by Ana Huang
The clock ticked. The A/C hummed. The pages rustled as she turned them.
Finally, Farrah slammed her magazine shut with a huff. “Can I help you?”
Blake grinned. Success!
“Now is that the proper way to greet someone?” he drawled. Austinites don’t have strong accents, but he could lay it on thick when he wanted to. “Didn’t your mama teach you manners?”
“She did. That’s why I left you and your vanity in peace. It would’ve been rude to interrupt.”
Blake placed a hand over his chest. “Vain? Me? You break my heart.”
“I doubt anyone can break your heart.” Farrah fluttered her lashes. “If they do, the proofs from your solo photoshoot earlier will ease the pain.”
His body vibrated with laughter. “You know, I’m down-to-earth once you get to know me.”
“Is that your favorite thing about yourself?”
“Favorite, as in one? I can’t pick just one.” He frowned. “Oh. I see.”
“Uh-huh. Now that we’ve established the obvious fact of your vanity, can you be quiet? I’m trying to work.”
“So am I.”
“You are not working.”
“I was working until you came in and interrupted me.”
“I didn’t say anything when I came in!”
“You distracted me with your radiant presence. It was like a goddess descended from the heavens. How can I focus on something as mundane as Chinese vocabulary when faced with such an extraordinary vision?”
Farrah’s mouth twitched once, twice, until she caved and doubled over with laughter.
A grin stretched across Blake’s face. There was something magical about seeing someone so composed let loose, and to know he was the one who made her laugh like that.
“I don’t know what to do with you.” She wiped tears from her eyes.
“I can suggest a few things.” Blake pictured Farrah climbing into his lap and straddling him. Taking his shirt off. Taking her shirt off. Gripping his hair and moaning while he feasted on those sure-to-be delectable breasts of hers.
Hey, he was a guy. He couldn’t help himself.
Except this guy now needed a cold shower.
Blake discreetly adjusted himself under the table. He liked having a dick. He and Junior got along great. But sometimes the friend downstairs popped up at the most inconvenient moments.
“Anyway, you’re reading…Vogue?” Blake squinted at the magazine cover. “I can’t imagine that’s part of the syllabus.”
“First of all, this is Vogue China, which means I’m practicing my Chinese reading skills. Second of all, it’s not for FEA. It’s—” Farrah hesitated. “Never mind.”
Blake’s intrigue radar blipped. “You can’t leave me hanging like that. What’s it for?”
Farrah sighed. “Every year, the National Interior Design Association hosts a student competition. The winner gets an all-expenses-paid summer internship at the NIDA member firm of their choice. It’s one of the most prestigious honors in the industry.”
“Sounds fancy.” Blake didn’t know a single thing about design, but he wished he did. Not because he wanted to be a designer, but because of the way Farrah’s eyes lit up when she talked about it. He wanted to know what made her so passionate about the subject. Maybe it’d help him figure out what the hell he wanted to do with his life. “I don’t get the Vogue part though.”
“It’s for inspiration.” Farrah fiddled with the pages. “We have to submit a portfolio with different design concepts, and I’m stuck on what I want to do for the last one.”
“But it’s a fashion magazine.” Blake had heard his sister gush about the overpriced items in Vogue since they were teenagers.
“Design inspiration can come from anywhere. Fashion, travel, food, nature.” A dreamy look took over Farrah’s face. “There was a feature about the actress Marion Lagarde’s house in France. She designed her bedroom after her favorite Chanel couture gown. It’s fabulous.”
A smile tugged at Blake’s lips. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“So you see, it’s important for me to have peace and quiet. I need to work on my portfolio,” Farrah said pointedly.
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
Farrah reopened her magazine, and they fell into silence.
A minute later, Blake’s stomach growled.
She glared at him.
“What? I can’t control the noises my stomach makes.” Blake forgot he’d skipped dinner. No wonder his body was rebelling. He grabbed his laptop from the other table. “What do you want to eat?”
“I’m not the one who’s hungry.”
“Come on, you need fuel for your imagination. You said food can inspire design.”
Farrah exhaled sharply. “I’m not going to get any work done tonight, am I?”
Dimples creased his cheeks. “There’s Thai, Indian…oh shit, McDonald’s has 24-hour delivery here.”
“We did not come all the way to Shanghai to eat McDonald’s.”
After some bickering, they settled on Malaysian. Forty-five minutes later, the delivery guy arrived with two bags of steaming hot takeout. Blake met him downstairs and brought the food up to the library, where he and Farrah wasted no time digging into the feast. Beef rendang for him, Hainanese chicken for her, plus chicken satay, roti canai, and sambal fried okra to share. Oh, and mango sticky rice for dessert, because it ain’t a full meal without dessert.
“Where are your girls?” Blake lifted a forkful of beef to his mouth. The rich flavors of lemongrass, ginger, cinnamon, and other spices he couldn’t name exploded on his tongue. Damn. Rendang looked like shit (literally), but it tasted like heaven.
Blake liked simple foods. Tacos, pizza, and burgers were enough to satisfy him, but after two weeks in China he was developing an appreciation for international cuisines.
