The way she greeted him was both sweet and sexy, and it was as if Tae was a kid again, standing in slack-jawed awe at his beautiful neighbor.
He took a quick breath to steady himself and tucked his lips in under his teeth, hiding his smile. He knelt down in front of the swing. “Hi, Julia. You doing all right?”
She shook her head slowly. “I had wine. And makgeolli. Winegeolli.” She giggled. “I’m... I’m... drunk.”
Ahhhh, yeah. That was it.
“And screwed,” she added.
“I’m sorry?”
She stood up abruptly, swaying with the movement, and Tae grabbed her elbow to help steady her. “I said, I’m drunk and screwed. Drunk and screwed. Drunk and screwed.”
Tae tried not to laugh. The amazing Julia Song, CEO and altogether badass... a hilarious drunk.
“What happened, Julia? Why are you screwed?”
Julia looked up into Tae’s eyes and slapped a hand on his cheek, moving his head from side to side as if trying to determine if he was real. “Taehyung Kim. You don’t look fifteen anymore.”
“That’s because I’m twenty-five,” he said with a smile. “And you can just call me Tae now. Only the grandmas call me Taehyung.” He felt a bit like when he was just a preteen and couldn’t string words together when talking to Julia.
“Tae,” she sighed.
Tae ignored how he wasveryinto hearing her say his name like that.Chill, Tae.You’re not a lovestruck teenager anymore. And this is an inebriated woman. Off-limits in every way.
“Tae, I did something I’m gonna really regret. And now—” a tear welled up in her eye, and Tae was mesmerized, watching, waiting for it to fall “—I have to pay the price.”
“What is it? Maybe I can help. You’re worrying me.” Tae had almost never seen the mighty Julia Song cry, not even whenshe broke her arm falling out of the huge olive tree in his backyard when she was thirteen. It was Tae, the small eight-year-old who’d cried for her instead.
He shook her gently, only just realizing that he’d grabbed both of her arms in his hands. Her skin was covered in goose bumps, and Tae rubbed his hands along them to warm her up.
“I, I... oh God, I promised my grandmother I’d getmarried. Do you know how impossible that is? And I was so out of sorts, I agreed to let my family help me find someone tomarry.” She kept saying the words as if they were foreign to her.
“Short legs. Too old. Healthy head. H Mart discount.” She started sobbing and buried her face in Tae’s chest. “I wanted Hyun Bin, but I’m gonna end up with a Korean Danny Devito.”
Understanding hit him. So this was why her grandmother wanted Tae’s help. Julia had made a promise, and Halmoni was gonna help her keep it.
“Wow, um, okay. It’s okay. It can’t be that bad. It won’t be. So you’ll go on a few dates with guys your parents know. It won’t be awful. And who knows, maybe you’ll end up liking one of them.”
It actually did sound kind of awful. He hated the pressure in the Korean community to be set up by your family once you hit a certain age if you were still single. Your entire self-worth put on display like a laundry list of redeeming qualities. But he wasn’t going to tell a drunk and upset woman that.
“It doesn’t matter who they set me up with. It will end badly.”
“You don’t know that. Not until you give it a chance.”
“No, really.” Julia leaned in, her whisper loud enough to set all the neighborhood dogs barking. “I am really, really bad at dating.” Julia pulled out of Tae’s hold. She kept her eyes on the ground, trying to hide behind her hair. “I don’t like bowling shirts. Or bad cologne. I say whatever I’m thinking. And it never ends well. I’m just too much to handle, I guess.” She dramatically threw her head back, looking up into the sky, raising her fists and shaking them. “Did you hear that, world? I’m thirty and single and suck at dating. Mr. Malibu said that I, Julia Song, am undateable.” She dropped her head, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Wanna hear a secret? He wasn’t the only one to call me that.”
Well, those guys sounded like dicks.
“Julia, it can’t be that bad,” Tae said, trying to reassure her.
“Oh no, Tae, it’s that bad. I make sure of it,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She collapsed back down in the seat, head lolling from side to side.
“Instead of worrying if I’m too much for someone, I make sure of it that I am. Before I see it in his eyes that he is intimidated by my success, I bury him with it instead. Do you think Ilikemaking men cry, Tae? I don’t! But it’s better to be too much than not enough.”
