Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
M arcus doesn’t let go of my hand as he unlocks our front door, but he hesitates, the key dangling from the lock. “Never done the whole doorstep goodnight kiss thing.” He smiles down at me. “Since neither of us had an actual doorstep, I’m kinda dying to try it now that we do.”
His eyes move to my lips. I press them together like they’re going to leap off my face and attack his if he doesn’t get on with it, then grin up at him. “I mean…I had a fire escape, which is basically the same thing. So many missed opportunities.”
“Which I deeply regret,” he murmurs, leaning down until his lips brush my ear. “Not gonna miss this one.” His hands slide around my waist to my lower back, gathering me to him. My arms wrap around his neck, settling into the place they’ve created and still fit perfectly into after all their time away from him.
His mouth moves against mine, hesitantly, like he’s waiting for my response, and when I press against him, relief and anticipation mix in a desperate sigh.
His hands slide over my hips, his fingers pressing into them as he sidesteps us to the door and bumps it open with his shoulder. “Jerry and Wen can’t watch us in here,” he breathes against my mouth, pulling me inside and shutting the door with his foot.
He backs me against it in our dark cottage, his lips pulling sounds from me as his hands glide up my sides until he’s cradling the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair.
Relief rushes through me, a familiar crackling heat that sweeps away the past and hurt and misunderstanding. Our bodies curl around each other, but I’m still not close enough to him. He whispers “I love you, Mei” in my ear, and the words pool in my stomach before flooding my legs, swirling through my body as his mouth skims down my neck. All the time that has piled up between us melts in our heat, his body pinning me in a corner of the world only big enough for the two of us. I deepen the kiss, my hands on the back of his neck, curling in his hair.
He swears, guiding me backward toward the couch, holding me close as my back meets the cushions, his body hovering over mine.
All the thoughts he’s held inside rush from him in heated whispers, his mouth leaving his feelings in warm patches all over my skin. I pull him down, his weight pressing me deeper into the moment, deeper into the heat and relief winding around us. Our mouths and hands desperately release all they’ve been holding back until his smooth, warm hands slip under my shirt trailing fire.
I gasp, my fingertips digging into his back, my legs wrapping around his hips to close the space between us, but he curses and stills, drops his head to my shoulder, chest heaving. His heartbeat pounds through me as I clutch at him to keep him in the moment with me, but he growls, frustrated as he talks into my neck. “I gotta cool down or clothes are coming off.”
“Which would be bad because…?” I breathe into his shoulder, my hands in his hair.
His mouth takes control of mine again, my head swirling, body weightless even with his weight on me.
“Remind me why I wanted to wait,” he rasps against my lips, both of us breathless. He drops his head to the center of my chest, then groans and shifts to the side, settling between me and the back of the couch.
One hand moves to my neck, the other to my hip and he rolls me to face him, then leans his forehead against mine, our heartbeats bouncing off each other. “Whyyyy…” he sighs, his lips brushing my temple.
I bring one hand to his neck, curling his hair between my fingers, holding him in the steamy inch between us. “Because you have something to prove, apparently.” I smile up at him and catch his lips with mine for a soft, lingering kiss.
He pulls me closer until our stomachs are pressed together. “And also…” I whisper between long, deep kisses that drag my soul up to him, “you said you wanted to marry me first.”
His eyes are glossy in the dark, and I kiss his jaw, smiling when his body wraps around mine again. His fingers play with the waistband of my jeans, sending goosebumps across my back and around my stomach.
I draw a heart on his chest with my fingertip, my body slowly sinking into the couch as my hormones sigh, dejected but happy for any Marcus time. “But until then, I’m okay being here, just like this. With my favorite roommate.”
His teeth catch my lower lip, his arm wrapping around me, squeezing me until a laugh bursts from me. “I’ll be your roommate,” he says, sliding down so we’re face to face. “Your roommate with some pretty great benefits. With limits. For now.”
“I’ll take any of your benefits,” I say, kissing him, our bodies sinking into each other again, and when we surface a few seconds or minutes or hours later, he smiles, beaming light into the darkness blanketing us.
“Good news is…we don’t have curfews. No parents, no interruptions.” He kisses me until my legs tingle. “We could make out all night.”
“Clothes on?”
“Necessary,” he says, his lips making detours under my jaw, up to my ear. “And I’m just glad neither of us had a doorstep before now. We would’ve been in so much trouble.”
