Chapter 22 Tae All Along
Tae All Along
Julia
Julia rang the doorbell and waited. It was a Friday night, and she knew Tae’s parents were at church as hers were. When Tae
said he wanted to talk, she didn’t feel right asking him to come all the way back up to LA again. So she offered to meet him
here at his house.
But she wasn’t sure what this talk was going to be about. And thus wasn’t sure just how to dress for the occasion. Better
safe than sorry, she decided. She dressed up rather than down. And now she was standing outside freezing.
She rang the doorbell again. She knocked a few times for good measure. Tae’s car was in the driveway. She knew he was home.
It was cold. She was getting grouchy. She turned to go down the porch steps and try the side door by the garage when the front
door opened.
“Tae Kim, what took you so long—” She stopped with her mouth wide open, nostrils midflare.
Tae stood in his front doorway in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, one that looked so worn and washed and soft she wanted to put her face up against it and rub, maybe even purr.
His hair was ruffled and his expression so unguarded Julia had to clench her jaw together to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Hey,” he said lazily.
Hey. Jesus Christ, she was going to pass out.
Nothing came out. “H-h . . .” she tried again. What was wrong with her? She cleared her throat. “Hi,” she managed to croak
finally.
He smiled, his eyes scanning Julia from head to toe. She felt it, his assessment, his stare, on every inch of her body. She
looked up at him with his tousled hair and wanted to tell him right there everything she thought she might be feeling in her
heart but had been too afraid, and too damn polite, to say. The one time Julia couldn’t say anything and everything on her
mind.
Julia shivered. She was standing there in the black sleeveless sheath she wore to work, the matching jacket left in the car.
She was either freezing or the downer from her frustration-induced adrenaline rush was taking over.
“Julia, you’re shaking.” He stepped out and wrapped an arm around her, and she immediately sank into the embrace. “Come inside,
you bozo.”
Romantic.
Julia followed Tae into his house and bent down to take her too-high, too-tight, too-uncomfortable heels off. “Oh thank God,”
she moaned.
Tae’s eyes widened for a brief moment. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. But then he just shook his head and took hold
of her hand. “C’mon, let’s get you something warm to wear.”
They went down the hall into his old childhood bedroom. In all the years that Julia had known the Kim family, and the hundreds
of times she’d been over at their house, she had never been in this room. They’d spent most of their time hanging out downstairs
or in the backyard.
“More likely to find something in here that will fit you,” Tae said as he went to the closet.
Julia looked around in fascination. A window into a younger Tae that she knew in memories but couldn’t quite figure out. Baseball
posters and tae kwon do awards. A small desk in the corner. And along the far wall . . .
“A race car bed?” Julia asked. The twin bed was tiny: she couldn’t imagine Tae fitting in the bed past the age of ten. It
was shaped like a red racing car with a comforter and pillow covered in matching NASCAR bedding.
Tae laughed. “Yeah, my parents never changed out this room. It’s been this way since I was a kid. I begged for new furniture
when I hit middle school. But we just never had the money. So I crashed downstairs starting in eighth grade.”
Julia suddenly wondered if he’d ever had a girl in that bed. The thought sent a jealous zinger up her spine, and she was ready
to hurt someone, whoever she was.
“Arms up,” Tae said, holding a gray hoodie in his hand with their high-school mascot on it. She raised her arms as instructed,
and he pulled the sweatshirt down over her head.
“This is from high school when I was a little stick, and it’s still way too big on you,” he said and laughed. He pulled the
hood down off her head and bopped her on the nose. “Warm?”
Julia nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Tae?” Julia had to get the question that had been sitting in her head for days out there.
“Yeah, Jules?”
“I didn’t get to ask you earlier, but how’d things go with Kari? Did she get what she needed by flying out here unannounced?”
Julia’s intention was to be very mature about this line of conversation, but the bite in her words pretty much squashed that.
“Depends on who you ask,” he said. “What I hope she got was some closure so she can move on.”
Julia let out a sigh of relief.
Tae reached out and held her hand in his. “I’m sorry if you were worried or uncertain. I wanted to apologize for her showing
up like that. I wanted to talk to you about what was happening between us before she interrupted. I wanted to tell you a lot
of things . . .” He looked down at their hands connected, mesmerized, almost as if in awe of what he saw. “But I didn’t get
to earlier, not with the date and everything.”
