24. Ash
ASH
Jenny and I keep our dinner plans, because cold is perfect weather for Nabe and our favorite hole-in-the-wall Japanese place only has five tables. Also because if I sat at home picturing Kael at Alistair’s party, I’d climb the walls.
The front windows are fogged, with the tiny dining room hidden behind a heavy curtain. I hurry in for warmth and run straight into Jenny in the little waiting space.
“Whoa.” She steadies me with a hug. “Hi, friend.”
“It’s freezing. Hi. Sorry.”
“Glad you didn’t cancel.” Jenny peeks through a slit in the curtain. “Once I heard Kael couldn’t make it…”
“Shabu-shabu,” I say, which is all the explanation she needs.
“I needed this too,” she sighs.
“Shabu-shabu?”
“Yes. Ben’s driving me crazy. He started making these little chore lists. I asked him to help more, but coming home from work to a list of shit to do is giving me angina.”
I mime stirring the hotpot.
She puckers her lips and gives me a look. “Shabu-shabu,” she echoes, dragging out the syllables.
“Shabu sha—”
“Um.” The hostess pokes her head past the curtain. “Your table is ready.”
Jenny swats my arm.
At our favorite corner table, sharing a bottle of warm sake, Jenny unloads about her in-laws. They don’t understand her early retirement plans. Ben is fully supportive, but his parents are convinced they’re throwing away opportunities.
“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before,” she says. “How do they not see me throwing away opportunities with nonstop travel at a soul-sucking job? Wyatt’s plays. Date nights with Ben.”
“And Bestie,” I add. “Who cares what they think?”
“That doesn’t work with in-laws. Not Korean ones.” She pours more sake. “I miss this. Us. Not recording a podcast, just hanging out.”
“I missed this,” I say, swishing a thin slice of pork through the broth between us. “Shabu. Shabu.”
Jenny finishes the last edamame, which makes me think of Kael.
“Kael’s gram—she’s basically the woman who raised him,” I say.
“I know Gram.”
“Apparently years ago she went to a party where they served edamame, but she’d never had it before.
Spent the whole night slurping down the empty pods, trying to be polite.
She told Kael later she didn’t understand why anybody liked them.
” I gesture to our pile of shells. “He’s like, ‘The bean’s pretty much a vessel for salt,’ and she goes, ‘What bean? What salt?’”
Jenny’s jaw drops. “Ewww.” She shudders. “Disgusting.”
“So gross.” I’m grinning anyway. I’ve heard enough Gram stories that it feels like I’ve known her for years instead of weeks.
“And now we talk about Kael,” Jenny says, smiling in a way that makes me look down into my sake. “You two are moving fast.”
“He’s amazing.”
“Didn’t say he wasn’t amazing. I said you’re moving fast.”
“It’s been six weeks since the fire.” Hearing it out loud makes me wonder who I’m trying to convince. “Okay, that’s fast. Do you think it’s too fast?”
Jenny grabs my hand. “You know, if you told me to leave Ben, we’d stop being friends.”
“Ben is the man. I would never.”
“He is the man.” She squeezes my fingers. “But my point is, best friend advice is sacred… it’s just not supposed to outrank your own gut. If I told you to leave Kael and you thought I was wrong, what would you say?”
“Are you saying I should leave him?” The question comes out hot as my stomach twists.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying.” She sighs. “I’m saying I love you, and I don’t even listen to everything you say. Someday, you’ll have someone who trumps me.”
My stomach stays tight. “So it’s too fast, but it’s my decision?”
She winces. “No. I mean—yes, it’s your decision.
And also, maybe it is too fast. I suck at this.
” She blows out a breath. “Kael is wonderful. Is moving in together six weeks after meeting too fast? Maybe. It might be. But it’s also clearly not stopping you.
You’re happy. He makes you happy. And if that means you break a few rules…
” She raises her glass. “I say, let’s hear it for the boy. ”
She doesn’t even know the half of it. I’m well past wondering if it’s too fast to move in.
It’s too fast to feel like I know him the way I think I do: where he’s left his glasses when he loses them, how his eyes light up when I say his name when we’re together, the thing I’d say if I weren’t scared he’d think it’s too soon.
“Aww.” I clink my glass against hers. “He is wonderful. Not at all who I thought I’d end up with, but…”
“Nobody wants a jelly and jelly sandwich,” she says. “Am I supposed to ignore the fact that you just said ‘end up with’?”
“Yes. That’s too fast.”
“Way too fast,” she agrees, then cups a hand around her mouth to whisper, “Ben says he knew on our first date.”
“That is so Ben,” I say, eyes wide. “I keep thinking about investing rules like, ‘if it seems too good to be true, it is.’ How did I get so lucky?”
Jenny laughs, something flickering across her face before she drowns it in a sip of sake.
“What?” I ask.
She turns bright red. “You’re adorable, but do you remember when I first started seeing Ben and you told me you thought he dressed badly?”
