Our drinks arrive and he thanks the server before continuing. “My parents died. And I shut her out because I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it unless they truly understood grief. And Elenore, bless her, she didn’t.”
I take a sip of the bracing ginger cocktail in front of me. “Unfortunately, I know what you mean.” His eyes meet mine in understanding, and then I tell him an abbreviated version of my sad Mom story.
“Cassia. I’m so sorry,” he says when I’m done. His voice is low, feeling every one of the words.
I meet his eyes. “Thank you.”
“But it’s quite beautiful,” he says, not eating, his chopsticks held in his hand, his elbows on the table. “How your grandparents kept the house for you.”
They kept the house because for the entire first year of my life in Hancock Park, I cried every night, asking to go back home. Halabuji eventually turned my bedroom at their house into a carbon copy of the one in Mount Washington: replicating my little built-in desk, even adding a window so that it looked out onto a tree the same way the one at home did. Painting the walls a sage green and putting up all the same art and trinkets my mother had placed in my room over the years. They felt guilty for not moving into the Mount Washington house for me, but I knew it was too painful for them. Not to mention so totally not my grandmother’s vibe.
“It was the best gift I could have ever received,” I say simply.
“It’s really very special,” he says quietly. “I can see why you’d want to hold on to that connection to your mother.”
Daniel’s right. There is something so comforting about knowing that the person you’re with gets it. The grief that takes different forms every hour of the day. Sometimes it’s monstrous and suffocating. Sometimes it’s a fixture as mundane as a persistent backache.
“Tell me more about you,” I say after most of our food arrives. “I want to know all about how it is to grow up as an Asian dude in England.”
He laughs. “Oh, it was a fantastic time.”
“Really?”
“Actually, I don’t know why I said that in a sarcastic tone,” he says. “It wasn’t that terrible. In fact, it wasn’t terrible at all. I grew upin Woodford, which is kind of a suburb of London, or the equivalent. I went to normal schools, nothing too elite or posh to make me feel inferior. But I just—I never felt right there. And not just because of being adopted. The age, the history that’s entrenched in every part of England—it felt stifling. When I came to California for graduate school, it was the first time I felt like I was home.”
I let the zippy flavors of vinegar and pepper in a scallop hit my tongue before responding. “I know I’m biased, but there’s nowhere like California. And Los Angeles is the best city in the world.”
“Absolutely no bias there,” he says, eyes twinkling in the warm lighting of the restaurant. “But also, you are correct.”
We laugh and before we move apart, he reaches over and brushes my hair away from my eyes. There’s something very familiar about it and he seems surprised, too, pulling his hand back quickly. And suddenly I feel like we’ve known each other for years. I’ve never felt this with anyone before, and I know it’s because the connection of our past lives is getting stronger with every second I spend with him. The relief of it floods me.I’ve found him. At last, at last.
Dinner lasts for hours, and we never run out of things to talk about. Our families, childhoods, movies, music—all of it. And when we leave, he holds my hand, his grip firm and warm. The car ride is quieter. We open the windows a little and let the sounds of the freeway, of the city whooshing by, fill the spaces between us.
When we get to my house, Daniel walks me up to my door. We stand under the porch light, facing each other as the fragrant evening air surrounds us. My jasmine is bursting with perfume, like it knows this is its moment to shine.
“Thank you for dinner,” I say. Because, of course, Daniel nabbed the check at some mysterious point in the evening.
“You’re so welcome,” he says, his voice gravelly and proper. “Thank you for the brilliant company.”
It feels like we’re in a play and I start laughing. “Sorry,” I say when I catch my breath. “This is just so—how do adults end a date?”
He gets in close, his hand catching mine again, his fingers entwining with mine. “Howdoadults end a date?”
My breath hitches as he lifts my hand up to his mouth and brushes his lips against it. I feel it in my cells. I pull him to me until my head is tilted back, my eyes meeting his. “They make jokes about how to end a date,” I murmur.
When he kisses me, it’s questioning, his lips brushing against mine like a whisper. I respond by parting my lips, telling himyes, yes, yes. And the kiss gets real then, his tongue touches mine and both of us kind of melt into each other. He lets go of my hand to wrap an arm around my back, his other hand cupping my jaw, his thumb stroking the soft skin beneath my ear. I make a noise against him as I grab hold of his arm. The kiss is searching, unearthing things. It feels like thebeginning.
I have no idea how long it goes when he makes the first move to part. When we do, I feel dazed, slightly drugged. The jasmine envelops me. He looks as taken aback as I do, and he runs a hand down my arm. “Well.”
I nod. “Mm-hmm.” My lips are tingling, they feel burned.
“I should go,” he says.
“You should?”
He laughs. “Yes. I want to…do this properly.”
I know what he means. And how it feels contrasted against that weekend with Ellis. “Okay. Thanks, again, for dinner.”
