CHAPTER TEN
Either I forgot what the inside of the Seo-Cookes’ house looks like, or it tripled in size. I’m a whole lot taller than the last time they let us onto the premises, but the sprawling twenty-foot-high ceilings are as daunting at eighteen as they were when I was five. The dramatic oil painting of the family hanging in the foyer is definitely new, though.
“Watch it,” Stella warns when I lean in to get a closer look at the portrait. “Henry knocked that over once and got grounded for a month.”
I quickly step back. Lord knows what Mr. Cooke would think up to punish me. Stella returns to filing her nails once I’m a safe distance away. She’d called Julian down after she opened the door for me, but apparently she doesn’t trust me enough to leave me in the foyer alone.
Since I can’t stand still when I’m nervous, I make my way to a less prized possession. I wander over to the picture frames hanging beneath the winding staircase, a timeline of the Seo-Cookes’ childhood. On closer inspection, it’s clear that, with the exception of a shot of Henry and Julian as toddlers wearing matching bowl cuts, Mrs. Seo is missing from all of the photos. Shocker: Mr. Cooke handles breakups as well as Maya does.
“Hey,” Julian greets as he comes down the stairs, dressed in a T-shirt and the type of low-hanging sweatpants that always look terrible on me but look runway-ready on him.
Stella relieves herself of her watch post to block his path when he makes it to the last step, holding her hand out for payment.
He groans, reaching into his pocket. “I didn’t ask you to watch him.”
“But I did,” she insists, accepting the red package he slaps into her hand and brushing past him to head up the staircase.
Julian rolls his eyes as he crosses the staircase over to me. “Sorry about the guard dog. I’ll call her off next time,” he says before tossing me the same red foil package he’d paid Stella off with.
“What’s a choco pie?” I ask, inspecting the package.
“Chocolate on the outside, cake and marshmallow on the inside. My mom always used to pack them in our lunches in middle school. Made us into sugar fiends.” He pauses, pulling yet another one out of his pocket. “I didn’t poison them, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He unwraps his and takes a bite to demonstrate the point.
While I wouldn’t put it past the Seo-Cookes to find a way to sneak sand or mud or crickets into a prepackaged snack cake, the reassurance does make me feel better. I unwrap it and take a tentative first bite. In the blink of an eye, our first year at the lake comes rushing back. The first time I ever came to visit this place, sitting pretzel-style on the carpet while Maya and I ate enough snack cakes—choco pies—that we stayed up all night. The box that showed up on our doorstep, with a handwritten note from Mrs. Seo. The box we threw into the trash.
He’s right—it’s not poisoned, and it tastes just as amazing as I remember.
“Do you carry these around all the time?” I ask, covering my mouth as I chew through the chocolate and marshmallow.
He nods, jutting his chin toward the staircase. “I have to because Stella’s a monster. She always steals a stack for herself if I leave the box out in the open but refuses to buy her own.”
That I can sympathize with. If I leave a bag of chips unattended for more than fifteen minutes, my roommate always finds a way to swipe it. Not everything about college is supposed to be communal, especially when it’s the only thing keeping me going after ten hours of staring at my tablet.
“Your nose looks better,” Julian says.
On instinct, my fingers reach up to trace the scabbed edges of my piercing. It’s the first time I’ve been able to touch my nose without wincing in weeks. I’m finally giving off less of a Rudolph vibe, and more of the cool, aloof artist vibe I was going for. “I used the tea tree oil.”
He smirks but doesn’t linger on the subject. “You came prepared.” He points to the canvas bag slung over my shoulder that’s so heavy I have to hoist it onto my knee to readjust the strap.
While my bag is full of every artistic medium I could find—you never know what type of inspiration is going to hit—it’s more notably stuffed with plastic baggies full of salami. Courtesy of Maya, who tasked me with getting back at the Seo-Cookes now that the prank ball is back in our court. “Art stuff.”
