
imagined it was soaking into the paint on the walls at this very moment. “The fish sauce?” He pointed to the tall bottle in her hand with a squid on the label.
“Oh!” She set it down on the counter and awkwardly wiped her hands on the wet dish towel. After a tense moment, she whirled past him to open the cupboard next to him. “I made coffee already.” She stretched onto her tiptoes to grab the mug from the middle shelf, and the hem of her shirt snuck upward, revealing the perfectly alluring cheeks of her ass and her white underwear.
His dick dug at his fly, reminding him he’d skipped an important part of his morning routine two days in a row now. After the landscaping incident yesterday, it made a strange sort of sense that Esme could cause him to have a concussion, an overwhelmed sense of smell, and blue balls at the same time.
The wide neckline of her shirt slipped to the side and revealed one of her graceful shoulders, and he drew in a slow, fish-sauce-laden breath. Blue and getting bluer.
She snatched a mug down, poured coffee in, and held it out, smiling at him over the rim, green eyes sparkling. Sexy sleep-tousled dark brown hair with a widow’s peak crowned a heart-shaped face. “For you.”
He accepted the mug and took a sip.
“Good?” she asked.
He nodded, but he actually had no idea what it tasted like. His senses were overloaded. By the burning fish sauce. And her. Seafoam, he decided. Not the flavor of the coffee, but the shade of her eyes. Seafoam green.
Her smile widened, but after a moment she grew flustered and tucked the hair behind her ear. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“So long like that,” she said.
“Oh.” He made himself look away and took another drink of coffee to give himself something to do. He still didn’t taste it. “I forget it makes people uncomfortable sometimes.” He didn’t have whatever sense it was most
people possessed that told them when the eye contact was enough, so if he wasn’t paying attention he easily looked too long—or not at all. He cleared his throat. “I’ll try to do better.”
She looked like she was going to say something, but she spun around and busied herself ladling soup into a bowl of thick rice noodles, which his mom had made by hand—bánh canh—with scallions, dry fried onions, shrimp, and thin strips of pork. Once she finished, she carried the bowl to the kitchen table and set it down next to a plate of sliced mango and other assorted fruits.
Pulling out a chair, she said, “For you.”
He approached the table and stared down at the food. “I don’t eat fruit.” And it was a workday. The routine was: inhale protein bar, drink a cup of water, run to work, shower in the work locker room, change, and be in his office in less than an hour. But today he had to drive Esme to the restaurant first, and now there was all this food someone had to eat. To top it all off, he really loathed
being waited upon.
Dammit.
He had to deal with this for three more months. Three whole months of her in his life, folding his Kleenex and causing blue balls, confusion,
concussions, and … fruit.
“Fruit is good for you,” she insisted.
“I take a multivitamin.”
“Fruit is better than a vitamin.”
He shook his head and sat down when all he wanted to do was run out the door and get his day started. He should win an award for demonstrating this amount of self-control. A sainthood. Even better, a knighthood.
Sir Khai, CPA.
She took the chair across from him and put a cup of water on the table even though there was another one sitting on the counter, but instead of sitting in a regular fashion, she curled one leg underneath herself and hugged the other to her chest, waiting.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked.
“I already ate.”
So … she was just going to watch him eat, then? And people called him strange.
He had a spoonful of chewy noodles and savory soup. It was saltier than normal since she’d added more fish sauce, but it was good. He wasn’t in the habit of having soup for breakfast, though. When he glanced at her, she pursed her lips and pointedly eyed one of the slices of mango.
Fucking hell. He wasn’t a two-year-old. Why was this happening to him?
Heaving a beleaguered breath, he picked up the mango and took a large bite.
Extreme sourness exploded in his mouth, and he cringed as a hard shudder worked through his body. Bla-uggity-bleh-gahhh.
She burst out laughing, and he stared at her in horror.
How was this funny? He couldn’t stop shuddering as he struggled to swallow the mouthful of pure citric acid. Shit, his eyes were watering.
She schooled her features and said, “Sorry. It’s a little sour.”
Fuck yeah, it was sour.
Without saying a word, he gulped from his coffee mug, shuddered again, and had another gulp of coffee. Ugh.