He drew the line at chicken feet, fish eyes, and yak penis, though. There were some animal parts humans shouldn’t eat. Period.
“Out.” Farrah ripped off a piece of roti canai and dipped the flatbread in curry sauce.
“Why aren’t you with them? I thought the four of you were joined at the hips.” Blake didn’t understand why girls traveled in packs like wolves, even to the bathroom. Especially to the bathroom. What did they do in there, throw a party?
“My throat hurts so I sat tonight out. Better safe than sorry.”
“If you said something earlier, we could’ve ordered some chicken noodle soup.”
A small smile touched Farrah’s lips. “I’m good. Thanks.”
Their gazes lingered on each other. Farrah’s eyes resembled pools of melted chocolate. Beautiful, delicious melted chocolate.
Blake’s heart did a weird skip.
Farrah looked away. “What about you? Why are you holed up in the library on a Friday night?”
He didn’t bother lying. “Homework.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I did not figure you for the studious type.”
Her tone rankled him. Blake was used to people thinking he was a stupid jock. He usually shrugged it off—who was the one with a 3.8 GPA, bitches?—but Farrah’s assumption stung.
“Why not?”
Farrah appeared taken aback by his cool tone. “I don’t know. I guess it’s because you’re a football player and the athletes at my school aren’t exactly familiar with the library.”
“I’m not an athlete at your school, and I don’t play football anymore.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
Blake’s ire melted at the chastised look on her face. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.” He shoved another forkful of beef into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed before adding, “I wasn’t getting much done, anyway. Foreign languages are not my strong suit.”
“What do you have problems with? Grammar? Pronunciation?”
“Everything, but mostly the characters. I can’t g
et them right.” How the hell was he supposed to learn a language with no Roman alphabet? There were thousands of Chinese characters, and they all looked the same.
“They’re hard,” Farrah acknowledged. “I have problems with them myself, but mnemonics can help. Here, give me your textbook. Did you learn radicals yet?”
“Yeah.” Depending on how you defined “learn.” Classes started so early Blake found it hard to stay awake.
“If you memorize them, they can be really helpful. Take kou, for example. You see how it sort of looks like a mouth? It’s part of most characters whose meanings have to do with the mouth, like jiao, to call, or chi, to eat.” Farrah wrote the words out. She went through a few other examples before moving on to the next radical.
Blake followed along, trying his best not to stare at her mouth. Farrah’s lips looked like they were made for—
Don’t go there, buddy. She’s a virgin. She’s probably never even given a blow job before.
He refocused on the lesson at hand. To his surprise, the characters made more sense. Not a lot, but more. It was a start.
Every once in a while, Blake broke up the monotony with random stories from his childhood and questions about Farrah’s life back home. He told her about the time he donned a bear mask and scared the hell out of Joy during a family camping trip at Big Bend, and how Joy tricked him with fake adoption papers as retaliation. That was messed up. To this day, a tiny part of Blake wondered if he was adopted.
Farrah told him about “borrowing” her mother’s lipsticks and using them as crayons on her family’s freshly painted walls.
Blake smiled at the mental image. A budding creative at age six. Farrah really did have her life figured out.
By the time they finished the first chapter, it was close to one in the morning. The food was long gone, and Blake’s eyes were bleary from staring at the text.
“We should call it a night,” he said. His brain wanted him to stay, but his body screamed for sleep. “Thank you for helping me with this.” He gestured at his notes.
“No problem. Consider it my apology for thinking you’re, you know.”
“A dumb jock?”
Farrah blushed. “Well, yeah. You’re different from what I imagined.”
“I am awesome,” Blake agreed. He scooped the empty food containers into a bag.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
She helped him gather up used utensils and napkins. “Now, the arrogance part, I got right.”
“I’m blessed with an abundance of confidence. Besides, I know you think I’m awesome.”
“Oh, really? How?”
Blake pointed at the clock. “You spent the whole night with me.”
Farrah’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s.
After Blake stopped laughing and dodged a swat from a red-faced Farrah, they disposed of the trash and collected their belongings. He turned off the library lights and followed Farrah into the stairwell.
He paused on the third-floor landing outside the girls’ hall. In the distance, a car door slammed, and laughter filtered through the stairwell window.
“Good night.” Farrah’s gaze tipped up to his. The moonlight reflected in her eyes, and Blake’s heart did that weird skipping thing again.
“Good night.”
She was so close. If he moved forward a few inches…
No. Nuh-uh. Don’t even think about it, buddy. One kiss is not worth ruining your year over. Even if it’d be a helluva kiss.
Blake cleared his throat and stepped backward, breaking the spell. “I’ll see you later.”
“Yes.” Farrah, too, stepped back, widening the gap between them. “See you later.”
Chapter Five
“This is hell.” Kris surveyed the happiest place on earth the way Anna Wintour would survey an outfit from Walmart. In her $500 jeans and Chanel top, she couldn’t have looked more out of place amongst the hordes of screaming children and frazzled parents.
Nearby, a little boy held an ice cream cone in one hand and picked his nose with the other while his parents tried to calm his sister, who cried so hard her face turned scarlet.
