Page 152 of Hello Stranger

“Oh, hello,” I said, with a frisson of delight when it happened. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” Daniel agreed gamely, with no clue what I meant.

“You are cuter than Sue said,” I said.

At that, Daniel laughed and gave me a side squeeze, and that’s when I looked up to see Joe watching us.

“Say something funny,” I said to Daniel real quick.

“Like what?” Daniel asked.

And then I burst out laughing like that was it.

Then Daniel laughed because I was laughing.

When we settled, Daniel said, “So. That guy who’s been watching you this entire time? Are you trying to make him jealous?”

Joe had been watching me this entire time? That felt like a sad little victory.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Let’s go dance, then,” Daniel said, nodding at the empty floor.

“I don’t think it’s time for that yet,” I said, glancing over at Mrs. Kim, not wanting to mess up her schedule.

“Oh, it’s definitely not,” Daniel said. Then he gave me a nod. “Even better.”

And that’s how I wound up slow-dancing with Sue’s cute cousin, adding another kind of triumph to the evening, until the caterers started serving dinner. I then made my way toward the tables to find my place card and discovered that Mrs. Kim did not get the Joe memo—and she had seated us right next to each other.

The place cards were in Korean and English. The English on mine readSadie.And the one in front of the empty chair next to me readHelpful.

Mr. Kim, you adorable troublemaker.

Joe walked up next to me, read his own place card, and realized the same thing.

We turned and met eyes.

Did I say he was heartbreaking from across the roof?

Up close, he was worse.

Those lips. That jaw. Those eyes. I’d seen them all before—in pieces. And here they were, miraculously together and adding up to far more than the sum of their parts.

“Sadie,” Joe said, acknowledging me with a nod.

“Joe,” I acknowledged back—noting how odd it was to know that for sure.

And so here he was. The man who had charmed me relentlessly with his sweetness and his thoughtfulness and his uncanny ability to rescue me. The man who’d shown up when I was at the most lost I’d ever been in my life—and cajoled me into crushing on him in a way I hadn’t crushed on anybody in years. Or ever.

And then he’d changed his mind.

Faced with an entire dinner seated next to him, I wanted to slump down into my chair.

But I didn’t.

I stoodtaller, damn it.

I stood straighter.

---