One Week Later
Sunlight peeks through the crack in the curtains, like it’s afraid to disturb us but has to get the day going. A golden pool spreads across the wood floor and onto my face, brushing me with warmth, but not nearly as warm as Marcus’s bare chest against my back or my legs tangled in his.
Everything around me feels light and perfectly placed. Abundant and full, no matter how sparse our cottage is, like Marcus fills all the space around me, even when we’re apart. Like he’s filled all the craggy places where Nick used to lurk and dissolved all the dark memories.
I smile as Marcus’s arm tightens around me, pulling me closer in a tug-of-war with the morning—the same as every morning this week when I’ve had to get up for work earlier than he has. After our hour-long make out session a week ago, we’d stayed tangled together on the couch in the dark, listening to the trees rustling against our roof. When I’d kissed his ear and gotten up to get ready for bed, since I had an early shift the next day, Marcus watched me, his eyes glossy from where he lay on the couch in the dark. After I’d slipped into my bed, he’d gotten up and walked into the bathroom, then come out and crawled over me in bed, whispering good night as he’d kissed my neck and pulled me back against his chest.
I’m so grateful we talked that night. I’m so, so thankful we were honest with each other. I wish he knew how his fears make me feel even safer with him. I know he would never do anything to make me uncomfortable, and I want to do the same for him.
I stretch and attempt to slip out of the covers without waking him, even though I want to stay like this all day. He groans in protest, and I smile, bending down to kiss him.
“My chest’s so cold now,” he mumbles.
“Maybe you should put on a shirt,” I suggest with a smirk.
“Maybe you should take yours off…” He smiles a slow, lazy smile.
“You taking back your stupid rule?”
He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head, and looks at me again, grinning. “No matter how much I want to.”
“Your loss,” I laugh before walking into the bathroom.
“Oh good! Just in time,” Jill says when I push through the door to the kitchen, the restaurant’s cordless phone in her hand. I just finished with my last table of the night, and after being here for ten hours, I’m so ready to get home to Marcus, lock the door, and pretend nothing outside it exists.
Home. Marcus. Our place. Our life. The new us, the do-over. Not only was I the only Marcus winner in the universe the first time, but somehow, I’m also the winner for a second time.
“In time for what?” I ask Jill, jerking back to reality. I untie my apron and hang it on its hook.
She holds the phone out. “For you.” She shrugs. “Not Marcus. I would’ve kept talking to him if it was.”
I stare at the phone while a familiar unease stirs in my stomach from where it’s been dormant for almost a month. If it’s not Marcus, then who? Jerry and Wen are the only other people I talk to, and they’re up in the office. Guo Mama gets updates from Jerry. No one else knows where we are.
Unease hardens into fear as a very unwelcome thought stomps through my head: What if it’s Nick? What if Nick found us? Or did he find Marcus and is calling to threaten and hurt me in the one way he knows he can?
But Marcus has been at work all day—hidden in a warehouse on the outskirts of Seattle. How would Nick find him there? Also…Nick’s in jail. But what about Xander? Chaz?
My stomach coils around every name, and Jill must see the discomfort on my face because she tilts her head and frowns. “Want me to take a message?”
I nod. “Ask who it is,” I whisper, and Jill studies me before holding the phone to her ear again.
“Can I ask who’s calling?” She keeps her eyes on my face. Pauses. “Oh. Yeah. Okay. Hold on.” Jill pushes mute and holds the phone out to me again. “Guo Mama?”
I leap toward Jill and snatch the phone out of her hands. I’ve only talked to Guo Mama once since arriving in Seattle, and that was a quick call from Jerry’s phone to tell her we arrived safely.
“Hello?” I blurt into the phone, before waving a shaky hand and mouthing “thank you” to Jill as she leaves. If it were Marcus on the other end, she would have lingered and eavesdropped. “Hold on.” I walk into the break room and shut the door behind me, pressing my back against it. “Hello!”
“Xiao Mei.” The calm in her voice warms the distance between us and relief ripples through me. I will call you another time to catch up, but right now, someone needs to talk to you.”
The phone rustles, and I frown, flipping through possibilities. But before my thoughts go too far, a familiar voice says my name on the other end, and my brain grinds to a stop.
“Mama?”
“I am so happy to hear your voice.”
My throat dries, and the words shrivel and blow away in the gust of shock and confusion. I thought she was gone—deported by now. With Baba. I have so many questions but all I get out is, “Hi.”
