Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(40)

“Do you see the birds?” I tugged on Daniel’s hand. “Look at the blackbirds over there. They’re coming in pairs.”

Perched on top of the awning of a nearby bistro, blackbirds with ruby red paint strokes on their wings chirped merrily.

Daniel tilted his head and studied them. “I’ve never seen this happen before. It’s like a fairy tale, isn’t it? Perhaps a great omen for what’s to come?” He resumed humming an unfamiliar song, one he’d begun the moment we crossed the Dragon’s Gate.

“What is that tune? I don’t think I know it.”

He tilted his head. “I’m not sure.”

“Whatever it is, it’s nice.” I tipped my head toward the birds. “It seems like we’ve attracted an audience.”

Daniel smiled as we made our way into the square and toward the heart sculpture. He never walked ahead of me. Instead, he matched my steps, walking along at my side, often glancing down to make sure I was still there, as if our linked hands weren’t proof enough.

“When I was a kid, I carried this stuffed animal around everywhere with me. I can’t remember what kind it was because even in pictures it was tattered beyond recognition.” He tilted his head toward the birds. “My father kept throwing it into the washing machine to wash away whatever adventures I had with it that day. My mother mended it until she got tired of it and taught me how to do it myself with a thread and needle. She called it surgery practice.”

A grin spread across my face. “What did you call your little friend, and what sort of adventures did you have?”

“Birdie. To be fair, I stuck to a theme. I named my toy dog Doggie and my plastic pig Piggie. As for the adventures, they’re classified, but I can tell you that they involved a lot of traipsing in the mud, dirt, and sand.”

“You had toys and I had books. I loved my comics. My favorite is Lao Fu Zi.”

He returned my smile. “Ah yes, the old man and his band of misfit friends. My father loved them too—he kept them on the coffee table.”

“I always wondered why the main character seemed to fall in love with ghost women.”

“Ghost women have their allure. I see it.” The heat of Daniel’s gaze settled on me.

I blushed. “You do know I’m not a ghost.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. “You’re real, all right.”

We stopped at one of the hearts in the square. The current version was made to appear like frosted glass. I walked toward it and reached out to touch the smooth surface. Iridescent pigments swirled underneath the fiberglass. Stunning.

“It reminds me of the ocean,” Daniel said. “What you see inside of a seashell.”

I nodded. “It’s lovely. I wish I had found something like this on a sandy beach somewhere. Can you imagine such a treasure?”

“I can.” He was staring at me, holding me in his eyes.

A silence rolled in and blanketed the city, blotting out the chatter of strangers, the drone of traffic, the tinkling of leaves, and even the sound of my own breath and heartbeat. The instant of clarity before the exhale.

He took my other hand in his, pulling me closer, and leaned in for a kiss.

I had feared when his lips brushed against mine that I would catch fire from the fever burning under my skin. Instead, a slow hiss escaped as steam released into the air from our heat. My heart sang, fluttering in my chest in joy. This was what I had been missing. If I could kiss him forever, it would still not be long enough. In that moment, he was everything I wanted and needed.

And so we kissed behind a veil of our own making. The fog rolled off our skin and into the city.



* * *





?After the kiss, I could no longer trust my senses. My internal compass spun, whizzing, only pausing to point in his general direction. The kiss, the fog, the bliss. Daniel made me believe that I didn’t have to be alone.

We stopped at the paifang to say our goodbyes. His army of gadgets chimed and buzzed. He needed to go back to work, but he lingered for a moment longer, his shy smile tugging at his lips. “I’m leaving for a tech conference tomorrow, but I’ll be back in a few days.”

“What do you do exactly?” I asked.

“I’m the senior VP of software engineering at the company. It’s a hybrid of coding work and managing people under me. The title is lofty.” He laughed. “When I get back, how about having our first date?”

“This wasn’t our first date?”

He shook his head. “I’ll need the extra days to plan. How about noon on Thursday, and I’ll drive us there.”

I said yes.





Chapter Fourteen





Celia was tidying up her shelves when I arrived to tell her about my walk. When the final bridge figurine was turned the right way, she turned toward me. Her perfume of gardenia and lilac hung in the air. She wore a yellow frock also patterned with gardenias.

“Are these new?” I asked. “That means the tour group bought a ton of stuff.”

“They did,” she replied. “But I need plenty more busloads before I can start seeing profits again. The sooner you open the restaurant, the better—we need every tourist draw we can get.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “The neighborhood notification is really worrying me. Everything could fall apart before I can even start.”