“Cool.” Julian takes my sneakers, tucking them onto a gilded rack beside the door before guiding me down the hall. Our footsteps echo against the high ceilings, ringing back to us as we cross the dining room (very big) to get to the living room (even bigger). The space seems to be designed around aesthetic rather than comfort, plucked straight from a Pinterest board. There’s not even a proper couch, only high-back wing chairs that make my lower back ache just from looking at them. Most of the Seo-Cookes’ possessions make us bitter, but I’m not jealous of their choice in décor. Our cabin is far from perfect, but at least it feels like a home. Everything here feels like it should be roped off and guarded by someone with an earpiece and a Taser.
I settle down in the comfiest-looking chair, which is unusually low to the ground. And that’s coming from me, someone who’s already low to the ground. Julian leaves me to unpack, backing away slowly toward what I assume is the kitchen. “Want anything to drink? Water, coffee, soda?”
I shake my head. While the choco pies weren’t poisoned, I should still be wary of any food or drink I don’t see come from a spout. I double-check that there aren’t any meddling siblings or dads lurking in the farther corners of this massive room before I let myself relax a bit. Not let my guard down, just relax.
A buzzing sound catches Julian’s attention. Another call from his mom. He excuses himself before stepping into the hall.
“Hi, Umma…Yeah, everything’s fine,” I can hear him say before he switches to what I assume is Korean. His voice gets quieter and quieter, until a door closes, and it fades completely.
So much for eavesdropping.
Left to my own devices, I take in my temporary workspace. The room is as stiff as a library. It’s a miracle a house with this many people living in it can be anything but pure chaos 24/7. Our house hasn’t been this quiet since before we were born. Life in the Báez household means ignoring arguments that don’t involve you, and the sound of the microwave beeping. Our family consumes an unholy amount of pizza rolls.
While I’d love to go find what I need and head home as soon as possible, I’m not just here for snooping. Coming here to be productive wasn’t a lie, and I intend to follow through on that performance. A space where I don’t have to concentrate through the sound of a buzz saw, or worry about upsetting Maya, is an asset I can’t afford to lose.
While Maya’s rule that I can’t use the sketch of her ruined my initial plan, it did spark a new idea. This sketch of the cabin probably won’t be my final submission piece, but it feels like a step in the right direction. The pieces I’ve created while at CalArts are about precision, but my work is about memories. Sentimentality. If I can’t draw Maya, I can draw our cabin. The other piece of myself I’m worried I’ll lose.
“Is that your house?” Julian asks, close enough that his breath tickles the back of my neck.
My sketchbook falls to the ground after I let out a yelp. “I’m begging you to stop sneaking up on me before you give me a heart attack.”
Julian laughs, picking up the sketchbook before I can reach for it. “Stella once said I should wear a cowbell around the house.”
“I hate to say it, but she’s right.” I reach for my sketchbook. It doesn’t feel safe in anyone’s hands but mine.
But Julian’s too entranced to notice me. He stares down at my sketchbook in what I won’t let myself think is awe. He lifts his hand to trace the page with his fingertips, as if he’s searching for something.
“Is this your mom?” he asks, and I know instantly what page he’s looking at.
It’s the last portrait I did of Mami, a few pages behind the sketch of Maya. It’s how I like to imagine her now—eternally twenty-seven, her favorite age, wearing the white cotton sundress she wore to her wedding because she refused to wear Abuela’s powder-puff gown. Roses bloom from her fingertips, her curls full, dark, and free. Her skin glistens like copper embers as the sun sets over La Poza del Obispo in her hometown of Arecibo, the tide licking her bare toes. If I close my eyes, I can hear the distant sound of salsa music blasting from the radio while she took us by the hand and showed us how to swim in the sea.
My throat goes dry when Julian doesn’t stop ogling. Allowing someone like him, someone who can use the things I love against me, see my most intimate works, my heart on the page, feels like pulling myself open at the seams.
