Page 37 of I Did Something Bad
“It’s terrible, I’m a terrible son.” He laughs again and scrubs his chin with his palm. “We’re going to some dim sum place that my sister insisted on. It’ll be my first time meeting her newboyfriend.” Hecracks his neck and chances a glance at me, one that I catch and in which his discomfort could not be more blatant.
“Tyler Tun,” I say, picking up on his emphasis on the word “boyfriend.” “Don’t tell me you’re the macho protective older brother type.”
He lets out a chuckle. “I try not to be. But it’s hard. She’s my little sister. But my parents say he’s great, so that’s a good start. And some of my aunts and uncles are in town from Mandalay so they’ll be there tomorrow, too.”
“Wow,” I say, smiling at the image. “Big crowd.”
“Yep. How about you?”
“Hmm?”
He lifts his chin at me. “My day off means it’s your day off, too. What’s on the agenda for you? Seeing your folks?”
“Oh,” I say, redirecting my attention anywhere but his face. How do I say,My big plan tomorrow is to become one with my couch,without sounding like a total loser? “My parents actually live in Hong Kong,” I say. Feeling like I’ve looked away for long enough, I glance back only to find him still waiting for an explanation, which Ireallydon’t want to get into, but this is what I get for prying. “They do a lot of overseas work,” I say, realizing I sound like a walking cliché, but there’s a reason clichés became clichés, right?
My parents and I don’t have a strained relationship or anything like that, but we’ve also never been particularly close. It’s not like they skipped out on my wedding, but I also didn’t turn to them for emotional support throughout my divorce.
“Do you miss them?” Tyler asks.
I don’t want to get into the boring details, but considering how close he is with his family, I can see why this would be an important topic in his eyes. “Sometimes,” I admit. “But we’re at a point in our lives where there really isn’t that much overlap.”
“Gotcha,” he says with a short nod, getting the memo this time. Then, right as I’m about to exhale, he says, “Khin.” What is it about the way he says my name, an otherwise incredibly common and average name, that makes my lungs forget how to function? “Are you… seeing people tomorrow?”
I huff in offense. “Of course I’m seeing people.” I’m seeing the pizza delivery guy. And probably the doorman when I go down to check my mail. “What, you think my whole world revolves around you and the cast and crew of this set?” Even as I ask it, I’m doing a mental rundown of the last time I saw someone who wasn’t associated with this movie. Apart from my doorman and that dinner with Patrick and Thidar, I’m drawing a blank. No, that can’t be right. Imusthave interacted with other people. In my defense, I’d normally make plans with Nay and Thidar on my day off, but Nay is out of town for the weekend and Thidar and Patrick are hosting his parents who are visiting from Chicago.
“Khin,” Tyler repeats, a teasing lilt to his tone that I don’t like because it feels a lot like he’s laughing at me.
“What?” I snap.
“Do you… wanna come to brunch?”
I blink and scrunch up my nose, making a sound that’s supposed to sound likeHuh?
He shrugs with an aura of casualness that I can’t fathom, as though he’s just asked to reconfirm our pickup time on Monday and not if I want to have brunch with his parents. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow and you like dim sum, you should come to brunch.”
“Why?” I ask, my confusion making the word sound more offended than I intended.
That corner of his mouth twitches and gives him away. He wasn’t expecting that. When was the last time anyone, especially a woman,turned down an offer to have brunch with him? In fact, he almost looks disappointed.
“What, do you have another date in the park?” he asks, recovering in a blink. “Is this the same guy, or a different but similarly invisible man?”
I scoff but can feel the heat zing to my cheeks. “Both. Trying to assemble an orgy.”
“In the park.”
“Hey, it’s my day off. A girl’s gotta de-stress somehow.”
His Mona Lisa–esque expression unfurls into a real smile, which, against my will, makesmesmile. “Come to brunch with me,” he repeats.
As I revel in the fact that I’ve won this round of banter, my brain hitches on that “with me.” I make it unhitch itself.
“Why?” I repeat.
“You want the truth?”
I tip my chin inward. “I would know instantly if you gave me anything else. My bullshit meter is impeccable.”
His eyes glint with amusement. When he talks, though, his voice is low. “Fine, the truth is, while I know you’ve put the fact that this guy was very possibly stalking you behind you, it’s still bugging me. I can’t stop thinking about it, about what would’ve happened to—” He shakes his head as if halting himself from going down a dark, familiar route. “And I know it’s our one day off and god knows we could both use it, but I don’t want to spend my day off worrying that you’re dead in a ditch somewhere, so”—my gaze cuts to the way his forearm muscles flex as he rubs the back of his neck—“can you please do me a favor and come to brunch with me? Just for a few hours.”