This was his life now. His life was hell.
“Sorry, I like sour,” she said with an apologetic wince. “It’s good with salt and chili pepper.”
He held out his half-eaten mango slice. “You like this?”
She plucked it from his fingers and bit into it with complete disregard for germ transference. Didn’t she care about bacteria or getting sick? She might as well have kissed him—a thoroughly disturbing thought. Smiling with the green mango caught between her white teeth, she said, “Too delicious.”
He blinked and finished his noodles and soup. With that level of acid
tolerance, her insides were probably corrosive enough to digest an entire seal pup. Nature was terrifying sometimes.
She helped him eat the rest of his fruit. No way he was touching any more of it. After they cleaned up, she raced to her room and came back thirty seconds later in a white T-shirt and black pants, hair up in a ponytail.
After he drove past the adult school and pulled into the parking space in front of his mom’s restaurant, he refrained from drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as Esme gathered up her things, unbuckled her seat belt, and slowly climbed out of the car. As soon as she shut the door, he put the gear in reverse. Finally, he could go.
But she walked around to his side and motioned for him to open the window, which he did, even though he didn’t want to. What now, what now, what now?
Meeting his eyes, she said, “Thank you for driving me. And about the looking …” Her lips curved into a smile that was almost shy. “You can look at me however long you like. I don’t mind it. Good-bye, Anh Khải.”
She turned around and strode toward the restaurant’s front door, ponytail bobbing with each step. He was free, but he let the car idle there. He was still sleep deprived, still completely off routine and irritated as hell, his head still hurt, and his balls were still blue.
But something inside of him loosened, and he didn’t mind so much the way she said his name now. He waited until the restaurant door shut behind her before driving away.
• • •
“Here, here,” Cô Nga said the second Esme walked in the door, waving her over to the booth where she was filling pepper shakers. “Come sit and tell me everything.”
Esme slid into the red leather booth and cast a quick glance around the restaurant, taking in the orange walls, the red booths, the black tables, the large fish tank in back, and the familiar scents of cooking food. Surprisingly, aside from the booths, the restaurant wasn’t that different from one you’d find back in Việt Nam. She felt like she’d come home.
Here, the smell of fish sauce was welcome. She brought a handful of her hair to her nose and inhaled, but she detected nothing. She’d washed last night. She was clean. But an uncomfortable embarrassment lingered as she remembered the way he’d opened all the windows and the door to air out a smell she didn’t notice.
Cô Nga looked up from her pepper shaker. “How are things going?”
Esme shrugged and smiled. “It’s too early to say.”
“He’s being difficult?” Cô Nga asked. “Do I need to talk to him? He promised he’d treat you like a fiancée.”
Esme shook her head quickly. “No, he’s been good. We ate together this morning and …” She considered telling Cô Nga her son had abandoned her at his house all day yesterday, but she didn’t have the heart.
Cô Nga raised her eyebrows. “And … what else?”
“Nothing else.” Esme took the large pepper container from Cô Nga and continued filling pepper shakers where Cô Nga had left off.
After a while, Cô Nga said, “There’s a secret for dealing with my Khải.”
“A secret?”
“He doesn’t talk a lot and is really smart, so people think he’s complicated, but in truth, he’s simple. If you want something from him, all you have to do is tell him.”
“Just tell him?” Esme couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice.
“Yes, just tell him. If he’s being too quiet, tell him you want him to talk to you. If you’re bored at home, tell him you want to go somewhere with him.
Never assume he knows what you want. Because he doesn’t. You have to tell
him, but once you do, nine times out of ten, he’ll listen. He doesn’t look like it most of the time, but he cares about people. Even you.”
Esme considered the serious expression on the lady’s face. Cô Nga believed what she was saying. “I … Yes, Cô.”
Cô Nga smiled and squeezed Esme’s arm. “Now let me show you around, so you can get to work.”
• • •
By the time the busy lunch hour was over, she was fighting tears. She didn’t mind heavy lifting or staying on her feet—she was as strong as a water buffalo—but she’d forgotten that waitressing required talking. Oftentimes, in English. That was another thing she did about as well as a water buffalo.
