Page 67 of Make The Cut

“You can’t choose me overMake the Cut,” she whispers. “This is your dream. You’ve poured everything into this. I can’t make you choose me—”

“You’re notmakingme do anything, Poppy. You justexist, and I want to be with you.” I shake my head at how corny I sound. “I love you more than a show. And I never want to work with Rose again, so really, you’ve done me a huge favour.”

“Really?” Doubt flashes in her blue eyes. I want to kiss her until she believes me, until she realizes that I mean every word I say to her and that I’d never use her or hurt her the way other guys have done in the past.

“I don’t say things to you that I don’t mean.” I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin on the top of her head. “I love you, Petal.”

“I love you, Naoya.”

Chapter Thirty-Two: Poppy Black

A selection of colourful tiles sits across from me. As I try to figure out which one to throw out and which one to keep, Naoya hovers over my shoulder, pointing to the one on the far left. “That one.”

I turn around, scowling despite not bearing any real resentment towards his micromanaging of my game-playing. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You learned how to play mahjong, like, an hour ago.”

Across the table, Naoya’s mother, a sweet middle-aged Chinese woman named Rhoda, clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she says something to Naoya in Cantonese, probably telling him to sit down and stop helping me cheat.

I put out the tile that he didn’t suggest, then realize that I’ve thrown off my own strategy. Oh, well. It’s too late to take it back now. The game ends quickly after that, since the woman sitting on my left immediately snatches it up with a gleeful declaration that it was the missing tile she needed to win.

Oops.

“I told you,” Naoya says, hiding his smirk behind a cup of tea. Today, his temporary tattoos are blue: a teardrop—or maybe just a drop of water—behind his left ear, a blue whale flopping on the back of his right hand, and a bluebell on the inside of his bicep. “You should’ve listened.”

I roll my eyes as the women start putting away the tiles, the clacking noise kind of soothing. “You should’ve listened tomewhen I told you to stop wearing that hideous shirt.”

It’s in a black and red checkered pattern that reminds me of a Goth farmer or a pair of Vans, neither of which are my favourite aesthetic.

“Hey, I like this shirt. It brings out my eyes.”

“Last time I checked, your eyes were neither jet black or blood red, so no, it doesn’t.” More like the brown of a dark, rich cup of hot chocolate, which I don’t say out loud.

His mom chuckles, listening to our conversation. “Naoya, why don’t you and Poppy join us for dim sum afterwards?”

“I’d love to, Auntie Rhoda,” I say.

Just then, Naoya says, “I think we actually have something to do.”

I frown. Why doesn’t he want to eat lunch with his mom? I frown.

“What could possibly be more important than spending time with your dear mother?” she asks, smiling softly as her gaze darts between the two of us.

“Uh…” He rubs the nape of his neck, a sheepish grin on his face. “Nothing. You’re right. Let’s all go to dim sum, then.”

I hop into Naoya’s car and he drives us deeper into the heart of Chinatown, expertly dodging pedestrians who cross the road in the middle of traffic, old men pushing walkers who go at a snail’s pace, and crazy drivers that don’t use their turn signals.

“Why didn’t you want us to have lunch with your mom?” I ask him softly.

“She’s going to bring up my dad.” He sighs, taking one hand off the steering wheel to hold mine. “And I’m just not ready to talk about him.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—“

“No, I should have said something about it.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about him?” I gently squeeze his hand. I know why his relationship with his father is so bad, on paper, but I have no idea how that really looks. He’s never opened up much about his father, other than to tell me about what he did that fuelled the divorce.

“My father is…” Naoya shrugs. “He’s a lot of things, and I know not all of them are bad, but sometimes, I just feel like talking to him or even just talking about him brings all this baggage that I’m just not ready to face yet.”

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