Strangely, I understood exactly what he meant. “I missed you, too.”
With that, he cupped a hand around my neck to draw me in for another kiss.
So, no chastising—just the kind of shouting that was muffled behind my own palm when I tried to keep quiet as I rode him to completion, his large hands guiding me up and down his rigid length.
I found out two things that late afternoon. One, what it’s like to fly private—my dad, Minnesota-born and bred, always drew the line at first class—and two, what it felt like to join the mile-high club.
Lydia
Yom didn’t missany more practices before spring break, but only because I used what I privately referred to as “my Tasha Power Dynamic” to make sure we both made it to classes, volunteer shifts, and the boatload of extra practices Yom had incurred for skipping out on his team before the Big Ten tournament began.
So, I wasn’t shocked when Yom told me he wouldn’t be able to make it down to Minneapolis for my birthday party.
But I was disappointed—and super-reluctant to go.
If I thought Dad would think less of Yom after he’d—oh, you know, nearly beat his biological son to death at his own birthday party, I was sorely mistaken. Instead, my parents quietly sent Paul to some emotional wellness rehab program in California. Then they started putting on a weirdly dutiful act, calling me on FaceTime, sometimes twice a week, asking how I was doing and even sounding interested when I answered.
However, my father never failed to ask after Yom before hanging up. They were even making tentative plans to meet us inChicago, where the USCA championship would take place if the Yolks made it to the final four—which both Yom and my father seemed supremely confident they would.
“You’re the only reason my parents are even throwing me this party,” I pointed out to Yom when he told me he wouldn’t be attending.
Yom managed to “convince” me to go anyway, with a lot of heavily accented cajoling and some very filthy kisses.
And the night before my birthday found Yom driving me to Gemidgee’s private airfield to meet Trish and Merry—whose excitement to ride in one of the Rustanovs’ planes had also helped make Yom’s case.
My shockingly sweet boyfriend even had a thoughtful surprise for me before we reached the airport.
“I ordered special celebration meal for you and your friends to eat on plane,” he informed me as he stopped in the main part of town at my favorite Chinese restaurant—also theonlyChinese restaurant in Gemidgee, but potato po-tah-to.
“Oh my God, thank you!” I said, touching a hand to my heart—before adding, “Did you get dumplings, too? They’re Trish’s favorite.”
A confused look. Then: “But it isyourbirthday dinner.”
Yom was amazing at accommodating my ADHD and dyslexia, but he was still figuring out the “making other people happy makes me happy” aspect of my personality.
“I’ll come with you,” I offered. “I’m sure it won’t be any trouble to add dumplings to the order….”
I scrambled out before Yom could open the door for me, as he always insisted on doing. Maybe that was why he took my hand with a slightly disapproving look. These days, we rarely held hands when we walked—Yom preferred to keep me close, with an arm draped over my shoulders.
“I wish for everyone to know we are official couple now,” he’d explained the Thursday we came back to school, in a way that would have killed me with cuteness—if I wasn’t still so sore from every obscene thing he’d done to me in that hotel room for several days.
But we held hands as we walked into the restaurant, and as it turned out, Yom totally got me.
The dumplings were just a ruse. The second we stepped inside, a huge group yelled, “Surprise!” — including my dad and mom.
A rush of warmth hit me, melting my heart. I couldn’t believe Yom had gone to such lengths for me.
“You came up here to Gemidgee!” I said, hugging my parents first and foremost.
My mom hadn’t set foot on campus since driving me here before my first year so she could personally introduce me to the Tri-Kappa president. And my dad had only come up once after his library naming ceremony—to close the deal on the Weiss Fox factory. Though, to be fair, he’d invited me to a celebratory dinner with Lukas Brandt, the then spanking-brand-new CEO of Weiss Fox. I think because Lukas was closer to my age than his.
But here they both were, together, along with Trish, Rina, Merry, Val, her husband, and just about every fellow student who’d taken a class with me and was still around for spring break.
“How long did this take you to plan?” I asked Rina, who’d spent most of the night near the door, pretending not to be working security, with her arm slung around Trish’s waist.
Yes, my best friend, who was both way more persistent and confident than me, had worn Rina down with what she’d called “happening to be everywhere she was all the time and, like, shoving my tits all the way up in her face.”
And it was my best friend who answered before Rina could.
