CHAPTER 3
Never had a conversation on the back of a takeout menu, but let’s keep this up. Check every scrap of paper. Never know where I might leave the next note. BTW, looked up the meaning of Mei Li. 1 million points to your parents for their incredibly accurate choice.* 1
—M
I grunt as I lift two bulging garbage sacks and use them to push open the back kitchen door. Light from Chinatown wanders down the alley and gathers in the corners like neon fog. Kind of like the inside of my head when Marcus Miller wanders into it and a fortune cookie wanders into my pocket.
I bite my lower lip and hurl the garbage bags into the dumpster. The sidewalk is dotted with people laughing and talking their way down the street. Guo Mama’s shop window sign says open, but she’s not outside in her bamboo chair or I’d hurry over and tell her all about who I waited on tonight. If she was younger—like sixty years younger—she’d be all over Marcus Miller. She is the only other female he talks to around here. At least in person. He talks to me on paper now.
I close my eyes and replay The Moment from tonight. The way he kept his eyes on me as he walked to the bathroom. The breeze he left after he dropped the fortune cookie on my tray. Like a gust of wind that stole all the air around me.
Stepping into the shadows, I pull the fortune cookie from my pocket, its wrapper crinkling, the cookie all but dust. I shake the bits into my hand and let the dust fall between my fingers, leaving a white slip of paper behind. My very fortunate fortune.
Dark writing stares up at me when I flip the paper over in my palm. A phone number. Marcus’s? Not possible. Except…it has to be.
Two weeks, twenty-four notes—he’s never hinted that he wants to talk to me in any other way. But then he shows up tonight, looking so good, fresh off the soccer field. His usually shaggy hair pulled back into a tousled half pony. I tried not to look at him, but he didn’t seem to try not looking at me, so I stopped trying. When our eyes met, his flushed face said things and mine responded in pink, all the way up my neck and into my cheeks. Between my pink cheeks and his blue eyes, there were purple streaks in the air throughout the restaurant. No wonder Nick kept giving me weird looks—I was a walking pink and blue tie-dye.
Now, my heart is attempting to leap from my chest and run through Chinatown, bragging to everyone that I am holding Marcus’s phone number. That he gave it to me. But there’s only one person that needs to know right away or she’ll kill me for withholding.
I tug my phone from my back pocket and dial, wiggling my knees to shake off the chilly air and my nerves while I wait for Lin to pick up. But her ever-cheery voice welcomes me to her voicemail and invites me to stay as I glance at the time on my phone. 8:02. She’s probably getting her brother ready for bed.
When the voicemail beeps, I whisper, “You will never guess whose number I have in my hand right now.” I end the call, clench the phone in my fist, scan the alley and street, then text: re: an incredible pair of legs - and smile, face, eyes, hair, etc - Call me!
When the kitchen door scrapes open, my head snaps up and I shove my phone in my back pocket with Marcus’s number as Nick steps outside. “There you are.” He sways a little before reaching for the brick wall. A loud truck rattles up the street at the end of the alley before Nick speaks again. “I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful you look tonight.” His words slur on their way out and ripple in my stomach. I knew he was drunk when he came in tonight. A cloud of booze hung over his usual corner table. “Especially in that apron.”
I take a quick breath to whisk away the Marcus cloud in my head and flip the dumpster lid closed. “Are you making fun of my apron?” I hurry toward him so he can’t sense the excitement I’m leaving in the shadow under my fire escape. I smile at him and take the steps two at a time, reaching for the kitchen door, but he reaches out and tugs on the front of my apron, pulling me to him.
“Not making fun. It’s hot.”
I recoil when the rancid tang of alcohol sweeps across my face. “I think you’ve had a little too much to drink.”
“Not too drunk to see. Care to know what I saw?” He points at one cloudy eye, the sharpness edging his voice digging into my stomach. “Anyone would have noticed.” He steps closer. “You were noticing someone else. And he was noticing you.” His eyes skitter across me as I swallow metallic guilt and shake my head.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” I step back and reach behind me for the kitchen door but he pushes it closed as I press my back against the brick. “I was too busy to notice anything.”
His voice is like tumbling gravel between us. “I know what I saw, Mei Li. The detective’s son. He watched your every move. And he liked what he saw.” Nick reaches out, his fingers sliding down my cheek, heavy and listless. I hold perfectly still, hoping to dissolve into the brick. “Of course he was watching you. You were the most beautiful thing in the restaurant. But…he doesn’t know that I really… really …don’t like anyone who wants what I want.” He steps closer, his nose on my ear, and I tense. “I’m protective, that’s all.” His hand smooths down my bare arm, goose bumps rising like a warning. “Is that wrong of me? We don’t want the detective to know too much, do we?”
My throat burns and I swallow, shaking my head. He’s right. Detective Miller can’t know about my family.
My phone chimes in my pocket, but I meet Nick’s eyes and try to hold them as they circle. Is it wrong for him to be protective? Since his baba died three years ago, he’s always been here for me and my family, keeping us and our secrets safe. Opening doors for me I could never open on my own. It doesn’t seem wrong, but it doesn’t feel right either. But why? I’ve loved having him in every detail of my life because he makes all the big, scary decisions so I don’t have to. He makes sure everything runs smoothly. We would have been deported long ago if it wasn’t for him. I know he cares. But since I turned eighteen last month, he’s cared a little too much about everything I do. He’s suggested things that feel too permanent between us. A few months ago, I liked the idea of something permanent since everything else about my life felt so fragile. But I’m not sure I want Nick to be the permanent part.
1 ? *Mei Li in Mandarin means “beautiful”