“You made it clear what you wanted. I’m respecting your boundaries.”
“By barely speaking to me? By acting like I don’t exist unless it’s about work?”
“What do you want from me? You told me to keep things professional. That’s what I’m doing. We’re two people who don’t know each other, unless… You want to dig up the past.”
“I know, but—” I stop, uncertain how to continue. What right do I have to ask for more when I’m the one who set these terms?
“But what?” He takes a step toward me, and suddenly the office feels too small.
“Can we go back to how we were before?”
“Before what, exactly? Before you invited me upstairs? Before you kicked me out? Or before I shadowed you at all? Or do you mean over a decade ago when I shamelessly flirted with you?”
I have no answer that doesn’t make me sound selfish, confused, or both.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “You’re right. I’m being unfair.”
“I’m here to shadow you, and that’s all. A shadow doesn’t speak; I thought you would appreciate that. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to get going. Have a good night.”
“Good night.” This is my fault. I pushed him away, and now I’m surprised he’s staying away. What kind of twisted logic is that?
CHAPTER 16
MINJI
You would thinksomeone like me, who is a force to be reckoned with, wouldn’t still be losing sleep after a week of having sex with Aaron. Yet here I am, still going stir-crazy. I thought I would get over him, but it’s not working. I’ve tried everything—burying myself in work, avoiding him whenever possible, and even my foolproof Korean drama therapy with a bottle of wine. Nothing works.
Every morning, I wake up with the same hollow feeling in my chest. Every night, I lie awake remembering the way his hands felt on my skin. I keep telling myself that I made the right decision, but the conviction behind those thoughts weakens with each passing day.
Our days in the office go by in a blur. Aaron arrives early every day, always in crisp shirts and tailored pants, blending seamlessly into the rhythm of the office, but never making any effort to speak to me beyond what’s absolutely necessary. He sits in on a couple more depositions, always quiet in the back, scribbling notes in that black notebook. Sometimes I forget for hours that he’s even there, until I look up and find him watching me, unsmiling and remote, as if he’s looking through me to somewhere else entirely.
I try to distract myself with my casework, which has reached its usual mid-June chaos. There’s a new batch of asset-tracing requests for the Wilcox case, a round of settlement negotiations for a hedge fund couple splintering over a Tribeca townhouse, and a pile of unsent letters in the pending mail tray that somehow keep growing no matter how quickly I work through them.
On Wednesday, I find myself working through lunch again at my desk, covered in files and discovery binders, when Aaron walks in holding a brown paper bag with the Woorijip logo. It amazes me just how much he remembers from our conversations that happened over a decade ago. He stands silently in the doorway, then approaches my desk and places the bag on top of my inbox.
“I picked up a lot of lunch boxes, and I wasn’t sure what you’d have a taste for. I got gochujang chicken, kimchi stew with rice, and kimchi fried rice—there’s a lot of variety in there. I would have gone to Jersey, but I probably wouldn’t have made it back in time.” He avoids meeting my eyes. “You haven’t eaten anything but Kind bars for lunch these past few days.”
I blink, thrown by the unexpected gesture. “How did you know I haven’t—” But then I remember, he’s been watching me all week. Of course, he knows.
“It’s that, or you start eating your own hand,” he says. There’s no smile, but a faint trace of humor in his voice.
I look down at the bag, then up at him. He’s already turning to leave.
“Thank you.” I’m not sure if he hears me, but I hope he does. He pauses halfway out the door.
“Eat it while it’s hot,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.
I sit for a long time, staring at the bag. It’s a stupid, simple thing, and it shouldn’t matter. But I can’t think of the last timesomeone noticed I skipped lunch, let alone did anything about it. Even though there is an awkward tension between us, Aaron will forever be a gentleman.
He wasn’t joking about it being a lot—four lunch boxes and the stew. I begin with the kimchi fried rice, and with every bite, the gnawing tension inside me starts to fade. I need to resolve this with Aaron because he wasn’t asking to be my boyfriend, but to give us a chance. I don’t know how to handle the thought that if Aaron left my life right now, I’d regret it.
That night, I called Demi and shared the whole story, omitting the details but not denying that it was, without doubt, the best sex I had ever experienced since college. “I told you so,” she said, sounding incredibly smug even through the speakerphone.
“Girl, if he brought you a shit ton of food after all that, that’s love. Food is love, Minji. You can’t take it back. Soon, he’ll be buying you tissues when you’re sick and holding your hair when you throw up.”
“Christ, Demi.”
“Just go talk to him. Quit acting like you’re made of stone.”
