10
Choice
He didn’t know what to say, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary, because she liked him.
She had for a while, but he was right to have hesitated.
Now it would be weird. In the middle of his spotless kitchen, they continued to make out, Mido dropping her jacket and purse on a chair and Peter his car keys on the table.
Slowly he moved her toward the kitchen counter to anchor their bodies.
Mido opened her eyes and saw that he looked happy, and she smiled.
“Do you want to?” he asked, his hands on her waist.
Embarrassed, she couldn’t look at his face and turned to the glass patio doors.
The blue light of the pool was all she could see, and she felt like going outside.
Mido had only been with Tek, and it was a long time ago.
A few times he had reached out, but they had agreed not to talk anymore.
In January it would be five years since they’d last seen each other. Sydney was a world away.
“Too soon,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not that.”
He kissed her again, and Mido remembered what it was like to do this thing, when you had to breathe only through your nose, the unthinking movements of the face and neck as two heads reached for each other. She liked the way his mouth felt on hers.
It wasn’t too soon, because she had known him for so long. Mido couldn’t imagine not being with him now. They had spent so much time together. When he teased her, she tapped his shoulder or forearm. In a meeting with a parent or student, they were a pair, almost like a unified voice and mind.
His beautiful hands were stroking her back, and she relaxed into him.
Peter was an attractive man. When he sang, she felt like a fan, and she had to make an effort to act normal around him when he stepped off the stage.
Long ago, she’d figured he was off-limits because they worked together.
He was her brother’s best friend; he was Lion’s bandmate; he had become a dear friend to her.
What if this ended poorly? she had wondered.
Already she had lost Tek because they’d found they didn’t know how to only be friends.
When DH offered to set her up with his roommate Nick Yang, Mido had briefly considered it, but even thinking about it had somehow felt like a betrayal of Peter.
There was an unspoken agreement: They were together, and had kept that bond unbroken by refusing to acknowledge this attraction.
They had kept from touching, holding, and now their hands searched for skin beneath the clothing covering their bodies.
Brushing her hair aside, he kissed her neck lightly, doing something he had wanted to do for a long time. Mido had a graceful neck, always unadorned. Sometimes when she talked, he would stare at the delicate movements of her throat, wanting to kiss it.
“Where?” she asked, and Peter understood her question.
“There’s a room in the back. Near the garage.”
“Will DH wake up?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Could he hear us?”
“It’s soundproof.”
He took her hands and kissed her again.
They’d never held hands before, and oddly, this felt intimate, more than if they had removed their clothes.
He led her to a room and shut its heavy door, creating a calming hush.
Inside were a daybed and two large desks. A piano stood in one corner and beside it, multiple acoustic and electric guitars. The walls were decorated with framed posters of the Cure, the Clash, and Blondie. There was a large gas fireplace.
“Does that work?”
“Yeah.” Peter flipped a switch, and blue flames rose above the stack of birch logs. “I almost never use it, but it’s nice.”
Outside the window, the swimming pool glowed, blue and serene, like a hotel postcard.
“Is this where you write your music?”
“This is my studio.” Peter held her waist and kissed her neck.
He hadn’t been with anyone since Cesca, and he’d almost forgotten how intensely he wanted to be with a woman he cared about.
It wasn’t clear when he’d started to like Mido, but he’d kept himself from reaching for her so many times, and it was the strangest feeling to have her in his studio.
He stopped himself as if waking from a deep dream. “You sure?” he asked.
She nodded.
He unbuttoned her blue long-sleeved dress, which he’d seen her wear numerous times. The fabric was a heavy cotton, worn soft from many washings, and he inhaled the floral scent of her hair and body. Mido pulled his green sweater over his head.
When he fumbled with her brassiere, she unclasped it, and they were both naked.
In a passing moment of clarity, Mido said, “This is kind of crazy. Are we going to be normal tomorrow? At work?”
Switching to Korean, Peter said, “I take full responsibility. Will you?”
Afterward, Peter made her an omelet, then drove her home.
DH was still asleep. There was another guest room in the house, but she wanted to get back for her father.
