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“Monroe?” he asks, his voice unsure. He pulls off his glasses to wipe them on the hem of his short-sleeved button-up shirt. When he sticks them back on his face and confirms it’s me, he grins wide. “It is you! Wow.”

I give him a polite smile and little wave. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“You look... uh… way better than I thought!” he blurts out, then winces at how it sounds. He rushes to correct himself, stumbling over his words. “I mean… you know… I almost didn’tcome. The photo Kels showed me had bad lighting, and plus, what attractive single woman has her friend set her up, you know? Most hot girls can get dates on their own. No offense, but you get what I’m saying, right?”

I blink at him, the smile fading from my face.

“But you’re hot! That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re definitely worth the trouble.”

You’re not. Definitely wishing I’d gone home after work and rotted on the sofa with my K-dramas and books.

I feel heat prickling up the back of my neck as he slides onto the opposite side of the booth and picks up the menu.

We press the service button at the table and place our orders with the smiley waitress. I’m able to place mine speaking Hangugeo, one of five languages I know.

But Andrew botches his way through his order, mispronouncing several words with puzzling confidence.

“I’m sure Kels told you all about me, right?” he asks, waggling a single brow. “No big deal or anything, but I’m the communications officer for Sungjin Solutions. It’s a whole high vis kinda thing. I’m even pictured on the company website.”

“Oh… that’s, um, that’s amazing. Congrats.”

“No need. It’s just another step on the ladder to success, you know?”

“Right…”

“I went to NYU for my MBA. So I had a lot of offers right off the bat. I worked for Nexera Innovations for a while in Silicon Valley. You know how that goes. Or maybe you don’t. You’re just a teacher, right?”

More heat prickles my skin. “Yup.Justa teacher.”

For the next thirty minutes, he goes on and on about himself. He tells me all about his time at NYU, how he allegedly played water polo and interned for major companies in the summer.The few times I try to interject by mentioning I majored in English at Penn State, he carries on like I haven’t uttered a word.

He doesn’t ask me any questions about myself. He barely even draws a breath long enough to stop talking at all.

I get so tired of listening that I start offering generic, “That sounds cool” and “That sounds great” responses before going silent altogether.

Our food comes and I distract myself by nibbling on the greasy, American-inspired fries. Not that I’m really even hungry. It’s almost 10 p.m., and I usually don’t eat this late.

As Andrew talks about his favorite subject—himself—I notice he has lettuce stuck between his front teeth. It becomes increasingly more distracting as he shares a story about how the CEO of Sungjin Solutions begged and pleaded with him to accept his job offer.

I start trying to interrupt so I can tell him about the giant leaf of lettuce, but then I give up when he laughs at his own joke about east meeting west.

I can’t take another minute of this.

“So, you want to come over to my apartment after this?” he says, waggling both brows this time. “I make a pretty good Soju Citrus Cocktail. Every lady I make it for has loved it.”

“Over to your apartment?”

“It’s just a few streets away. It’ll take us five minutes on foot.”

“I… uh, I actually have to go.”

“But we’re still eating dinner. You’re leaving already?”

“Yeah,” I say, quickly gathering my purse. “There’s an emergency at school. Sorry.”

“Emergency? But it’s the weekend! There’s no school tonight.”

“It’s this, um, night class thing.”