“She’s beautiful,” Julian whispers, eyes fixed on the portrait even after he hands my sketchbook to me.
“She was,” I reply, voice slightly hoarse.
“It’s really beautiful too,” he adds, pointing to the sketchbook. “Your artwork.”
My cheeks grow warm, not that I’m letting a compliment from Julian Seo-Cooke get to me, thank you very much. I’m just not used to people who aren’t my family or classmates admiring my work. Art school critique is brutal. My ego is in desperate need of stroking.
“You said you’re applying for an internship?” he asks as he settles back into his seat with a mug of coffee.
“It’s a mentorship.” The correction isn’t really necessary, but I’m still feeling jilted by Julian’s invasion of my artistic privacy. “With a professor.”
One of his eyebrows arches as he takes a sip. “Well, good luck with your mentorship.” His eyes travel back to my sketchbook, and even though he can’t see the pages, it still feels invasive. “I’ve always wished I was better at art. I loved drawing as a kid but never got any better at it. Even my stick figures are terrible.”
“Blame the universe,” I reply. “You’re good at pretty much everything but the one thing you wanted to do.”
“I’m not good at everything,” he protests sheepishly.
“Uh, yeah. You are. You can’t be quadlingual, or whatever it’s called, an amazing cook, good at lacrosse, smart, and hot. It’s not fair.”
Julian’s eyes widen. He lets out a quiet chuckle. “I never told you about lacrosse.” Fuck. Shit. He didn’t, and now I definitely look like a stalker. Before I can defend myself, he stares right at me with a cheeky smirk. “And you think I’m hot?”
Oh God, I didn’t actually say that, did I?
Okay, apparently I did. But I won’t let the sparkle in Julian’s eyes intimidate me. Or the fact that he knows I snooped through his social media. Plus, it’s not like I think he’s hot. He just is. Objectively speaking. He’s got the abs and the thick hair, and the thousand-kilowatt smile with the pretty, perfect teeth. It’s an objective fact.
“I never said that.”
Julian hums, his playfulness fading away as he turns his attention to a loose thread on his sleeve. “I’m really not,” he insists. “Good at everything, I mean. The jury’s still out on whether I’m hot.” Then he has the audacity to wink. And not the kind of wink that’s more like an eye twitch, but a good wink. The sexy, effortless kind of wink meant for slow-mo montages.
How dare he.
And no, I’m not flustered, not at all. Just caught off guard by the normalcy, by how not weird it feels to have a regular conversation with Julian. I should reply with something cool, too, something witty.
“So…you got more snacks?”
Not exactly what I was going for, but it does the trick. It takes Julian a second to process the question. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
He beckons for me to follow him to the kitchen. I don’t spend as much time ogling as I want to, can’t let Julian know I’m impressed. The kitchen is as much a work of art as the rest of the house, pristine marble counters and glistening appliances so immaculate I can see my reflection in them. The type of kitchen Dad promised he’d give Mami one day. Looks like he could have, in another life where we play smarter. Meanwhile our kitchen hasn’t looked this clean since Abuela gifted us the home deep clean she won at church bingo.
“We don’t have much right now.” Julian reemerges from the pantry with an armful of snack foods. “Henry laid his claim.” He holds a bag of Doritos, Henry’s name scrawled all over it in bright gold Sharpie.
“That seems obnoxious.” How can someone at the big age of twenty, who grew up with two younger siblings, not have learned the importance of sharing?
“He’s an obnoxious guy.” Julian tosses the snacks back onto their shelf and walks over to the fridge. “Mind if I use you as a culinary guinea pig instead?”
My mouth waters at the memory of butter, rosemary, and whatever a currant is on my tongue. I’m not the most adventurous when it comes to trying new foods, but if Julian can make a parsnip taste like heaven, I’ll gladly have anything he’s willing to put together.
A shout makes both of us jump, my attention wandering to the kitchen window. Outside in the backyard, Stella shoves Henry’s shoulder before stomping out of view, their voices too muffled for me to make out what they’re saying.