“Oh, come on. That was stupid,” I protest.
“No. You said it because you wondered what it meant.”
“I did not.”
“Ash.” Her voice is annoyingly confident. “You thought it was a red flag.”
I plead the Fifth with my face.
“And it kind of was,” she says. “Ben is both the man and someone who struggles with low self-esteem. It’s part of what I signed up for. We work on it. He works on it. He sees past things about me too, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
Jenny’s told me the story of how her making more money fed into it, how it started long before they met. They worked through it and still do, just like she said.
None of that explains why she’s bringing it up now.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“Exactly.” She smiles. “You’re falling for Kael, and it’s adorable.”
My cheeks cool as I put it together. She’s not saying Kael is perfect. She’s saying my “too good to be true” line is the same as her not wanting to see Ben’s issues.
“Alright. Free pass,” I say. “Tell me all the red flags you think I’m missing. Bring me back down to Earth.”
Jenny shakes her head, laughing. “Uh, that’s a trap.”
I know what she’s thinking. “Kael’s whole situation with Alistair is unexpected and bizarre,” I say. “Can’t believe he knows one of the wealthiest men on the planet and that man is a creep.”
“What’s unexpected about that?” She snorts.
“Not that, I guess. Maybe it’s good the gays get a rich asshole. Equality.” I swirl my sake. “I just don’t see how Kael got into that situation, and I can admit it’s a red flag. He’s basically made himself available to Alistair’s beck and call to keep the lights on. It can’t possibly be worth it.”
Jenny slurps up one long noodle, chews, and just watches me over the rim of her bowl, eyes going glassy.
“You sound like a real asshole,” she says.
“What?”
“We just finished talking about trading time for money. I’m weeks from early retirement. You’re worth millions of dollars but still working.”
“We’re lucky,” I say. “We worked hard, but we’re lucky. I get it.”
She points her chopsticks at me. “We’re doing the same thing. At least Kael’s doing what he loves.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Excuse me,” the waitress interrupts, leaning around the half wall by our table. “Do you need anything?”
“I think we’re fine,” I say.
“Sake. More sake,” Jenny says, then straightens back into her lawyer persona to present her case.
“Come on. Kael might have the boss from hell, but tell me what’s different.
Tell me why it’s so much more noble for you to suffer at Query or for me to fly across the country every week doing mind-numbing work, but Kael can’t do what he loves for money? ”
“He doesn’t want to,” I say. “It’s not just money. Alistair makes him feel trapped. He tried to use the wildfire to manipulate him.”
“Fine. That’s different.” Jenny opens one hand at a time over the table, weighing it out. “Kael does what he loves in a way he doesn’t like. We do what we hate so maybe, someday, we can do what we like.”
“Also,” I admit, lowering my voice, “I don’t want him to. I think it’s horrible that Alistair said he’d airlift my boyfriend out of a wildfire only if he agreed to sleep with him.”
“He wasn’t your boyfriend then, and Kael said no.” She shrugs. “It’s weird. It’s really weird. Just don’t get all high and mighty like you can’t understand it. Support him. Don’t save him.”
Jenny’s comments make me squirm.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I hate how you make me think,” I say.
That breaks her courtroom stare into a guffaw. “We can just talk about the stock market if you want.”
“Ugh.” I fold my arms. “I wanted to ask if you still knew that guy who runs an art gallery in Mission Bay.”
“Yeah. Tom.” She narrows her eyes. “What do you want from him?”
“Well, now I don’t know.” I pour more sake, suddenly unsure of my intentions.
“I was going to ask if we could hold a gallery for Kael. Help him get some exposure, maybe make some money, without Alistair. I just want him to see himself the way I see him. Not desperate. Not dependent. Just… brilliant. Worth the space.”
Even to me, that sounds a little too much like salvation.
“Did you talk to Kael?”
“No. I wanted it to be a surprise. To just… do something. Fix one thing. But now I’m wondering if that’s wrong.”
“Nice idea, but Kael doesn’t need fixing,” Jenny says. “And I’m guessing you don’t see how not talking to him means you’re gambling that nothing will go wrong?”
I shrug.
She gives me a look and starts reciting my own religion back to me. “Where’s VTSAX and chill? Where’s slow and steady?”
My shoulders slump. “You do think we’re moving too fast.”
“I think you’re my favorite person,” Jenny corrects, squeezing my hand. “It’s fun seeing you head over heels, taking risks, moving fast. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“And throwing Kael a surprise gallery will hurt me? A surprise is just so much more romantic.”
She rolls her eyes.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking if we’re doing this, we’re going to make it one hell of a gallery,” she says. “I’ll talk to Tom.”
“All right!” I clap. “Thank you.”
Jenny’s right. We’re moving fast. I’m taking risks, but it doesn’t feel like sabotaging my future. This is how I intend to build one.
Kael’s worth the risk. I just can’t tell how much of the plan is really for him, and how much is for the part of me that needs to prove I can give him something Alistair never could.