“Are you well?”
Tears sting my eyes, and I wait for my mind to recover, squeezing out a single syllable. “Yes.”
“Good.” A pause. “Good.”
I clear my throat. “How are you?”
“Your father is in custody, and it is only a matter of time before we are deported. Together or separately, I don’t know, but I don’t care. I’ve been staying with Guo Mama. You’re safe, and that’s what I care about most.”
My mind snags on her sentence, examining it for truth.
“To answer your question, I haven’t been this good in a very long time.”
My legs surrender to the shock, and I drop into a chair, my hand at my mouth. Custody? Was Baba doing the same thing Nick was doing…? If so, I’m the one who called the police. I’m the one who sent him to jail.
“I’m so sorry, Mama,” I whisper, my voice cracked and crumbling. “It’s my fault he’s in?—”
She shushes me. “No. It is his. All of this is his fault. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Silence stretches between us. The picture in the folder she gave me the last time I saw her rises from where it’s been buried under more recent worries. The Facebook profile of a guy I’ve never met and a note in Mama’s handwriting: “He doesn’t know about you. But you should know about him.”
I search for where to start on the long list of questions I’ve been collecting since getting Peter Mitchell’s picture. “What you said before I left.” My heart drums, urging me to keep going. “Is it true? Is Baba really not my father?”
The silence on the other end is like gravity, pulling me into it, and I press the phone closer to my ear like that will make her answer faster.
“He’s not,” Mama whispers. “I’m sorry—I wish I had more time to explain, and someday I will, I promise, but that is not the reason for my call.” She takes a deep breath. “Nick’s been released. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold him, and he’s been asking questions. He doesn’t know where you are, but you must be careful. You can’t come back here, or he will find you and Marcus. It’s not safe here.”
My eyes burn, and I circle my hand around my throat like I can suffocate the scorching memory of Nick’s hands around it. How did the police not have enough evidence? There was a hotel full of it. I led them to Su Ling and the other missing women. If trafficking, kidnapping, and attempted rape isn’t enough to hold him, what is?
But I didn’t show the police the evidence he left on me. Only Su Ling saw. And Marcus. Guo Mama. My tip was anonymous.
And then there are the pictures on Nick’s phone—the ones of me and Marcus. The evidence that sent us both running.
“He should be locked up for the rest of his life. I don’t understand.”
“When the police found him, he was hurt. He told them you attacked him. We are all sure no one believes him, but they have no other evidence to hold Nick, only others. So now the restaurant is closed, and things are uncertain. Especially since Su Ling worked for us before she disappeared. It doesn’t look good.” She trails off, her voice thick when she talks again. “I didn’t realize the extent of what he was doing, and he threatened me when I asked questions. If I had known, I never would have let you go to L.A. I’m so sorry I didn’t stop it. I wish I never married that man.”
Old, stale anger crackles in my stomach. I’m sorry she didn’t, too, because now Nick has turned everything upside down and inside out.
“I just needed to know you are okay before I go back to Taiwan. And also…”
My breathing is trying to outrun her words.
“I needed you to know I love you, and I’m so proud of you. You are so brave. Guo Mama will keep me updated about you and Marcus. Look after each other. I will see you again.”
After she rushes a goodbye and ends the call, I keep the phone at my ear, frozen in the news and in the space between past and present and the fear that holds my two realities together.
I hate Nick more than ever. I hate that he’s part of my story. I hate that he’s been released. I hate that he lied to the police and blamed me and that he thinks he has the right to ask questions about me. I hate that he will never go away and especially hate that Su Ling and I didn’t kill him when we had the chance. But most of all, I hate that I have to tell Marcus any of this. Things have been so good this week. We started over and kind of forgot about anything from before. I haven’t had any flashbacks or panic attacks. We’ve fallen asleep curled together every night. We’ve made out like we used to, laughing and driving each other to the edge, teasing and torturing ourselves but loving every minute of it because there’s no rush. There’s no time limit. There’s no desperation to hold onto each other because someone could rip us apart. The threat of Nick was gone until this moment, and we were so light. But now, I have to drop this heaviness on Marcus once again. It could crush us this time.
