Page 28 of For You, Sir

“Please, Sir!” Jun gripped my knee. His eyes were wild, almost manic. “Let me make it right.”

Make it right, like it was a debt owed or a problem to be solved. His desperation revealed a compulsion to please that had nothing to do with sensuality. My heart sagged in my chest.

“Come up here.” I patted the couch cushion beside me, and Jun obeyed, sitting next to me with eyes averted and his body stiff as a board. Torn between putting an arm around his shoulders or giving him space, I settled for sliding my arm behind him on the back of the couch. “Hey, so…”

“I should… get the groceries,” he mumbled, barely audible.

Ouch. He was trying to run away? “Why don’t we have some coffee first?”

“Oh! Yes.” Jun perked up and hustled toward the kitchen, tucking in his shirt and refastening his belt. I tried not to feel hurt at how quickly he shifted into business mode and followed.

Jun was getting a mug down from the cupboard with his back to me. His hand shook as he poured the coffee.

“Pour yourself one, too,” I suggested.

He glanced over his shoulder and gave a weak smile. “I’m more of a tea drinker, actually.”

Was he?Shit.He had come back with two drinks from the espresso stand the other day, and I’d assumed both were coffee. A wave of frustration crashed over me that I didn’t know his simplest preferences.

“Make yourself a tea, then?” I suggested. “Have we got any?” I glanced at the cupboards, feeling dumb for not knowing whether I had any on-hand.

Jun gave a small shake of his head. “I’ll bring some from home,” he said.

I liked the sound of that—a tiny moving-in.

“Why’d you stop earlier?” I asked, leaning against the counter with a relaxed posture I didn’t really feel. “Did I do something wrong?”

He ducked his head, facing the cabinets. “No, Sir. Please don’t think that.” He stirred the coffee in such a way the spoon barely clinked against the cup. “I liked it,” he quietly added.

Thank God.“Then why…?”

He mumbled something I couldn’t hear that sounded like,“Tilly.”

“Hmm?”

“Guilty,” he said. He set my coffee in front of me, using his pinkie to soften its landing.

“’Cause your parents wouldn’t approve of you,”—I wanted to say,having a boyfriend, but stopped myself—“having fun with a guy?”

“Maybe, partly. But also...” Jun trailed off and pressed his lips together. He turned away and put the creamer back in the fridge. “It was good… but then it gottoogood.”

Was that an attempt at flattery?

“…And then it felt like something bad was going to happen,” he finished in a hushed voice.

“Something bad…?”What the hell?He associated sexual pleasure with bad feelings? A possibility clicked, and anger sizzled in the back of my brain. “Waitaminute… Did someone ever…?” Had somebody hurt my Jun?!My hackles rose.

“No! Nothing like that,” Jun said hastily. “It’s just, uhm…” He made a helpless sound in his throat and fidgeted with his hands, searching for words. “My parents were strict, you know? When Dad was home from work, he wanted me and my brother to keep quiet.”

Not what I expected…I took a sip of coffee without tasting it and fought to keep my face neutral.

“If he’d been drinking, he could get scary.” Jun wrung his hands, one fruitlessly trying to soothe the other. “But we were just kids, you know? Horsing around. Sometimes we’d make too much noise without realizing it, and he’d bring the hammer down.” He grimaced at the memory.

Jun abruptly stopped squirming his hands and clasped them instead. “So, I guess I learned to keep myself in check. If I’m being noisy, I need to pipe down. If I’m having too much fun, I’d better cut it out. ‘Cause, you know… Something bad would happen.”

What. The fuck.“Like he’d beat you?”

“No. Like, yelling.” But his haunted expression told me that the yelling had been just as dreadful.

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