Behind the Scenes

Chapter 21: Close A Door, Open A Bottle

"Send that girl packing and go after your man."

Shored up by Forth's words, Ming finds it surprisingly easy to stand firm with Moowarn. He recognizes now that she'll never truly give up so long as he leaves the door open to her even a crack. The only option is to close it right in her face. The friendly chats, her calling him "boyfriend," all the little intimacies he allowed to continue because they felt harmless before Kit came along—they all have to stop.

He squares his shoulders and meets her eyes without dissembling. "I told you before that I'm not into you anymore," he says point blank as they face each other next to his parked car. "Why did you come?"

Unsurprisingly, Moowarn shifts straight into bargaining mode. "But I miss you and want to see you so much," she says plaintively. "Maybe I still have a chance?"

Gazing into her hurt face, Ming can't help but remember other, happier times. His first glimpse of her at a mutual friend's birthday party, Moowarn dancing in a short pink dress with flowers in her hair. Their first kiss on a footbridge one warm spring evening, her hand softly caressing the back of his neck and her lips parting sweetly against his. Intimate moments with her spread out under him, warm and eager. They'd been good in bed together, better than anyone until Kit, but out of bed...somehow it had all begun to feel like a play they were performing, one entitled The Beautiful Girl and the Rich Boy Who Loved Her. Moowarn knew exactly what she expected of a boyfriend; she fed him his lines and Ming spoke them on cue. But it never felt quite real. Always he had the suspicion that for Moowarn, any handsome boy from a wealthy family would do. Any script would do, so long as it ended with an extravagant wedding in Act Three.

Never once had he stood with Moowarn on a beach under the stars, heart racing, wondering aloud how the moon feels about the earth.

"I'm sorry, Moowarn," he says gently. "From now on we can only be friends. Please don't make it more complicated."

An angry flush stains her cheekbones at his words. She shoves at his chest, hard enough to push him backward. "Asshole! You will always be you. A selfish prick!"

"I know I'm bad. I was bad," Ming amends. "But I have found someone I love and I don't want to hurt that person. I'm sorry."

His person. His Kit. His precious Kitty.

I'm sorry," he says again. "Take care."

Ming gets in his car, slams the door shut and locks it. He drives away with her curses still echoing in his ears as Moowarn grows ever smaller in the rear-view mirror.

#

Feelings are exhausting. Kit would like to stop having them now, thank you very much. With that goal in mind he knocks back another drink, trying to ignore Pha's disapproving gaze.

"Slow down, Lil' Tiger," Pha says. "Are you going to make me carry you home this early?"

"Shut up. We can't all be like you and little Yo." A pastel storybook, is what Kit means. A cute little romantic comedy filled with heart-eyes and shy smiles. Nothing that bites. Nothing that hurts.

"You act like you were dumped."

The irony is that if he'd actually been dumped, Pha would be buying the drinks and commiserating as kindly as can be. Pha can be a particular brand of selfish jerk sometimes but the dude is also a hopeless romantic, and as such he's unfailingly kind to the brokenhearted. After Kit and Pin broke up, Pha had collected Beam and showed up on Kit's doorstep with pizza, beer, and sympathy, keeping him company all night with manly hugs and drunken sentimental toasts to better days ahead as college men.

Kit still can't bring himself to come clean to Pha, though. He's caught too firmly in his own web of lies to untangle himself now. There's been too much secrecy, too many lies of omission. He just can't summon the energy to explain it all in enough detail for Pha to understand his pain.

Seeing that pretty girl fawning over Ming. God. They looked like they'd stepped out of a romantic movie poster, all glossy and smiling. What would Ming want with a small angry man who tried to hide him in the shadows, when he could walk proudly in the sunlight with a girl like that?

And then there's this business with Beam. What the hell?

"Why is Beam doing this?" Kit demands of Pha. "Shit! I saw him flirting with girls every day. Every day! Suddenly he tells me he likes me and disappears? And Ming too, goddamn it."

"Your heart is so indecisive, Kit. Beam must have his own reasons—he'll be back when he's ready." Suddenly Pha's eyes narrow. "But I think what Beam did doesn't bother you as much as what Ming did," he says slowly, his gaze so discerning that Kit shifts uneasily in his seat. "Am I right?"

Kit's got no answer for that except an expletive, so he takes a drink instead. Unfortunately, that's when Beam decides to appear from nowhere, silent as a goddamn cat, startling Kit so badly that he manages first to gasp booze into his lungs and then spew it explosively all over Beam's face.

"You little shit!" Beam yelps.

For a moment everything is chaos. Kit is coughing, Beam is cursing, Pha is laughing—and then Beam is struggling his way through an explanation and an apology and somehow they're all right again, the three of them. And Kit is so damn relieved. The Wild Doctor Gang is like the Three Musketeers: All for one and one for all. Being at odds with one another, even for a little while, had sent Kit's anxiety level soaring into the stratosphere.

Beam smiles at him, his relief every bit as obvious as Kit's. "Hey," he says gently. "Still angry, Kitty?"

Kit snorts. "Get off. I'm only angry 'cause you called me Kitty."

"I'm sorry. Forgive me? Please, pleaaaase?" Beam scritches Kit under the chin, earning himself a slap but a smile too.

"Okay, okay! Just don't ever do this shit again."

They're smiling, they're laughing, they toast, and for ten glorious seconds Kit thinks this evening is really looking up.

And then Ming walks in.

With a curse that comes out sounding like a mouse's squeak, Kit dives behind Beam and tries to disappear.