Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(55)

“For the record,” he says, “you should stop worrying. Your parents are awesome.”

I didn’t want to be embarrassed by my parents…but maybe I did. I wanted to watch him not fit in so that I could remember that he doesn’t fit in. But it’s becoming harder and harder to remember that.

There’s just one reason to keep him at arms’ length now: He’s leaving. We’re over before we ever started.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Also for the record,” he says, “no, I wouldn’t need two condoms.”

I flush all over again, but this time it’s in heated memory. I’ve felt him, after all. I’ve been on top of him. I know precisely how thick he is, how long his erection is.

“I remember.” My mouth is dry. I don’t want to look at him.

But he brushes a strand of hair away from my face, and involuntarily, I look up. I don’t know what I’m seeing in his eyes now. Something raw and hungry.

Or maybe I’m just seeing a reflection of my own want.

“Good,” he says. “Keep on remembering.”

BLAKE

The Chens’ apartment is small: two bedrooms, a dining/living room, and a kitchen just off it. It’s cozy, and it feels lived in. By the various decorations on the wall, lined deep, and the layered bric-a-brac covering the shelves, it feels like they’ve lived here at least a decade.

It’s Friday morning. Tina has gone off with her mother to the hearing. Her father, pleading knee pain, has stayed behind. And because I suspect that Tina wants time to talk with her mother without me around, I claim that I have homework to finish.

After about an hour of playing around with a textbook, however, I stop pretending to work. And when Mr. Chen invites me to join him on the couch in front of the television, I do.

The windows are open, and light spills into the living room. It’s as tidy as any cluttered room can be, filled with knick-knacks ranging from the expected (some thick red vases, adorned with white cherry blossoms that I guess are Chinese in origin) to the inexplicable (a plastic, moving clock-slash-telephone featuring Felix the Cat, whose tail ticks the seconds away).

Mr. Chen grunts as I gingerly seat myself on the opposite side of the couch from him.

Some people—like my father, for instance—are loud news watchers. They yell out insults anytime they disagree with anyone, and growl anytime someone is wrong—which, according to my dad, is usually everyone all the time.

By contrast, Mr. Chen seems abnormally quiet. “Hmm,” he says in response to a discussion on the volatility of oil prices. “Hmm” is also his only commentary on some ongoing protests in New York. When the news engages four pundits in a back-and-forth discussion on the prospects of a presidential hopeful, he listens quietly, shaking his head. At the end, he delivers his longest comment yet: “Hmmmm.”

I wait until a commercial comes on before I try to engage him in conversation. “Do you enjoy watching the news?”

He looks over at me. For a second, I think he’s going to say, “Hmm.” Instead, he shrugs. “Yes. If they don’t say anything stupid. Today, not so much.”

“Is the news much like this in China?”

He mulls this over. “I don’t think so,” he says. “But if it was, I wouldn’t know. We didn’t have a television.” He smiles. “I watch a lot of television now.”

“Just news, or everything else?”

“Everything. I like MTV. Basketball. I really like football.”

“Did you learn about football when you moved here, or were you a fan before?”

“I learned when we came over.” He has less of an accent than Tina’s mother—maybe because he watches so much television. There’s a glint in his eye. “I had to learn. All my favorite TV shows would get…what’s the word? Ah, preempted. Yes, preempted by football. So I learned.”

“Who do you root for?”

He shrugs. “I always want the Rams to win.”

I glance sideways, but he doesn’t seem to be joking about this. Maybe he’s just naturally stoic.

“And you?” he asks politely.

“I’m a 49ers fan.”

“Of course.” He smiles at this. “You spent your whole life in Palo Alto. That’s natural.”

“Yeah. Although that’s not the only reason…” I stop suddenly. We talked about my major. We talked about my fake version of Dad’s job last night. We didn’t talk about where I lived, and most of what Tina has said about me to her parents is that I’m not her boyfriend.

The news starts again, and he leans forward, focusing on the screen. For the next few moments, he doesn’t say anything. It shouldn’t feel this awkward to sit and watch television in silence. I shift in my seat, trying to get comfortable, but there’s nothing physical about my unease. For some reason, Mr. Chen makes me nervous. I look across the room, making eye contact with Felix the Cat. The plastic sculpture rolls its eyes at me and waves its tail. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.

“So,” Mr. Chen says at the next commercial break, “does Tina know your father is one of the richest men in the world, or are you only lying to us?” His tone is utterly calm.

My throat grows dry. I glance over at him and lick my lips.

He doesn’t look angry or mean; he’s watching me with his head cocked, as if my answer is about as interesting as our small talk about the news.