Peter didn’t insist, and she felt relieved not having to argue the way she had with Tek about sleeping over.
She had never spent the night out with a man.
She was twenty-seven years old, and her father must know that she wasn’t a virgin, but it didn’t seem right to stay out.
In front of her house, they remained in the parked car, not knowing how to say goodbye although they’d see each other in a few hours. The car ride over had been filled with polite talk, and a sweet silence, holding hands.
“The confession,” he said in Korean. “I’ll make it now.”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
“I like you. A lot. I have for quite some time. For several years. Even when you were with that lawyer.”
Mido shook her head in disbelief.
“I had no idea. Truly. You could work as a spy.”
“Good to know that I am still a man of mystery, not just a failed musician slash math tutor.”
He waited for her to say something serious. Their lovemaking had been so erotic and natural, and he would have liked to be with her again, but he’d known he had to bring her home.
“Another thing,” he said. “I want to go out with you. I mean, if you want to go out with me. But I don’t believe in marriage.”
“Is that what you meant by responsibility?” She switched to Korean. “Gosh, what will my brothers say?” She laughed out loud.
“What?” Peter looked concerned.
“I didn’t say I wanted to get married, but I think if this is the paradigm you’re working from, then perhaps my family can’t know that we’re together.
I mean, for now. The speculation will start right away.
They are like regular brothers. I’m pretty certain they’re worried about my romantic future. ”
“DH knows how I feel about marriage,” Peter said.
“Not sure if he wants me to date you,” she said.
“He definitely doesn’t. He told me you’re off-limits.” Peter laughed. “I guess I didn’t listen.”
“I don’t think I need my brother’s permission on who I date.”
“So we’re dating then?”
“I guess.”
“Then today is day one.”
“You are Korean.” She laughed. “I better go inside.”
Getting dressed the next morning, Mido took a little more care than usual with her clothes and makeup. She put on a coral-colored cotton dress with long sleeves, a cherry wool sweater, and white tennis sneakers. Peter picked her up, no differently from any other Monday.
All night she’d thought about Peter and his stated terms for their relationship, and she surprised herself that she might be dating a man who would not marry.
After refusing to return to Australia with Tek, she’d wondered if anyone would propose to her again, even though it seemed conventional to care about getting married at all.
She hadn’t even finished college. After her mother died, it was as if time had stopped.
Everything had stopped except for work and family.
None of them knew what to do about the future without Helen.
DH dated occasionally, but nothing had stuck.
There was a fellow graduate student at UCLA who liked Bo, but he didn’t think he could start a serious relationship until he finished his degree.
It was as if each of them had agreed to postpone anything that would separate them from the family unit.
Mido had not expected Peter to say he didn’t want to marry in the same breath he used to declare his committed interest in her. At this moment in her life, she was okay with dating a man who didn’t want to get married, but now that he’d said it, she wanted to understand why.
Mido’s first and only lover had wanted to marry her, and though the endless public discussion of her marriage prospects irritated her, it had never occurred to her that she’d date someone who was against it.
It felt too awkward to ask, because the act of asking might make it seem she wanted to marry him, no different from all the others in their world who persisted in asking these personal questions.
So pride and shame now kept her from seeking his reasoning, and it wasn’t shame about rejection but rather shame about not seeming independent-minded as a modern woman.
They needed coffee. Peter suggested the McDonald’s drive-through to pick up breakfast, and she agreed. He knew she liked the hash browns.
Peter ordered the usual for them—two Egg McMuffin sandwiches, three hash browns—two for her—and large coffees.
He handed her the bag of food, and Mido unwrapped his breakfast sandwich for him so he could eat while driving.
She’d never done this before, blushing at the memory because it was something she would’ve done for Tek when he drove.
“Thank you,” he said, taking a bite, keeping his eyes on the road. “Starving.”
Mido drank her coffee and wondered how things would change.
At Fortress, they had meetings all morning with high school parents about college applications and testing, and during meetings, she caught him looking at her.
With a two-hour break before more parent meetings and before tutors arrived for afternoon teaching sessions, Peter suggested going out to lunch instead of ordering in.