“You can ignore them,” Julian says, and I keep my eyes to myself but my ears pricked.
“Are you a ‘leave me to my work in peace’ kind of chef, or a ‘doesn’t mind help with the chopping’ kind of chef?” I’m itching to get back to my sketchbook, but I can stall for ten minutes in the name of food.
Julian places some ingredients on the counter, followed by several mason jars. “Definitely the latter,” he replies while grabbing some potatoes out of a basket hanging from the ceiling. “Mind slicing these?” I narrowly catch the potato he tosses me.
I nod and follow his directions to find the cutting board and knives. After washing the potatoes, I scan the mason jars Julian set down, each growing steadily larger in size. The contents all appear to be the same, some jars deeper red than others. “Why do you have four separate jars of kimchi?”
“Because kimchi goes with everything,” he replies, stepping in front of them. He taps his fork against the largest of the four, labeled Halmeoni in bright purple. “My grandma’s recipe.” He taps the second and third jars, labeled Umma and Umma w/extra garlic in neon green. “My mom’s recipe.” And finally, he taps the smallest jar. No label, just a smiley face sticker. “And this is my recipe.”
I lean in to inspect the largest jar, nearly four times bigger than the smallest. His grandma must be the expert. Julian’s handwriting is tough to make out at first, a strange combination of Victorian-era script and chicken scratch. At least that’s one thing he’s bad at. When I look up, a forkful of kimchi from Julian’s recipe jar is waiting for me.
“Try it.” He holds the fork closer to my mouth.
The bite is deceptively spicy, the heat hidden beneath the first sour notes of cabbage and ginger. Tears well in the corner of my eyes as the spice pricks my tongue and trickles slowly down my throat. Julian quickly passes me a glass of water, laughing while he slaps me on the back when I can’t fight the urge to cough anymore.
“Too spicy?” he asks, rubbing circles between my shoulder blades until I finish my water.
I’m not the type to bow down to spice. I welcome all heat levels eagerly, but Julian’s kimchi packed a punch I definitely wasn’t ready for. “A little bit.”
He takes a bite of his own. After a few seconds, he nods in agreement, wincing before putting the lid onto the jar. “Yeah, a little.”
He pulls out a notebook from a nearby drawer, flipping to a heavily color-coded page. He scribbles something down and adds notes in the margins before returning his recipe jar to the fridge.
We slice and chop in comfortable silence, pausing long enough for me to sample Julian’s grandma’s and mom’s recipes. Theirs are definitely much milder, more focused on highlighting individual ingredients than the heat behind each bite. Unsurprisingly, his grandma’s is my favorite.
The rumblings of Stella and Henry’s second argument are loud enough for me to almost make out what they’re saying this time. I crane my neck to listen in, but their voices are drowned out by the sizzle of potatoes. “Are they okay?” I ask once Julian and I are safely out of range of the pops of oil.
He looks up from his phone at where the two of them have gone red in the face, pointing at a stack of ten-pound bags of rice on the ground. “Yeah, they’re fine. Probably arguing about the Winter Games.”
My heart rockets into my throat. “O-oh…” Every part of me starts to sweat, my hands trembling at my sides. God, I’m so bad at lying—why did I agree to do so much of it?
“If that makes you uncomfortable, you can go sit in the living room.” Julian nods toward the room we came from. “I can finish up here and bring it over to you.”
“No!” I shout so loudly it startles him, my voice echoing off the pots and pans hanging above us. Way to make it obvious that you’re trying to eavesdrop, Devin. Maybe I should try to create a diversion and escape before Julian catches on. Or I could try to hit him over the head with one of the pots. “I…uh. They’re just so…intense. It caught me off guard.”
Being generous, I have about a .0002 percent chance that he’ll believe me. But, mercifully, he either does or he doesn’t care. “Yeah, we can get pretty intense about it sometimes. No thanks to you guys.” He knocks a fist against my shoulder, as if this is all some fun little game we play to pass the time. Like we don’t have our entire home to lose.
