Page 96 of Caper Crush
“Can I have a piggyback ride now?” I ask.
“Didn’t my carrying you around for a day satisfy that requirement?”
I pout. “No piggyback ride?”
“Maybe you should give me a piggyback ride.”
“I will when I’m sure my ankle is completely healed.”
He pulls me closer suddenly and kisses me firmly. “Thank you.”
We walk back, hand in hand, toward the exit.
Chapter twenty-four
It’sSundaynight,andwe’re sitting in a wooden booth in a Japanese shabu-shabu restaurant on the Lower East Side. William orders in Japanese. Huge points. The candlelight outlines his profile.
Two plates of raw beef slices appear, and we get a whole assortment of vegetables to add to the pot. William expertly places them in the hot pot in the middle of the table. The broth bubbles, and the smell of boiling meat and vegetables is making me even hungrier.
“Why don’t you want to tell your family?” William asks. “Are you embarrassed to be dating me?”
I still. “No. Definitely not. Why would you even think that?”
“Because why else would you not want to tell your family?”
“Because Uncle Tony and Takashi expressly warned me not to date you,” I say. “I told you that.”
“And Uncle Takashi warned me. But I still want to tell him. They’ll accept that we’re adults.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s not even that. I don’t want the extra family scrutiny. I want to keep you to myself and not have to share our relationship with everyone else at the moment. Especially if Uncle Tony and Takashi are going to object to it. Let’s spend some time dating first. And I definitely don’t want to tell my mom yet, although she would frankly be delighted to know that I’m dating an accountant with his own business. Won’t your grandmother be disappointed that you’re not dating someone Japanese?”
“It’s not like my father married someone Japanese,” he says. “She’ll be happy if I’m happy. I would love to show you Japan. Tokyo has a similar energy to New York. The people are really friendly, and I think you’d love it. There’s so much to see—the art, the nightlife, and the gardens.”
“And the food.” I slurp down a spoonful of shabu-shabu. “Are you going on another trip there soon?”Or is he talking long term?
“Probably in a few months. If work allows. That’s another reason I started my own business.”
“What are some of the others?”
He adds more vegetables to the pot. “I wanted to be my own boss. I’m not that patient, and I’m not inclined to be subordinate.”
“I’ve never been very good at being subordinate. And I hate having to play defined roles, like the role of the politician’s dutiful daughter.”
“What about your father?” he asks. “Couldn’t you have lived with him instead of John and your mom?”
“That would have never worked politically—my mom not having custody of her daughter would have been too much of a story. Although my dad is fun, he’s not the most responsible guy. It’s very much ‘you’re on your own,’” I say. “As a child visiting, it was like a Pippi Longstocking experience. Which was fun initially, but I got tired of eating cheese sandwiches for dinner. Which was about all I could make.”
“You didn’t learn to cook?”
“I should have, shouldn’t I?” I eat some more. “Also, he lives in the Catskills. I love visiting, but I like being surrounded by people, the lights and energy of New York, and even the heat of the apartments here.” William’s head is tilted as he listens intently. “I miss being able to go to the store at night and check out people at bars or spy on those other lives in the lit-up windows.”
“I get it,” he says.
“Your parents are still happily married, right?”
He nods.
I take his hand. “To be honest, normally, I’d introduce you to Uncle Tony as the first member of my family.”