People had given her impatient looks as she forced herself to speak, a customer had yelled at her, another had openly mocked her, and she wanted to lock herself in the bathroom and hide for the rest of the week.
She stacked dirty dishes in the roller bin. Wiped, wiped, wiped the table.
Moved on to the next. Tried to empty her mind and focus on the work.
Until she remembered she’d messed up this table’s order. She’d run to the grocery store down the road to get them grapes, only to learn they’d said crepes, which was bánh xèo. What an embarrassing mistake. Who ordered grapes at a nice restaurant like this? She should have used her head. Her eyes
watered, and she blinked furiously.
Don’t cry.
Once the last customer left, she’d eat those grapes and laugh about all of this instead.
Dirty dishes in the bin. Wipe, wipe, wipe the table. Move on to— Crash! She forgot to watch where she was going, and her hip knocked a
chair over. With her stinky luck, the last customer’s things had been on it, and now papers were spilled all over the floor.
“Sorry, so sorry,” she said quickly and got down on her hands and knees.
But once she was down there, the task seemed overwhelming. Papers were all over the place, under tables and chairs. One sheet had even made it to the other side of the room. It was too much. Her hip throbbed, and her head ached, and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t breathe— “Enough, don’t worry about them,” a voice said in cultured Vietnamese.
Before she knew it, the papers were all gathered up, and she was sitting at a table, a vague memory in her mind of steady hands guiding her to the seat and a cup of tea in her hands.
“Drink it slowly,” the lady customer said as she sat down across from her and watched her with kind eyes.
Esme took a sip, finding the jasmine tea lukewarm, grainy, and bitter, as it was the dregs of the pot. It still helped to calm her, though. She swiped at her face with the back of a hand, expecting to feel the wetness of tears, but there was nothing but her own overwarm skin. The lady had caught her before she could break.
“I eat here regularly, and I never saw you before today. It’s probably your first day,” the customer said. From the looks of her, she was twenty years or so older than Esme. With the lightweight scarf around her neck, sunglasses on her head, and fashionable sundress, the lady exuded sophistication, though
maybe not wealth.
Esme nodded, feeling numb.
“You just crossed, didn’t you?”
There was no need to clarify what she’d crossed or where she’d been before.
Esme simply nodded again. With how the lunch hour had gone, it had to be painfully obvious that she was new to the country.
The lady reached across the table and squeezed Esme’s hand. “It gets better over time. I was a lot like you when I first came.”
Esme almost told her that she was only guaranteed to be here for one summer, but she thought better of it. She didn’t want to explain things and change this woman’s kindness to judgment. And what kind of impression was she making, sitting and drinking tea when she was on the job? She got to her feet, and as she continued wiping tables where she’d left off before, she said, “Thank you, Cô. I’m sorry about the papers.”
“My name is Quyền, but call me Miss Q. That’s what my students call
me.”
“You’re a teacher?”
Miss Q held up the papers she’d gathered off the floor. “That’s right. This is my students’ homework.” Then her face brightened, and she said, “You could join my class. I teach English in the evenings. The summer session just started.”
Esme sucked in a surprised breath, and her towel froze in midswipe. Her first reaction was excitement. She would love to go to school again, and it would be so nice not to be embarrassed when she spoke to customers, and— No, she told herself firmly. Evenings weren’t for school. They were for seducing Khải. Besides, it was better to save the money for Jade. That was why she was here, after all. For Jade (and her dad). Not Esme. She couldn’t justify it if it was just to make herself happy.
“I don’t need it,” she said finally. “I can manage like this.”
A polite smile touched Miss Q’s lips before she put a ten-dollar bill on the table, packed up her things, and got up. “Good-bye, then. If you change your mind, the adult school is just across the street there.” She pointed out the window at the squat white building on the other side of the busy street and left.
Almost wistfully, Esme watched her dodge her way across the street without using the crosswalk. She didn’t notice the stray sheet of paper on the far side of the room until the lady disappeared into the school.
Esme went to pick up the paper and found it covered with a handwritten
essay by a person named Angelika K. She started reading, and kept reading, and stood there like a statue until she’d finished the whole thing. Then she stared out the window at the school.
Was Angelika K. going to school to benefit others? Or was she going just because she wanted to?
