“You meanbecauseof the ogling,” I say. When he laughs I reach for the soybeans and am reminded of Ellis’s love for the bland banchan.Cass?I say this with the utmost, gentle kindness to myself:Stop fucking thinking about Ellis!
“No, but honestly, I love it,” he says, dipping his spoon in thekimchi jjigae. “I haven’t had many Korean friends, even in Los Angeles, weirdly enough. I love having you as my tour guide to all the most Korean spots.”
It warms me, this vulnerability. “Well, I have yet to take you to the most Korean spot yet.”
“Really, and where’s that?”
“Costco.”
He throws his head back with laughter, the sound attracting everyone’s attention around us.
A few days later, we’re driving back from watchingReality Bitesat a revival theater. “That movieisthe right movie to lose your virginity to. Smooth move,” I say.
“Thank you,” Daniel says with a laugh, his hand on the steering wheel. “I owe Ethan Hawke some credit, I think.”
I pick music from my phone. What I’ve learned is that Daniel has no opinions on music and it is now my life’s mission to educate him. Otis Redding starts playing and I look at him. “Ethan Hawke in that movie almost ruined all men for me.”
“Understandably,” he says. “But we all know she should have ended up with Ben Stiller in the end.”
“My god!” My body does a full-body shudder. “He was a walking, talking boner kill.”
“He was just an adult!” Daniel protests. “Sue the man for having a job!”
“Touchy, touchy,” I say with a laugh.
He shoots me a look, still grinning. “I’m going to choose to ignore that because you’re so pretty.”
We pull up to his house where I’ve left my car. Daniel lives in a beautiful little Spanish cottage in Los Feliz, covered in hot-pink bougainvillea and shaded by olive and cypress trees. “Not native,” he had pointed out to me with chagrin when we met there earlier.
In the parked car, he leans back in his seat and looks at me. There’s a little something in his heated gaze, his face lit by the warm yellow of the streetlamp. “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, please.” I’ve been dying to see the inside of his house. There is a bit of formality with Daniel in this way: He is a gentleman to the nth degree—always taking me out, paying, and driving. I sense it’s his old-fashionedness, about doing this “the right way.”
Everything feels oh so very right as we walk through his door, his house smelling like wood and expensive candles. I have every intention of looking at his sure-to-be-immaculately designed home, but as soon as he hangs my jacket, I’m pulling him in for a kiss. He’s surprised, and smiles against my lips. “Well, okay.” His arms wrap around me tight, one hand spanning my back and the other gently gripping the back of my neck. Our bodies are practically sealed together as the kiss gets deeper. He walks me backward as we kiss, and I slip my hands under his navy sweater, his skin so incredibly warm and firm. When my legs hit the back of his sofa, we disentangle long enough for me to pull the sweater off of him.
His eyes are hazy when he stops my hands and says, “Let’s go to my room.”
I’m sure his sheets are perfect and his mattress feels like heaven, but for once, I don’t want all that perfection. I get flashes of sleeping with Ellis—laughing as we awkwardly figured out each other’s bodies. The memories buzz in my brain and I need to shut them off. I start unbuttoning my top—a silky blouse that puddles to the ground when I take it off. “I like your living room.”
He bends his head close, his lips hovering near mine. “Oh, do you? What color is the rug?”
“Mm, ecru,” I say as he finds a sensitive spot on my neck.
His laughter is warm on my skin. “Ecru? Such a specific color choice.”
Daniel keeps his eyes on my face, a gentleman until the end. I unsnap my bra and his jaw clenches as he keeps his gaze fixed on my eyes.
“You seem like an ecru kinda guy,” I say as I slide my bra off.
He swallows. Hard. “Yes, one of the finer, ah, off-white shades.”
My belt drops to the floor. Then my jeans. “Keep talkin’ color theory to me.”
His resolve breaks and he’s on me in an instant, his bare chest on mine as I wrap my legs around him. When he traces my shoulder with a fingertip, his mouth is by my ear when he asks, “Is this okay?”
I answer with my mouth on his, and when his hands roam over my body, a feeling of intense déjà vu washes over me. We’ve done this before. I’ve felt this skin before. When we touch, skin to skin, it feels like a homecoming. And I know Daniel feels it, too, because when he looks at me, it’s with an intensity that seems to overwhelm him. “Cassia,” he whispers.
He takes me on the living room rug, which, I later find out, is actually a pattern of deep blues.