Kris shuddered and slipped on her sunglasses like they could protect her from reality.
“Cheer up, Kris. We’re at Disneyland!” Courtney sang. “The most magical place in the world.”
“Magical, my ass. The only magical thing about this place is how many terrible outfits they’ve crammed into one park. It’s like an outdoor convention for the poorly dressed.”
Farrah turned her head so Kris couldn’t see her laugh. Kris was one of her closest friends in FEA, but she lived in her own little world sometimes.
Farrah’s gaze landed on Blake, who chatted with Luke and Sammy off to the side. Blake was friends with Luke, who was friends with Courtney, which meant Blake was a de facto member of their group.
Farrah was still trying to figure him out. Sometimes, she glimpsed something deeper beneath his cocky playboy persona—a vulnerability that flickered over his face when he thought no one was looking. Then, with the wink of an eye and a smile, it was gone.
Blake’s gaze met hers. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Farrah’s residual smile faded when Blake walked over and slung an arm over her shoulders. The gesture made her heart flutter in a way she did not like. At all.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you warm. You look cold.”
“It’s seventy-five degrees.” Farrah shrugged Blake’s arm off her shoulder. To her surprise, goosebumps rippled over her skin. After the warmth of Blake’s embrace, the park felt like a tundra.
Damn him.
She ignored Blake’s chuckle and scooted closer to Olivia.
“I’ve mapped out the most efficient route for us.” Olivia snapped open a map of the park. “We’ll start at the farthest section and work our way clockwise back to the entrance. First, we’ll go to Fantasyland, then Treasure Cove and Adventure Isle. We’ll cut through the Gardens of Imagination and make our way to Pixar Toy Story Land and Tomorrowland on the other side.”
Luke grimaced. “You scare me.”
“I think it’s nice to have someone organized plan things for us,” Sammy said.
He and Olivia locked eyes. Olivia blushed and busied herself refolding the map.
Farrah and Courtney nudged each other at the same time. Olivia could deny it all she wanted, but the attraction between her and Sammy was mutual, and everyone knew it. They already had bets on when the two would get together.
Farrah gave them another week, tops.
As the group battled their way through the crowd toward Fantasyland, Nardo looked almost as displeased as Kris. “We could’ve gone somewhere more authentic for the Mid-Autumn Festival,” he grumbled. “This place is so Westernized.”
“It’s Disney. It is Western. And according to the Internet, it’s one of the best places to celebrate the festival.” Courtney leveled Nardo with a stern look. “That’ll be the last complaint for today. If anyone wants to be a Debbie Downer, do it on your own time.”
“The Internet is stupid,” Nardo mumbled.
Courtney narrowed her eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Olivia may have mapped out the best route, but sadly, her efficiency didn’t extend to the lines, which snaked in front of every ride and restroom like never-ending spokes of misery.
By lunchtime, Farrah’s feet were numb from standing.
“Thank god,” she said as they entered the restaurant Olivia had chosen for lunch. It resembled the set of one of those Chinese palace dramas Farrah’s mom loved watching. Each dining room featured a different theme. The one they ended up in had glowing fish suspended from the ceiling alongside traditional red paper lanterns. Farrah couldn’t figure out the theme. Under the East China Sea? Chinese Little Mermaid? The fish were a little tacky, but hey, this was Disney. They could do whatever the hell they wanted.
/>
Since it was a quick-service restaurant, Farrah volunteered to look after the bags while her friends ordered at the counter. It gave her more time to sit.
To Farrah’s chagrin, Blake also stayed behind.
“Well, well. You and me, alone again.” Dimples creased his cheeks. “What are the odds?”
“We literally came here together, Blake.”
He pouted. “Your indifference to my charms is starting to bruise my ego. Come on, throw a guy a bone.”
Farrah’s lips twitched. “Your ego could use some bruising, and your charms have no effect on me. Sorry.”
That wasn’t totally true, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Why? Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Are you in love with someone else?”
Farrah hesitated.
Blake’s eyes widened. “You are.”
“I’m not!”
“Who is it? I won’t tell.”
She didn’t know what it was. The heat? The hunger? The exhaustion? Whatever it was, it caused Farrah to lose her usual control over her reactions. Her eyes flicked toward Leo, who was paying for his food while the rest of the group mulled over their choices.
Farrah caught herself and averted her gaze.
Too late.
Blake’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit. You’re in love with Leo.”
“I am not in love with him.” Farrah fought to keep her expression neutral even as panic raced through her.
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m—oh, forget it,” she fumed. “You’re insufferable.”
Farrah had thought he might not be so bad after their conversation in the library last week. Clearly, that was a mistake brought on by copious amounts of delicious food and a dash of late-night exhaustion.
Blake Ryan was the worst.
“I saw the way you looked at him just now. Contrary to what some people think—" The way he said “some” indicated he was talking about Farrah. “—I’m not stupid. You want to bang him.”
She glared at him. “Do you have to be so crude?”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“You already are.” Blake’s dimples flashed again. “I can give you pointers from a guy’s perspective. People would pay for my advice. It’s that good.”