My Seoul Man

Chapter 4

AJ gave me a snarky "What's up, babe?" that sounded so much like Blaine's voice that I shuddered as if it were the real thing.

So, I gave him the stare he deserved.

And he said, "Long drive, from Cali." Trying to be all chill doing the one-handed whip. With his hair flying back too perfectly in the wind.

I tried to match that chill. Kept my eyes on the road. "Just six hours. But he shouldn't be here."

And he kept his eyes on the road when he asked, "He gonna say that about me?"

Now, I was kind of down with the fact that he'd asked. But I had to say, "If you really don't want to be recognized, he probably shouldn't see you. Are you their ride home? The grandparents?"

"Nah, they stay in the house in town these days. Farm's a long haul for them now."

"They don't really have to be at the store every day anymore, though, do they?"

He shot me a look and said, "Smooth segue."

"Well, I don't know how much he knows about K-pop but he's all about the entertainment world, okay? I told him to meet me at Sadie's. So, you can take the chicken to Jennie and work out something with the fam right quick."

He showed me those dimples and said, "Whatever you say. Babe."

"You are in a mood right now—turn down the little dirt road right there. Park behind the big garage near the end."

After he'd parked, he turned toward me and said, "I gotta know something before I go, okay? About something that happened to my mom 'way back in...I think it was 4th grade."

I stared...and he laughed and said, "It's been on my mind since...well, anyway she came to school with a black eye one day—you know about my Dad right?"

"A little bit."

"Well, she brought me this special lunch in a bento box, to sort of make up for what I'd seen him do to her that morning. And these kids started following her, yelling all this stupid—"

"Oh, my God—I slapped Belva Hernandez! Yes!"

It had all come rushing back so vividly in my head: Belva and her nasty little clique chanting "Ching, chong, Chinaman" while they followed his poor, frightened little mother around the building. She didn't speak or read English so she'd had trouble finding the office...

He gave me the most soul satisfied smile. "She asked me about you for years. Wanting to know what happened to the little Black girl who chased those children away."

"Oh, God, you're going to make me cry now—it wasn't that big a deal."

"Principal suspended you, though, didn't she?"

I raised my chin. "I did what I had to do, she did what she had to do. But I was right to do it."

"And that's when I started watching you all the time. Fell in love with those eyes..."

The way that gaze got all intense when he said it made me all fidgety and fumbly like I was still in 4th grade...

So yeah, Blaine would've needed a bullhorn or something to get through to me so soon after that little moment.

In fact, I ran up the steps at Mama Sadie's and said, "Seriously?" when he swung his arms open wide as if we still had it like that.

Very Blaine Backstrom, that move.