Page 100 of Okay, Cupid

It feels so wrong, but my brain doesn’t fight against making half the shape in the air. When Alice shows me the pictures she took, there isn’t a single one that matches up properly. Mostly thanks to the height difference.

But I don’t mind.

They’re all perfect.

“Come on.” Huy nods as the sparklers go out. We’ve kept walking away from the tent, and I don’t even notice at first that Alice and Neve aren’t following us anymore.

When did that happen?

I look around for Alice, but Huy is insistent about pulling me toward something, down the street, toward the beach.

“You had fun?” he asks.

“Yeah, definitely! The food is fantastic.”

“Good.” He grins, showing off his dimples. “I’m glad you had a good Tết.”

“Did you?”

“I think my stomach hates me,” he says, patting his belly. “But I’m not complaining.”

“When did you start having regrets?”

“Around the third order of xôi gấc. But it’s so good, Jude.”

“I know, I know. I had it too.”

The breeze picks up as we near the beach, but oddly enough it’s calmed down a lot from earlier. I can actually hear when Huy talks to me, and it doesn’t feel like my ears are going to snap off at any moment.

“Want to see the water?” Huy climbs the sloping sidewalk that wraps around a dune.

“Sure.”

I follow his lead, down through the sand. There’s a huge drop-off from where the tide essentially formed its own short cliffside in the sand. Huy leaps down before he offers me his hand, which I gladly take.

“I like the ocean,” I tell him out of nowhere.

“Yeah?” Huy doesn’t look at me, he just looks at the water.

“I come to the beach a lot, when I can’t think. Or when I’m thinking too much.”

“Does that happen often?” he asks.

“You’ve known me for a month, you tell me.”

“I don’t know if I’d call you an overthinker, Jude.”

“You can’t read my mind. Trust me, it’s a mess up here.”

“I’ll just have to take your word for it, huh?”

I look at him. “I guess so.”

He lets out a long sigh. “I like the water too, the beaches. It reminds me of home.”

“Back in Vietnam?” I ask.

He nods. “I don’t have many memories of it; I was too young when we left. But my parents have shown me pictures and home videos of our village, and a lot of my family that’s over there will FaceTime. But I have these specific memories of the beach. Listening to the crash of the ocean waves, the sand in my toes, the fishing boats coming in from a long day at sea, the smell of the salt air.”