Page 61 of Role Play
“What about friends? You have Daphne.”
I smile, thinking of my best friend’s excitement as we packed up after the signing. “Yeah, she’s great. I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s literally my only friend. Twenty-seven years old and my social circle consists of one person…well, two if you include my mom.” I bury my head in my hand when I hear the words out loud that make me sound like a forty-year-old virgin. “Damn, I’m pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic,” Forrest says, his voice gentle. “You’re focused.”
“That’s a nice way of saying I have no life.” I attempt a self-deprecating smile, but it feels brittle on my face.
The truth is, I’ve always hidden behind my work. It’s safer to live in fictional worlds where I control the outcomes than to risk the messy unpredictability of real relationships. The irony of writing romance while avoiding meaningful connections isn’t lost on me.
“Dakota might like this stuff,” Forrest muses, poking at another tapioca pearl. “She’s got a sweet tooth.”
“My kind of girl. We should bring her sometime,” I suggest before I can think better of it. “Most kids like the strawberry or melon flavors.”
Forrest looks up, surprise evident in his expression. “You’d want to hang out with me and my kid?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Most women find that…off-putting. Especially women without kids of their own.”
I shake my head, smiling. “I love kids, actually.” I hesitate, then add, “My mom regularly reminds me that my biological clock is ticking. She sends me links to articles about egg-freezing and fertility declining after thirty. She’s a lot of things…subtle isn’t one of them.”
“She wants grandchildren?” Forrest guesses.
“Oh yes. And I’m an only child, so the poor lady has one single pony in this race. Her dream is for me to put the books down, find a nice Korean boy, settle down, and start producing babies immediately. Except the closest I’ve gotten to a long-term relationship is Daphne.” I teeter my head side to side in contemplation. “At this point, Mom’s so desperate, she might actually warm up to the idea of me and Daph adopting together. Whatever puts a baby in Halmoni’s arms.”
“What did you just say? Hal-mornie?” Forrest asks, face screwed up in determination, but still butchering the pronunciation.
“Hal-moh-knee,” I sound out for him. “Means ‘grandma’ in Korean.”
“Ah, I see. And is that what you want?”
“A lesbian relationship with Daphne?” I tease.
“A kid, Sora.” A smile tugs at his lips.Perv.I bet he’s picturing it.
“I do want kids, eventually. When I figure out…everything else.”
“Everything else being your career?”
“My life,” I correct. “My purpose. Me.” I trace a pattern in the condensation on my cup. “I feel like I’m still trying to figure out who I am apart from everyone else’s expectations. Does that make sense?”
Forrest nods, his expression thoughtful. “More than you know.”
“What about you? Did you always want kids?”
“Not particularly,” he admits. “But then Dakota happened, and now I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t want her.”
“I like the name Dakota. How did you land on that?”
He smiles, a softness entering his expression that I’m learning is reserved exclusively for discussions about his daughter. “Hannah let me choose it. I just liked how it sounded.”
“Bravo,” I say before taking a short swig from my straw. “You did much better than my dad. He accidentally named me after a conch shell,” I blurt out, the randomness of the confession surprising even me.
Forrest’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”
“My mom wanted a Korean name for me, but she was so exhausted after labor that she told my dad to fill out the birth certificate. The dodo googled ‘Asian girl names’ and picked Sora, thinking it meant sky. As a fantasy writer who crafts dragons and faeries, I think it spoke to him.”
“That’s actually kind of sweet.”