Outside, Henry hoists three of the bags of rice onto his shoulder with ease, tossing them halfway across the yard like they weigh nothing. “Shouldn’t you be out there too?” I ask while watching Stella lift and toss a bag of her own.
Julian brushes them off, pulling the curtain closed after he catches me staring. “They always leave me out of prep stuff.”
Now that’s good to know. Not useful information per se, but definitely worth noting. “Really?”
He yelps when a drop of oil splashes onto his hand. “Dad’s pretty competitive.” A massive understatement. “Usually he and Stella are in charge of coming up with stuff to help us get ready.” He pauses, sucking the pad of his thumb into his mouth. “Dad says I don’t have the right kind of attitude for winning a competition. Apparently I’m ‘too nice.’ So, better to leave me out of it.”
Julian wasn’t “too nice” when he helped his siblings lock me in a Porta Potty, or put a beetle down my shirt, or replace my shampoo with mayonnaise, but sure, whatever he needs to tell himself. Still, that doesn’t help me figure out what the others are planning this year. He’s got to know that they’ve been cheating. He may not know what they have in store, but he can’t be that oblivious.
Behind the curtain, Stella and Henry get into yet another screaming match. It’s hard to make out what they’re saying through the window, but it’s obvious that she’s not happy. If it’s games related, it’s worth trying to listen in.
I pry my attention away from the window. “Do you have a bathroom?”
“Down the hall, make a left, up the stairs, make a right, third door on your left,” he says in one breath.
“Sorry, can you repeat that again…but slower?”
Julian rips a page out of his recipe book and scribbles down a rough floor plan of the first and second floors. “In case you get lost,” he explains when he hands me the map. “Which still happens to me.”
“No promises I won’t get lost anyway.” I scramble out of my seat, slowing to a more normal pace when I realize how sketchy running away would seem. I cut through the sitting room to grab my bag and make a dash for the stairs.
I don’t breathe until I’ve safely made it to the second floor. A quick glance out the window confirms that Stella and Henry are still outside, and Mr. Cooke evidently isn’t home today, based on the eerie silence. My chest heaves as I brace myself against the top of the landing.
Day one in the beast’s den and I’m already falling apart.
I duck into the first room at the end of the hall once I’m sure the coast is clear. It’s an unassuming room, mostly storage from a quick scan. Cardboard and plastic boxes of toys and vinyl records are stacked in the corners. Another box on the folding table in the middle of the room is packed to the brim with all the framed photos Mrs. Seo is in. Theresa is scrawled on the side of the box in angry red Sharpie.
As much as I’d like to dig into Mr. Cooke’s scandalous estrangement, I’m on a different kind of mission. Two, in fact. Carefully hiding myself from view, I look out the window at the far end of the room. Stella and Henry are in plain sight, still bickering over an abandoned sack of rice. I crack the window open, getting onto my knees to stay out of sight.
Opening my phone’s camera, I start recording them in case my microphone can pick up something I can’t hear. It’s tough to make out what they’re saying. Something about focus and needing to try harder. All the same things Maya shouts at me at our morning training sessions. I keep the camera rolling even when they get going again. It can’t hurt to know what techniques they’re using to train. Maya’s training schedule is airtight, but we could take a leaf out of the enemy’s handbook.
After two minutes, I stop recording. No use wasting my storage on Stella and Henry grunting over bags of rice. I send the video to Maya, waiting until the text is marked as delivered to close the window. Her response comes through exactly ten seconds later.
I’d respond telling her she should try putting her neck on the line next time, but I can’t because she already did. There’s a better chance of her getting mauled by a possum than the Seo-Cookes trapping me in the basement and turning me into a meat pie. Fair is fair.
