My Seoul Man

Chapter 26

"They're all right, right?" was the first thing I asked AJ the next morning.

I'd seen his grandmother's sorrowful eyes in my dreams, the night after the Food Fest mess. Even after he'd tried so hard to love it all away, brushing and weaving my hair into a big braid right before we went to bed to soothe me to sleep.

Whenever I moved that night, I'd feel his hand touch my back or slide around my waist—some little comforting connection to let me know he was "available," right?

I'm not talking about sexually, I'm talking about emotionally. He was there for me, feelin' me, in case I needed him.

So, I woke up smiling from all that constant contact. Even though I was alone in bed--the second thought he had every morning was to go sit on the porch to Tiktok, IG and Bubble his Angels.

But I was over being jealous. Because he always came back to me smiling like people smile at the airport when they see the person they love the most standing there waiting for them.

You know. That relieved, "Okay, now all's right with the world again" smile I used to envy so much.

See, I never got that smile before AJ.

I was always that grim faced woman struggling to snatch her luggage off the carousel and struggle her way out to that little parking lot bus all by herself—Blaine actually forgot me twice, so I quit asking him to come.

And my heart used to just ache so bad when I saw all these other couples bobbing and weaving through the crowds to leap into each other's arms. Dudes would be standing by the luggage carousel with big bouquets or the babies hopping up and down and yelling, "There's mommy!"

But I was just this hangry bitch who kicked open the door and flung my bags into the living room when I finally made it home. I didn't even want to see Blaine, once I got there—none of my so-called "men" had ever greeted me like that.

So, I almost liked it when I felt AJ ease out of the bed trying not to wake me, because I knew I'd get that twinkly eyed, "There you are," smile when he came back.

Who could be mad at that?

Seeing the concern in my eyes that morning, he laid down beside me, smoothed back some stray strands he'd loved loose from that braid, and said, "Gran had the whole family over for somen last night, actually."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Right there in that window, too, I bet. I like her style."

"Oh, she's one tough cookie, Hye-Ri. She comes from one of the old, aristocratic families that got pretty much wiped out during the back-to back wars--I renovated their hanok a couple of years ago. That's one of those traditional houses that tourists call pagodas. All the cities were pretty much bombed to bits, but some of these houses were still standing even after all that—historic site, now. Has to be kept exactly—wait..."

He reached back for his cell and showed me a magazine cover photo of his ancestral home—an aristocratic ancestral home, hundreds of years old, that looked like a scene from one of those historical dramas on Netflix.

It was set in this valley beneath a mountain range with a name I can't spell let alone pronounce. They were always built with mountains behind and water in front, he said. For spiritual reasons, maybe—I should've asked.

But all I kept thinking was how our ancestral houses were those old, splintery shacks we'd moved up from through all the blood, sweat and tears. I was proud of the progress we'd made, yes. But...

He set the cell aside as if he'd sensed my uneasiness. "Did you get to speak to your Aunt Jennie?"

"Oh, the fam'll be in church 'til 'way after noon. And then they'll come back and chow down like always. And talk about everything but what happened yesterday."

"That's kind of like how my mother used to say her yesterday self had done the best it could and her tomorrow self would have to handle whatever was coming next."

I said, "Too deep for me." And ran my hands through his hair. Silk...

"It was her way of telling me to stay in the moment instead of dwelling on stuff I couldn't fix."

I wrapped a lock of that black silk around a finger. "Well, my family's just doing that old timey survival thing from all the way back to when they made us dance on the decks of slave ships. If you looked weak or sick they'd throw your ass overboard."

The mood darkened like the sky does when the clouds roll in—his eyes, too.

And he said, "When I hear things like that I'm amazed the human race has survived this long. I mean, I couldn't have survived the heinous shit that my grandparents went through—two wars. One in the 50s, right? Lost everything, Hye-Ri's family. I mean, my grandpa's people suffered, too, but the Japanese went after the old nobility with a vengeance. Detained her father for years. He was a scholar. And books and the people who write them are always the first to go."

"I've seen that in movies. Old ones that were probably totally backasswards, historically."

"Yeah, and M.A.S.H., right?" There was a hardness I'd never heard in his voice before. "Three million people died in that one. Not so funny."

But then he smiled and said, "I love that show, though. I watched the whole series once, when we were on tour and couldn't go out running around town or anything."

"Well, I tell you where I want to go," I said. And because his whole body relaxed when I moved on like that, I said, "Let's drive part 'way up with Yoli and Ronnie to this little restaurant right off I-10 where they make big old pies. Things look like basketballs, almost. Big domes full of fruit and all kinds of good stuff."

"I like the sound of—whoa."

His business phone started nagging at us. I handed it over and he frowned at first.

But then his face lit up and he grabbed hold of my hip to steady himself.

And after a few minutes of, "How the hell--you're kidding me—what?" he tossed the cell over his shoulder, gaped...and said, "I can't--I'm one of Time Magazine's most influential people this year."

I leapt up and squeezed him like a boa constrictor once I'd picked up my jaw off the floor. And then I paused...and said, "Somehow pies the size of basketballs seem kind of...silly now."

But he caressed my cheek and said, "They sound like the perfect way to celebrate, actually. Let's check and see if they're up, yeah?"

And I loved how Yoli kept saying, "No way," over and over again when I called—they were up, over at Sadie's, packing and deciding which route they wanted to take when I called. Waiting for us to get up, actually.

And I was in the shower letting AJ get more info about this Time thing when he came in tapped the glass with my cell and said, "Your secretary?"

So I walked into the towel he held up for me to step into and handed over the cell, gingerly, like he didn't really want me to take the call.

But almost before I finished saying, "Hello," Clary just blurted out, "Were you guys closed down by the county or something yesterday?"

I eased down on the bed—I could feel those clouds rolling in again. "Well, they...inspected us, b—"

"Dammit! I couldn't be there because we had to go see Burt's mother in the hospital yesterday, but you know as soon as I got back these people just could not wait to get all up in my--"

"What's happening? What'd you hear?"

She sighed real loud and said, "Well, there's all this talk about how you shouldn't be training people—"

"You've got to be—we passed the inspection, though. The chichi chefs started a buncha bullshit cause there were big lines in front of our truck."

"Yeah, but you know how they are! There'll be all these parents calling Monday wanting to know what really happened and if the district should've done a better background check..."

I fell backwards on the bed and moaned, "Fuuuuuuuuck..."

And AJ ran over to the bed like someone had just shot me...