His dark hair still gleamed, the strands cascading over his shoulder. There was the tiniest little braid woven into it and a small bobby pin keeping his hair pulled back from his face. I forced my leaf key chain through my thumb and forefinger, dying to experience the feel of that little braid.
Then I imagined the ways I could ruin it.
“Dezi?” Liem asked as if it wasn’t for the first time.
“Hmm?” I asked, meeting his gaze.
“We were wondering if you had a nap? You seem a little out of it,” Bree supplied, her raspy voice sounding amused.
“Why does that sound like something you’d ask one of Jeanne’s kids and not a grown-ass man?” I hadn’t quite snapped, but there was an edge that surprised even me.
My horniness and existential moping were getting the better of me.
Silence fell over the car, and it felt like shit. It was also the perfect example of how I could botch this.
But then Vinh cleared his throat softly and mumbled, “Ass man.”
Three beats of stunned silence followed before he lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror and smirked, cueing a fit of giggles from the backseat.
The tension dissipated as quickly as it’d arrived, and I resolved to get Vinh a gift, though I wasn’t sure exactly what he liked.
Maybe some batteries—the good name-brand ones.
I should probably start a Vinh box, too, especially since he was essentially going to be my brother-in-law one day, based on the way his relationship with Bree was progressing. The closerwe got, the more I was going to see things that reminded me of him, and I’d need somewhere to put them.
“Sorry, guys,” I said to the car at large, then startled as a hand squeezed my right shoulder, but when I glanced down and saw the freckles, I relaxed.
Until a tattooed one squeezed my other.
Going against my instincts, I let their physical reassurances wash over me. Glancing at Vinh, whose smirk had transformed to a full-blown smug smile, I let out a breath and smiled along with him.
For the rest of the ride, I kept the key chain gripped in my hand and my gaze on the passing scenery, content to listen to Bree and Liem debate what they were going to order at the restaurant and how many spring rolls we should get until we pulled off the highway and into a small parking lot.
Bree and Liem led the charge inside the hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant, while Vinh and I followed behind and exchanged an amused look at their eagerness.
Vinh saved me once again when we reached the burgundy booth by immediately sliding into the spot beside his brother, leaving me to sit beside Bree.
As I situated myself in the booth, my thoughts shifted to that night I’d spent sitting alone in Waffle House a little more than a year ago.
It felt like an entirely different lifetime from this one.
Lifting my gaze from the worn table, I found Liem studying me with a slight furrow in his brow and a tilt to his head, and I was confronted with the urge to reassure him but settled for giving him a small smile instead when the waiter appeared.
We all ordered waters, and then Liem ordered eight spring rolls for the table, which was apparently the number he and Bree had decided on in the car.
The dregs of that memory remained, something about it nagging my brain until it came to me.
“Hey, LL?” I asked, gazing at him across the table.
He smiled at me. “Yes, Dezi?”
“Why were you in that art history class last year? The one you were wildly overqualified to take?”
I’d never thought to question it before—why someone of his talents and experience would have been in a class with someone like me. At the time, I’d just been grateful for someone to talk to and to help me through it. I felt Bree’s and Vinh’s gazes on me but kept my attention on Liem as he answered.
“Ah, yes,” Liem said, tossing his hair over his shoulder. “Kilns are expensive, you see.”
I nodded even though I really didn’t.