“Mei Li?” Jill’s voice calls from the other side of the break room door. “Someone just came in and sat at table seven. I’m two tables over already, and I know you’re off, but I could really use your help. I promise not to lust after your boyfriend anymore if you do this for me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a few seconds then open the door. “I’ve got it.” I grab a tablet from the counter and make my way to table seven, signing in as I walk. I don’t look up until I’m in front of the table. In front of a guy with messy dark blond hair and blue eyes that cut through the dim restaurant as they meet mine with a smile that shatters this tiny spot on the planet with its light.
I collect myself, the surprise of seeing Marcus sweeping away my earlier news. Everything is okay. We’re safe. Somewhere Nick can’t find us. We’re together. “Hi. Welcome to China Isle. My name’s Mei Li, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”
“I bet you will.” Marcus smirks and sits back in his chair. He crosses his arms over his chest, wiggles his eyebrows. “I fully plan on letting you take care of me tonight.”
I bite my bottom lip to keep a straight face. “Can I start you off with something to drink?”
“A nice, tall glass of Mei-Z would be perfect.”
“Sir, I’ll ask you to leave if you can’t behave yourself.”
“This is behaving myself.”
I clench my jaw to keep from smiling, eager to keep up the banter so I don’t have to think about how to tell Marcus about Nick. “Are you ready to order?”
“Definitely. Easy. It’s my favorite thing at this restaurant. Like, I honestly can’t get enough of it. Crave it all day every day.”
“Ah. Sweet and sour pork. Great choice.” I tap a few buttons on the tablet, my focus decidedly on Marcus in my peripheral vision.
“I don’t think she’d appreciate being called that. And she’s wayyy better than sweet and sour pork, and I consider myself a connoisseur.” He smirks. “Besides…tonight, I’m looking for something a little…spicier, maybe?”
I lean closer, my lips on his ear. “Pantry’s empty…”
“Ooh.” He turns his head toward me, our noses touching. “The pantry would be the perfect place for me to tell you my news. And then celebrate it.”
His words stomp through me, kicking up dust from the news I got earlier, but I breathe in through my nose and slide into the chair across from him. He’s practically buzzing, his knee bouncing, fingers fidgeting with his watchband. I lean toward him. “Do you really have news?”
He smiles and nods. “Yeah. Big news.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“I thought I’d just eaten something funky but…yeah. And you’re the father, Mei. I didn’t know how else to tell you, so I’m just saying it.”
“But I’m not ready to be a father.”
“I’m fifty-eight weeks, so too bad because I’m about to give birth to some seriously big news.” He leans back in the chair, puts his hands over his stomach, spreads his legs and pretends to push.
I laugh again, then stop. “Wait—in all seriousness, why aren’t you at work? Don’t you work swing tonight? Did you get fired? Don’t give birth to that news, please.”
“Nooo, but I might after this because I got the news and couldn’t wait until 1 AM to tell you. So I left.”
“What is it?” I ask, his excitement nudging my curiosity and hope.
He leans forward, his chair legs landing back on the floor. “I got in. Back in, actually.”
I frown, searching his face for clues. “Back in where?”
His smile spreads, his eyes lighting up. “Stanford. I got back into Stanford, Mei. Just got an email. And I got my scholarship back. They still want me. Next week, for pre-season.”
Marcus’s excitement rolls toward me, lifting me out of my chair, and I lean over the table until our faces are inches apart. “Are you serious?!”
“So serious, Mei. Like unbelievably, dead serious.” He presses his forehead against mine and takes my face in his hands. “Life could not get any better than it is right now—we’re together again and now Stanford.”
Stanford.
Realization settles after the explosion of news, and I feel the blood rush from my face. Stanford is close to San Francisco. Too close. Mama’s news murmurs through my mind, and my stomach drops away from it, pulling my smile down with it until Marcus frowns at me.
“You okay?”
“Yes!” I blurt, plastering a smile back on my face and sitting back in my chair. I have to pull it together. He can’t know. “Just really surprised. This is…sudden, but so exciting!”
“Crazy, yeah? I can’t believe it either. Our whole life is about to change. Again. But for the better. We’re outta here next week!”
Out of here, headed closer to San Francisco.
“That’s…so soon.” I say, breathless.
“No more waiting, no more wondering. Just us, starting over in a new place we can call home for a while.”
I push down the growing panic spreading like acid through me because I’m going to lie to Marcus. I can’t tell him about Nick, and ruin this moment or any future moments. I’ve taken him from one life already, and I won’t do it a second time. He wants Stanford, and I want us, so I’ll keep what I know to myself and pray to any and all gods who will listen that Nick never finds us.