That’s enough sneaking around for one afternoon. I’m not sure what Maya’s expecting, but I’m not going to crack this case in twenty minutes. The Seo-Cookes are cunning, and I don’t have enough brain cells to Sherlock Holmes my way into an answer today.
My phone buzzes with one last message from Maya.
How could I forget about the pound of deli meat in my bag?
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I kneel down and pull out the carefully wrapped baggie. Unrolling a handful of salami, I lean up on the windowsill until I’m high enough to tuck the cold cuts into the curtain rod. It takes some finagling to get it out of view, and you can still spot it at some angles, but it’ll do. It’s not like anyone’s going to walk in here expecting to find lunch meat. It’ll be a nice surprise when the stench matures two weeks from now. A niggle of guilt tugs at my empathetic side, but I quickly squash it down.
We had to get back at them for the soda prank somehow.
With the meat in place, I pack up my bag and head for the door, stalling when another abandoned box catches my eye. A familiar, clunky contraption sitting on top of a stack of bedsheets. I lift it up carefully, a knot forming in my stomach as I run my hand along a weathered googly eye.
Suck-o. Abandoned and collecting dust in a storage room.
My gut tells me to tuck it under my shirt or find a way to sneak it into my bag downstairs. To smuggle it out of here so I can take it home, to where it rightfully belongs. They wouldn’t notice anyway, not when it’s clearly been sitting up here for years. Studying it, all of the dents and scrapes and dust, feels like they’re twisting the knife they plunged into our backs years ago. First our cabin, and now this. Pieces of our lives that meant so much to us, treated like trash. Bruised or bulldozed so they can make it into something better.
“Devin?”
Immediately I throw Suck-o back into the box and race out of the room to the staircase. Julian’s waiting for me at the bottom of the landing. He blushes at the sight of me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to rush you.”
I shrug, my heart hammering too fast and too hard for me to come up with a reply.
“Food’s ready. And not to be a snob, but serving a dish lukewarm goes against my code of ethics.”
Rich of someone from a family like his to talk about a code of ethics.
“Right, yeah. Be down in a second.”
Julian nods and heads back toward the kitchen. I sag against the railing once he’s out of view, sucking in a deep breath before following his lead. All I need to do is stay calm. They’re not on to me. Not yet at least.
Julian gestures for me to take a seat once I step back into the kitchen. With a flourish, he puts the finishing touches—a healthy sprinkling of green onions—on his culinary masterpiece.
I sit down at one of the counter stools, instantly falling for the intoxicating scent of melted cheese and deep-fried potatoes. “Cheese fries?”
“Kimchi cheese fries,” he corrects me. “The best kind of cheese fries.”
He eagerly hands me a fork, waiting with his chin propped up on his fist for me to take my first bite. Having an audience while you eat is nerve-racking, especially when your first bite can only be described as euphoric. Sharp, sweet heat and spice meet the cool, savory crunch of the pickled cabbage and onions. “Oh my God.”
I moan around my fork without an ounce of shame. Reservations be damned. Everything about it is so good that I can’t help licking the cheese clinging to my fork to make sure I got it all. “Is there bacon in this too?” How did he manage to fry bacon in under ten minutes without setting off the smoke alarm? He really is a culinary wizard.
Julian nods, nudging a small bowl toward me. “Try dipping it in this.”
Stars bloom behind my eyes as the creamy sriracha and mayo combo takes the already complexly perfect flavors to new heights. It’s the most satisfying version of comfort food I’ve ever experienced, so rich in taste and design, yet still so purely indulgent.
“I hate you,” I mumble between bites. “You’re too nice to be a dick, and your cooking could resurrect the dead. It’s not fair.”
Julian holds back a quiet chuckle, shaking his head as he pulls a loaded fry from the center of the plate for himself. “I really wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t good at everything.”
He’s full of shit. Julian Seo-Cooke, a boy without a favorite color or movie, is the type of artist I’ve always wished I could be. Someone who can create things so wonderful they make you see stars. It makes me want to hunch over my sketchbook again, to draw until it’s too dark to see, working until I find a way to create something that makes me feel half as intensely as that single cheesy French fry did.
