Nikko frowns. “That bad, huh?”
“What do you think about dogs?” Tang inquires, like he’s about to ask me where I fall on the scale of how bad a potential abduction would rank with or without dogs.
“I think there’s a small one currently creating all kinds of chaos in my apartment that I will have only slightly mixed feelings about when she moves out soon.” I look directly at Nikko and smile in a way that might be vaguely threatening.
“I’m sure she’ll be very happy in her new home!” Nikko insists.
“Awww, hyung,” Yung-Sun says, forcing me to face him. “Won’t you be lonely on your own?” He licks his lips, pushing them out into a shiny pout. “I’d hate for you to be sad.”
“I’ll be just fine, thank you.” I swear the temperature in this hallway has just gone up multiple degrees. I clear my throat,feeling increasingly fidgety under the weight of Yung-Sun’s gaze. “I should really get back. I’ll see you all around.”
Yung-sun winks at me as I step past him. “I sure hope so.”
I walk rapidly back to the conference room, willing myself to chill out, and pause when my phone pings with a message just before I reach for the door handle.
Of course it would be Jase texting me now.
“Are you okay? Nikko said he just saw you and you were being really weird.”
Am I okay?
I honestly don’t even know.
????
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” Grace asks the moment I’m within her eye line.
I freeze mid-step, as though she, too, can somehow read my mind and is now privy to all the thoughts I’ve been having. “Um… no?”
She whips her computer screen around to show me what appears to be some sort of gossip site based on the colorful layout and the number of exclamation points in the bold headlines. “So you’re telling me that you aren’t the hunky young executive at Task Force that Kwon Chaeji is talking about?” she asks, gesturing wildly. “Are we hiding executives somewhere? Because I only know of one that anybody would ever describe asanykind of attractive, let alone this effusively, unless there’s a whole other team I’ve never met. Because all those other guys? Woof. And not in the bark-because-they’re-sexy way.”
“What?”I blurt, which is all I can manage to come up with because there’s so much going on in what she just said, I don’t even know where to begin.
Grace points to me. “You!” And then at the screen. “Chaeji!”Back and forth. “You and Chaeji! Why is she talking about you like you’re a thing? An item? A couple!”
I blink at her and the genuine outrage she appears to feel that I have left her out of some major news about my life. “No? We’re not… No. I went out with her once. What does it even say?”
Frowning at me like she’s not sure if she believes me, Grace turns the screen back and begins reading. “When questioned about her now much calmer personal life, Kwon giggles. She is quick to mention her party days are behind her and she’s ready to settle down, looking for a stable life with the right partner. Does she have someone in mind? While she won’t mention anyone by name, Kwon practically glows while detailing a recent romantic date with ‘a very handsome young executive at Task Force Entertainment’, one of the largest companies in the k-pop industry. From the blush on her cheeks as she talks about skipping out on dessert at the restaurant to go back to her place for a late-night treat, it’s obvious she’s feeling very satisfied with her businessman boyfriend.”
“What?” I repeat, having become more and more shocked by each word she’d read. “That was theonedate we went on. And it was over a year ago! We had dinner and left separately, and she kept sending me nudes and telling me to come over and eat her since we didn’t have dessert.Once! I saw her once!”
“Doessheknow that?” Grace inquires in that very specific way of hers that’s both sincere and sarcastic at the same time.
I think back to the message she’d sent me not too long ago that I had just brushed off and never responded to. While it’s not really my style to ghost someone, I just wasn’t interested in starting up a conversation again. Chaeji is gorgeous, as nearly every magazine in the world has declared, but she’s the type of woman I’d have dated when I was nineteen or twenty, unconcerned that she might be a little crazy.
“I’m not as clear on that answer as I thought I was,” I tell her. I sit on the edge of her desk, contemplating as she grabs an alarmingly sharp file from her desk drawer and begins to work on her nails.
“You can do better, you know,” she mentions, her tone casual, as though the gentle rasping noise of sandpaper isn’t setting my teeth on edge.
I move to the other side of the room, trying to be nonchalant about my relocation. “What do you mean?”
“Better than Chaeji. Yes, she’s probably the hottest woman in Seoul, but that’s not what you need,” Grace says, like that’s supposed to explain everything.
Now I’m curious. What is it that she thinks I need? DoIeven know what I need? Or, hell, do I know what Iwantat this point? My brain has wandered off in so much uncharted territory recently, I can’t be sure of anything.
When she doesn’t elaborate, I prompt her, even though I might be a little afraid of whatever she’ll say. Grace is more than slightly observant and knows me well, so the potential for a truth bomb is very high. “Go on.”
“What do I think? So glad you asked,” she begins. “You need someone unexpected. Not the obvious choice. Not the one you think makes the most sense. Someone who challenges you. Makes you sit up and pay attention. You could have anyone you want, and you know it and so does everyone else. I’ve seen the women you date. They’re beautiful and, for the most part, unobjectionable. Chaeji is a wild card, but not the right kind.”
