The Bride Test(43)

“Hungry?” Quan asked.

“This is good,” she said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin self-consciously.

Quan chuckled. “I bet you’re fun to take out.” Switching his attention to Khai, he asked, “Did you take her to that cold noodles place in San Mateo?”

A bitter taste filled Khai’s mouth as he shook his head. He hadn’t thought to take her out. Between his mom’s cooking and Esme’s, there was way too much to eat. He’d never seen a reason to go out. Until now.

“Ah, well, you should go there next,” Quan said. “Everything is good there. It’d be fun to see how much she can eat.”

“A lot,” Esme said with a laugh, and her green eyes sparkled brighter than all her cubic zirconia put together. She looked happy. Quan was making her happy.

The DJ started playing “Here Comes the Bride.” The groom—a distant cousin he didn’t know well—and his bride strode arm in arm between the tables and across the dance floor to the stage, where they exchanged vows entirely in Vietnamese. After that, their dads gave speeches, and Khai’s attention wandered. He’d heard countless variations of these kinds of speeches. So happy for the union of these two families, looking forward to a bright future, so proud of my daughter, etc. Esme, however, hung on every word.

She smiled, but Khai picked up on her sadness, an unusual feat for him. Her eyes lost their shine, and when the bride’s dad hugged his daughter, she wiped a tear from her cheek. He was reaching for her hand when she pulled away to cover her mouth, smothering a laugh. Quan whispered something in her ear, and she laughed harder and shook her head at him, like they were old friends.

Khai exhaled quietly and stared down at his hand. It hadn’t occurred to him to make her laugh. He didn’t even know how. Good thing there were people like Quan in this world.

When the speeches finished, entrees arrived at the table in quick succession: Peking duck, steamed fish, the usual wedding dishes. The lobster with ginger scallion sauce came, and Esme tied her hair back and dove in, cracking a claw open and eating the soft meat inside. Funny how she was pretty even when she was being carnivorous.

When she caught him watching her, she glanced at the untouched lobster on his plate and asked, “Want me to crack it for you? I’m good at it.”

“No, thanks, I can do it.” He wanted her focused on her own dinner. He liked watching her enjoy the food.

“What? How can you turn that down?” Quan asked. To Esme, he said, “You can do mine.”

Suppressing a smile, she put a morsel of lobster meat on Quan’s plate, and Khai had the horrible urge to snatch the food off his brother’s plate and gobble it down. It made no sense, and he grabbed his water glass and took a large gulp. A floral flavor had him frowning. What was that?

When he pulled the glass away from his lips, he found red lipstick on the rim. He’d accidentally used Esme’s glass. Germ transference. He wasn’t excessively germophobic, but with all the new bacteria no doubt swarming in his mouth, he might as well have kissed her.

Except he’d never kissed her. Not even once.

He didn’t know the softness of her lips or the taste of her mouth. By drinking from her cup, he’d gotten all the cost without any of the benefit. That hardly seemed fair. The scope of his vision narrowed to her lips. Full, red, and wet, they called to him.

When she sucked on her fingertips, Khai felt the draw deep inside of himself. The breath punched out of his lungs as his body hardened in a dizzying rush.

He drank the rest of her water and pushed away from the table. “I’m going to get a drink.” Maybe alcohol would kill her bacteria and clear his mind.

Esme waved saucy fingers at him as he escaped to the bar to order something strong.

It wasn’t much of an escape, though. Quan followed him there and rested a big arm on the bar’s counter, looking relaxed and dangerous at the same time.

“How you doing?” Quan asked.

Khai had no idea how to articulate his current state, so he gave his usual answer, “Okay.”

“You missed kendo practice last weekend.”

That was kind of a big deal. Khai never missed practice—not even when he was sick—but Esme had asked him to take her to Berkeley. And if she asked, he knew he would give her anything. If he could.

“Sorry, I was busy,” he said.

Quan laughed as he rubbed at his buzzed head. “Tell me about it. I’m so busy with this CEO shit I hardly have time for anything. That’s why I haven’t checked up on you before now. She’s not who I expected Mom to pick for you, but she’s great. I’m surprised you don’t like her.”

Khai started to correct his brother and say he did like her, but he frowned at his drink instead. If he said he liked her, Quan would probably start matchmaking. He didn’t want that. It was hard enough to stay away from her as it was.

“What don’t you like about her?” Quan asked. “She’s fun and hot as fuck.”

He couldn’t answer that question. There wasn’t anything about Esme he’d change. Not a single thing. “I’m just not interested.”

As he said the words, however, they felt uncomfortably like a lie. Their relationship wasn’t even physical, and he was already half addicted to her. He needed to keep them apart. For both their sakes.