“Name one thing you’re bad at,” I taunt, holding up a finger. “And don’t say drawing.”
He hums in thought before shrugging. “I’m allergic to poison ivy? Well, all three of us are. Makes us break out into major hives in, like, seconds.”
I roll my eyes before helping myself to another fry. “An allergy isn’t something you’re bad at.”
“It’s something my body’s bad at.”
“Doesn’t count.” I gesture for him to come up with something else.
The amount of time it takes him to answer speaks volumes.
“I have a really hard time with math. And science. Anything with numbers, really,” he says after what feels like an eternity. His eyes focus on a spilled drop of sriracha mayo, his shoulders locked. “They all kind of…blend together sometimes.”
I can sense the hesitance in his voice, see it right in front of me. The fear of being vulnerable with the person who could hurt you the most. He wasn’t searching for an answer; he was weighing whether it was worth telling the truth. “That makes your cooking skills even more impressive,” I reply, worried I’ve let the silence sit for too long.
But instead, he beams. “My mom gets most of the credit for that. Dad’s big on personal chefs, but it was different when we moved in with my mom after…everything,” he says with a shrug. “Mom’s schedule is all over the place, and I was always the first one home from school, so it just made sense that I’d handle getting dinner ready. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I did.”
He pauses to reach into the drawer and pull his notebook out. He flips to a random page, a recipe for fried rice. Every margin is filled with notes scrawled down to the farthest edges of the page, every line color-coded.
“We started off without recipes, going by taste for the most part. When she was home, Mom helped me make up my own system, a way of doing things that made more sense to me. It makes recipes less intimidating, knowing I can figure things out my way.” He brushes his thumb reverently against a note at the bottom of the page, not written in his handwriting.
Yours is my favorite—don’t tell halmeoni xx love you
The intimacy feels jarring, like I’m intruding more than I already am. But I’m rooted in place, unable to tear my eyes from Julian. For a fleeting second, it doesn’t feel so impossible to believe that he’s changed. That he’s now too nice to play dirty.
“Maybe you really should consider culinary school.”
That makes him stiffen and chew on his bottom lip. “Yeah…maybe.”
The longer the silence stretches, the more I want to ask the question sitting on the tip of my tongue. “Are you really going to Princeton?” I ask, telling myself it’s because I want to know him. Not because I want to take him down.
Any trace of that old smile fades into a full-on frown as he puts the notebook away. I’m prepared to apologize for asking when he shakes his head slowly. “No.” He meets my eyes, his lacking their casual confidence and charm. “Could you keep that to yourself, though. Please?”
Suddenly, I feel terrible for bringing it up at all. “Yeah, totally, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I set my fork aside to shove my hands into my pockets, guilt ruining my appetite, but Julian grabs my hands before I can. “It’s okay,” he says, releasing me as quickly as he’d grabbed me. “You’re fine. My dad doesn’t know yet.”
“Oh.” With those few words, Julian becomes an even more complex puzzle than I thought. “Do Stella and Henry know?”
He nods. “And my mom too. It’s just Dad.” He starts busying himself with throwing dirty dishes into the sink. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop that on you.”
I’m awful at consoling people. Maya once said I have the emotional intelligence of a broom, and honestly, she had a point. I like distance. Distance means I won’t say the wrong thing or trip my way through saying the right thing.
“It’s okay,” I reply, an empty response to a loaded situation. “That’s what fake boyfriends are for, right?” He turns with a quirked brow. “Saving you from your ex and accepting your baggage.”
It’s not sentimental or endearing or uplifting, but it calms him. Maybe, for once, I said the right thing after all.
“Guess I picked a good one, then.” He returns to the counter with a certain glimmer in his warm brown eyes—maybe sadness, maybe hope.
“The very best,” I reply, and let myself believe that it’s the latter.