Page 90 of Luxe

And I don't know if I want to.

"Ready?" His voice startles me, and I jump up. "Do you need to borrow a shirt, Kiki? That's my dirty one from last night."

"Oh, is it?" I fling it away, as if I wasn't sniffing it like a coke addict

The smirk on his face suggests that he knows exactly what I was doing.

"Ready?" he says again.

"Ready for what?"

His hand stretches out, and I take it. "Come and see."

I'm not sure what I'd expected but when I look out the living room window, there's a blanket, some cushions and a picnic set up on the balcony.

My stomach rumbles again in approval.

"Come on. There's a little bit of everything. I don't really know what you like to eat.”

He leads me out onto the balcony and the air is still out here today.

The spread really had a little of everything. Cheese and crackers, little skewers of BBQ'd meat, har gow and shumai dumplings, a fruit salad, little bowls of the congee he made yesterday…

"Is there anything here you like to eat?" His voice carries the tiniest timbre of doubt at my silence.

I reach for a shumai to pop into my mouth. "It's perfect. And I'm telling you now, fuck Asian etiquette, if you take the last har gow, I will stab you with a chopstick.

He laughs, and it whips in the air around us, filling me with happiness.

twenty-five

Kylian

After our picnic lunch, the wind picks up enough that we move inside and lie down on the couch, languishing in the after effects of the morning and the meal. We dip in an out of sleep, and it's her voice that pulls me out of a two-minute nap.

"Who's your favorite brother?"

The question comes out of nowhere and it makes me wonder what she's been thinking about.

“Groucho. No, Harpo.”

“I’m serious!”

"Okay. Um, I don't know if I have a favorite."

"I have a favorite brother,” she says, as if that’s valid.

"You only have one. That makes it easier."

"Er, you haven't lived with him, his bathroom habits alone should make him ineligible to be a favorite anything."

I splutter. "Excuse me! I have as well! We lived together when we were at Wharton together."

"Oh yeah, ‘bromancing.’ I'm not entirely sure that you're not just using me to get to him."

I chuckle. "Oh please, he couldn't get me. He can't cook."

"I can't either!"

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