It’s as if he’s taunting me. He was able to get her to change course while I was dismissed.
“It’s because you’re new to the family,” I say, borderline disgruntled. “You’re the guest, so she’s going to coddle you.”
He chuckles. “Maybe. Or maybe I have a gift with mothers. They love me.”
“Which makes no sense considering you have fifty tattoos and regularly break kneecaps.”
“Well, Tokki-ya, you love me too. So what does that say about you?” he asks, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I’ve gotten my hair done in braids for our vacation, and he hasn’t been able to keep his hands off me ever since (even more than usual).
I can’t refute what he’s said, a small laugh bubbling out of me, so I sigh and concede his point.
“Alright, true. Maybe you’re just more lovable than you first realized, Seo Jin-tae.”
“Someone should’ve told the orphanage I was raised in. Maybe they wouldn’t have made me sleep in the cellar so much.”
It’s a dark joke as we follow in Mom’s wake.
But Jin’s sense of humor has always been dry, sarcastic, and on the darker side. It makes sense considering his childhood and upbringing. In some ways, it’s even rubbed off on me.
“Alright,” Mom says once we’re buckled into her Toyota Corolla. “I’m about to change your life, Jin honey. Prepare yourself for some real grubbin’. This is about to blow your mind.”
I catch Jin’s eye again, smirking at him with equal parts resignation and amusement. He simply stares back with the same level of silent entertainment that once again reveals he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.
It isn’t everyday he’s essentially kidnapped by a sixty-something-year-old mama bear and then driven around the city to different landmarks.
Within half an hour, we’re pulling up outside Big Tony’s Steaks.
The restaurant has been around for decades—longer than I’ve been alive—and it’s a cramped, no-frills hole-in-the-wall tucked between a laundromat and a barbershop. The hand-painted sign above the door is faded and peeling, the letters barely legible, but the smell that wafts out onto the sidewalk is like a siren’s call for your stomach.
Grilled onions. Sizzling meat. Melted cheese and warm, toasted bread.
My stomach growls loudly enough that Jin raises a brow at me.
“Told you I was hungry,” I mutter.
Inside, the restaurant is small and worn, with scuffed linoleum floors and plastic tables that wobble. Old-school Phillies memorabilia covers the walls. Things like faded pennants, signed photographs, newspaper clippings yellowed with age.
A long counter runs along the back, and behind it, a heavyset man with gray scruff and a grease-stained apron works the flat-top grill.
“Daisha!” he bellows when he spots my mother, his face splitting into a wide grin. “Where the hell you been, lady? I thought you forgot about me!”
“Oh, Tony, you know I could never forget you,” Mom coos, sashaying up to the counter like she owns the place. “You remember I told you my baby girl and her fiancé were coming to visit. They’re here all the way from South Korea!”
Tony’s bushy eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline as he takes in Jin—the sharp lines of his face, the tattoos creeping up his neck above his collar, the quiet intensity that radiates off him even when he’s standing still. Jin givesa nod in greeting, meeting his gaze without flinching, and for a moment, the two men simply stare at each other.
Then Tony breaks into a throaty laugh and slaps the counter. “South Korea! Well, ain’t that something. You ever had a real cheesesteak before, Jin?”
“This will be my first,” Jin says.
“Then today’s your lucky day. Daisha, the usual?”
“Times three, honey. Make sure to give my future son-in-law the works. Don’t hold back.”
We settle into one of the plastic booths near the window while Tony gets to work. Mom slides in next to me, leaving Jin across from us, and immediately launches into a detailed history of Big Tony’s—how her parents used to bring her here when she was a little girl and how Tony’s father started the shop back in the sixties. She’s been coming here for over forty years and has never once been disappointed.
Jin listens with quiet attentiveness, nodding in the right places, asking a question here and there. He’s good at this, I’ve realized—better than I would’ve expected. For a man who spent most of his life avoiding emotional connections, he’s surprisingly adept at making Mom feel heard.
Maybe it’s because he genuinely enjoys her, just like he genuinely loves me.