A fire of rage brewed in Julia as she thought about Dr. Park. How dare he? How could he try and embarrass Tae and just . . .
Tae gave Julia’s hand a squeeze to bring her back. She hadn’t realized she’d balled her other one into a fist. She looked
up at him, into his warm, expressive eyes. “It’s okay, Tiger. Really, I’m okay.” He wrapped an arm around her and placed a
small kiss on top of her head before letting her go.
She released a long breath and nodded. She was glad. Tae was always okay. But in the back of her mind, Julia wondered if that
was really the case.
“Wanna hear something hilarious? I feel like maybe only you will get how cringe this was,” Tae offered.
“Uh, absolutely I wanna hear it,” Julia said.
“Well, Kari told my mom she couldn’t eat her cooking.”
Julia’s jaw dropped. “Oh God. What, allergies?”
“Keto,” Tae answered.
“You brought a keto Korean to your mom’s dinner table? Tae Kim, you know better.”
He laughed. “Maybe we should introduce her to Michael Lee and his brown rice.”
Julia’s eyes danced as she shook her head and laughed.
Tae held her gaze, matching smiles on their faces.
Julia dipped her head, breaking their eye contact.
Her hands itched to touch him, to explore all the parts of him she’d never known.
Instead, she tried to distract herself walking up to the old dresser lined with framed pictures across the top.
Family photos from years of love. She traced her fingers along the frames as she took in the Kims at various stages of their lives.
A photo of four caught her eye. It was Tae, Min, Jisoo, and Julia. She recognized it immediately: the last day of Zion Youth
Group summer camp, the one final summer all four of them had returned to be counselors. It was the summer after she’d graduated
business school, right before Starlight became an idea in her head. When she still had a life outside of work.
Julia smiled and shook her head. She lifted the picture up to Tae. “Our last church camp together, remember?”
He looked at Julia and then at the photo in her hand and smiled. He walked over and stood next to her. Close. So close she
thought she could hear his heartbeat. Was it beating as fast as hers? She leaned in, trying not to be obvious, but if she
could just get some contact with Tae’s body . . . just to check . . .
“That was the night you felt me up,” he said.
Julia jumped back as far away from him as she possibly could.
“Excuse me, what did you just accuse me of?”
“You couldn’t keep your hands off of me,” he said with a wicked smile.
“What are you talking about? You’ve got me confused with someone else.” The only other girl there that night was Jisoo, and
Julia did not want to think about Jisoo anywhere near Tae.
“Julia, please. You took one look at my abs and you couldn’t control yourself.”
Julia mouth opened in shock. “Oh my God, that was so innocent. I mean that T-shirt was too small for you, and every time you
moved your arms, you flashed us your abs. You kept bragging that you had an eight-pack. I needed to verify that that was even
possible.”
“Uh-huh.” Tae couldn’t control his laugh.
Julia grabbed the picture from Tae’s hand. “Look, that shirt is tiny on you. And honestly, your abs weren’t that great. Sheesh.” Julia rolled her eyes. In fact, in her memories, his abs were incredible. No skinny nineteen-year-old had any business having abs that ripped.
“Not that great? What? You’re offending me, Julia. I have spectacular abs.”
“Well, you do now.” Julia slapped her hand over her mouth. She had not been sneaking peeks at Tae’s body whatever chance she got. Nope, she
wasn’t.
“Oh, do I? And what do you know about my abs?” he teased. He reached his hand down to grab the bottom of his T-shirt. Slowly,
he began to lift it, centimeter by whatever-is-smaller-than-a-centimeter.
Julia’s eyes were fixed on the small slip of skin that showed. Too slow. Too slow.
Tae dropped his T-shirt and shook his head. “Older women,” he said and tsked.
“What? Older women? I’m not sixty, Tae. I’m only five years older than you. How dare?”
Tae stepped right up to Julia, so close she had to pull her head back to look into his face. He grabbed her hands and wrapped
them around his waist. He placed one hand behind her head, cradling it while the other raked through her hair. Tae leaned
in, looking down at her, eyes on fire.
“Exactly, Julia,” he whispered. “You’re only a few years older than me.” He drew himself closer, so close she could feel the
warmth of his breath on her lips. “So stop using that as an excuse.”