Sun blinks at me a few times, the most beautiful smile lighting up his face. “I have never been happier.”
His answer catches me by surprise, even though it’s not the first time he’s said something like that. “I doubt that,” I say, but I can’t help feeling a little pleased.
“No, I mean it,” he insists. “I’m out on a date with myboyfriend. Two things that I didn’t know would ever be possible. I wanted you so badly for so long that I thought I might wait forever before it happened. And now I have this? I can be here with you? I can’t think of anything better.”
My heart does a funny squeeze-and-flip sort of thing at his words and the look of utter honesty in his eyes. It’s after 2 a.m., we’re tucked into a stained, sticky booth at The Leafy Dragon, and somehow this is a dream come true for him. To be here. With me.
I texted him a couple of hours ago, half joking when I asked if he wanted to get a midnight snack because I was craving jokbal ssam and I missed him. Even though I knew he had things scheduled in the morning and should be sleeping, he had replied immediately saying he’d be ready in 20 minutes. And he was, tucked into a shadow near the apartment building, waiting when I had pulled up. As soon as I unlocked the car door, he’d practically leapt in, leaning over the console to kiss me, and he’d chattered excitedly the whole way to the restaurant about his first real date.
Something about that had made me feel bad, going to this hole-in-the-wall noodle place for his first date, when I know he regularly gets to eat at places with Michelin stars. But he had been thrilled with the menu and obviously enjoyed his food, so maybe this was really the best place we could have gone.
Sun had laughed at the stories I told him about Jase and our friends here at this same time of night, the places we’d been before, and a few of the crazier mishaps. At some point, I realized I’d been his age when all of those wild nights had happened, and it seems like an entire lifetime ago. I wonder sometimes if it’s too much, the eight years between us, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem, so why should I?
????? ?
I can’t help but grip the steering wheel a little tighter as Sun’s palm slips up my thigh. The rain is coming down hard enough that it’s difficult to see, even with the wipers flicking it away as quickly as possible. I’m glad the streets are basically deserted, everyone else safely at home and asleep at this hour.
An intrusive thought flickers through my mind for just a second, leaving me horrified at the idea of something terrible happening with Sun and I in the car together—and the headlines that would generate. My whole body tenses as I try to dismiss it, but I know he feels it, the hand that had been creeping in a teasing way suddenly switching to a more comforting touch.
“Are you okay?” he asks in that soft tone he uses when he wants to coax the truth out of me.
I nod, giving him a quick glance. “Yeah. I just hate driving when it’s raining like this. I got into an accident as a teenager, and sometimes I’m reminded of it.”
Shifting in his seat, he rearranges himself to look at me. “Did you get hurt?”
“No, it wasn’t that bad,” I tell him. “Scary more than anything. Slid across a couple of lanes of traffic and into a barricade. I only barely missed hitting another car; I’m sure that would have made it worse. I was afraid as it happened, but then realized I’d have to tell my dad about it, andthenI was terrified.” But my dad had surprised me that day, more worried about my own well-being than the car, despite the warnings he’d given me about what the consequences would be if I wrecked it.
He leans over and presses the softest kiss against my cheek. “I am glad you weren’t injured.”
The sincerity of his tone pokes at something inside me that I still haven’t found a way to understand yet. The way he cares about me—every detail and fact that he learns—almost makes me feel weak. Like he’s prodding at tender parts of me I didn’t even know existed. I can’t help but think again, this must bewhat it’s like to be in love.
Even with the minimal speed I’d been driving, it feels like we arrive at the apartment far too soon. Everything about tonight has been pretty exceptional—the food, the one-on-one time out in the world like an everyday kind of couple, and the company, being able to enjoy him like this. He deserves to know that.
“I wish you didn’t have to go back,” I say, turning the car off to talk for a moment. He deftly climbs over the console to wedge himself between me and the wheel.
I feel more than hear the “me too” he mumbles against my lips.
I can’t help the way my hands instantly go to cradle his hips, to bring him closer if possible. He shifts, deliberately grinding on me. I’ve never had any desire to have sex in a vehicle, but suddenly I’m imagining at least a hundred different positions we could twist ourselves into to make it work. Or at least give it our best try.
“Want you,” Sun whispers, sucking at my earlobe. “Always want you.”
I grip him harder, unconsciously, some part of me realizing that no matter how good he feels, I can’t strip him naked and consume him right here. We’re still outside. This is public, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now, trapped in the heat we’re making in the small space. “Want you, too. But not here,” I groan as his teeth nip at my neck. “Not now.”
Sun pulls away, leans back to look at me. He’s pouting, and that’s even more dangerous than the subtle rhythm of his body moving on top of mine. “Soon?”
“As soon as possible,” I promise, swallowing hard. I’m kind of surprised we managed to behave so well while we were out tonight. The way we want each other all the time has a ferocity that is wholly new to me. I am out of my mind over him; there’s no point in denying it. I know it, and I’m sure he knows it.
He kisses me again, slow and deep, teasing me with the faintest flicker of his tongue against my lips before he slides off my lap. Peering out the windows, he sighs.
“Sorry, I don’t have an umbrella,” I mention, assuming he’s annoyed at having to get out and get drenched on the way back into the building. I’ve never been good about checking the forecast, but it hadn’t even started pouring until we were leaving the restaurant.
“What? No, that’s fine. I’m not worried about that,” Sun says. “I was just thinking about…” He bites his lip, glances over at me. “You know how in the movies or books the couples that get the big moment and then they’re dancing and kissing in the rain? I always thought it was so romantic. I always wished I had someone to do that with.”
“Now you do,” I tell him, pointing out what seems like it should have been obvious.
His eyes blow wide in surprise. “You’d do that? You’d dance with me?”
I have no idea what comes over me as I hop out of the car, walk around to the passenger side, and open his door, holding my hand out for him to take. “May I have this dance, Sun-ah?”
