by Megan Walker
Mei-Ling gives me a big hug when I reach her. She smells amazing, like lilies and citrus. “Thank you for the speech,” she says. “And for everything. I would have panicked so much today without you. You’re the best sister ever.”
“Don’t tell Lan.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do you honestly think Lan would stop looking at her phone long enough to hear anything I said?”
I laugh. “Good point. Anyway, I accept your Best Sister Award—
“—I didn’t say anything about an award, there’s no actual—”
“—I accept it,” I continue, breezing over her, “and any cash prizes that may come with it, because I clearly made the world’s most perfect match.” I tip my champagne glass towards Wes, who also looks quite handsome in his suit, though not Brendan-level hotness. Probably Mei-Ling would disagree with that last bit. It wouldn’t be the first time she was wrong.
Mei-Ling smiles over at her husband, her cheeks blushing a lovely pink. We both have our dad’s blue-black hair, but Mei-Ling’s skin resembles a porcelain doll while mine is what my aunt Alice calls a “peasant tan.” Even though she’s only an inch taller than me, Mei-Ling has always had this classic, statuesque beauty. An elegant sense of grace that I lack, apparently, if I listen to my Auntie Alice, or, you know, consult a mirror.
“It is a wonderful match,” Mei-Ling agrees. “Though perhaps the world’s most perfect might apply to you and a certain friend of yours who hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you all day.”
I feel a tingle of happiness all the way to my toes, despite the fact that my toes have lost all sensation hours ago in these ridiculous high heels.
“Really? You think so?” It takes everything in me not to turn around and see if he’s looking at me right now.
“I know so. I practically had to vault over the sexual tension between you two on the way to the altar. Why is it again that you two keep pretending you’re just friends?”
“We’re not pretending,” I say sadly, the intrusion of reality popping the bubble of my daydreamy bliss. (List items number five and six: No bubbles. No balloons—this is not a children’s party.) “And you know why.” As do I, all too well. Brendan’s panic disorder is a real thing, a mental health issue he’s struggled with since he was a kid. And it’s not like four months of hanging out with me have erased the fall-out from the totally shitty, emotionally damaging marriage to his high school girlfriend, now ex-wife. Being divorced at twenty-four is enough to mess anyone up, but someone with Brendan’s issues . . . he starts to hyperventilate just thinking about dating again.
Mei-Ling squeezes my arm and smiles. “If things end up changing between the two of you, then I think I win the Best Sister Award. For picking out that dress you’re in.”
She’s not wrong. The advantage of having a sister who embodies elegance and class is that my bridesmaid dress isn’t some hideous Goodwill-bound mess of tulle (though, admittedly, I thought it might be fun to wear the most tacky bridesmaid dress ever). My knee-length satin dress is burgundy and form-fitting and somehow makes my form actually look like something that deserves to be shown off.
If I could walk in these heels like a normal human woman, I might even approach “sexy.” For a girl whose primary descriptor is “cute” or maybe “goofy,” that’s a pretty awesome leap.
“Look at my beautiful girls,” my dad says, walking up to us with an Old Fashioned in hand. That drink—or the fact that it’s, like, his third—may be the only reason he’s up and walking around. Dad claims his knees are bad, but he can walk just fine. He just prefers sitting down, and when he’s home (which is most of the time), he stays attached to his old, ragged armchair like Lan does to her phone. (Dad’s list number one: The armchair stays home.)
I don’t remember it being that way before Mom left.
“Hi, Daddy,” Mei-Ling says. “I know you didn’t like the idea of the jazz quartet for the reception, but aren’t they fantastic?”
“You are right, as usual,” Dad says. I make a face at him that Mei-Ling can’t see, and he tries not to laugh. Dad agrees with me that things are more fun when they’re actually, you know, fun. He suggested it be a karaoke reception—Dad loves singing karaoke, particularly anything by Sinatra or Coolio.
When he got his list with rule number two, no karaoke, I could tell he was a little sad. I was too. Dad’s actually a great performer, even from the confines of his armchair. I assured him that whenever I get married, Dad can belt out “Gangsta’s Paradise” to his heart’s content.
“They were actually Wes’s choice,” Mei-Ling says, beaming over at her husband, who’s being talked to by my adorable but senile grandma.
“Ah,” Dad says, nodding. “Well, he is a wise and discerning fellow with excellent taste, that Wes. Especially in picking a bride.”
Dad’s laying it on a bit thick—he likes Wes well enough but finds him too strait-laced and serious. Which makes him a great fit for Mei-Ling, in my opinion. But what Dad really loves about Wes is that he’s Chinese. Dad’s big on his girls dating (and thus eventually marrying) Chinese guys.
Brendan is definitely not Chinese. Dad loves Brendan, but as my best friend and business partner. I’m not sure what he’d think about me dating him—if that ever happened.
Brendan didn’t say he would definitely never date again. Just that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be ready to or when. He also never actually said that he’d want to date me, even if he felt like he could date again, so it might be a moot point.
My palms feel sweaty.
Dad asks Mei-Ling to dance, and I take that moment to head toward Brendan, who is no longer talking with Lan and looks like he’s wishing he could disappear into the wallpaper behind him. He’s also got social anxiety, and I worried that spending a whole day with my family and their friends would be stressful for him, but he’s actually done really well. At the end of the day now, though, I can see it wearing on him.
He smiles when he sees me approaching, which does nothing to make my palms less sweaty, but does make me feel all warm and happy inside.
“How’re you holding up?” I ask.
“Pretty good now,” he says.
“Because Lan has given up making you look through some celebrity Instagram feed, or because I’m here?”
His blue eyes get a little sparkle in them. “I’m going with both. I don’t know why Lan thinks I need to see thirty pictures of Khloe Kardashian’s lunch. I’m one kale salad and cocktail pic away from an existential crisis.”
I laugh, and his smile widens.
“But,” he continues, toying with the glass in his hand, “the you being here part is always the best.”
A blush creeps up my cheeks. Brendan and I flirt with each other all the time; that’s always been part of our friendship. Something’s felt different the last couple days. though. I’m not sure if there’s been some actual shift, or if I’m hallucinating it after four months of longing.
I open my mouth, possibly to outright ask him—sometimes I’m not sure what I’m going to say until the words tumble out—but a woman’s voice from behind me cuts in. “Su-Lin, have you seen Derek?”
I turn around to find my grandma standing there, a tiny woman who has shrunk several inches in the last few years. She’s been looking for Derek all night.
“No, remember, Grandma?” I say. “He couldn’t make it.”
Her face falls, and her eyes flick to Brendan, which is the exact moment when I realized I forgot to warn Brendan about—
“That’s too bad,” Grandma says, “I was just thinking I’d introduce him to your friend. What was your name again, dear?”
“Brendan,” he says, his eyes widening like a deer in the headlights. Or a Brendan who’s being talked at by someone he doesn’t know. Same difference. Not nearly as wide, though, as the first time we met, when I basically babbled at him about his highl
y recommended video editing skills for about three minutes straight before realizing that he was staring at me like I just materialized out of thin air for the express purpose of giving him a heart attack.
I realize too late that I’ve gotten sidetracked when I should have been heading off what Grandma’s about to say next. “Derek is such a nice boy,” she continues. “He’s a homosexual, you know.”
I smile, and Brendan looks confused. “I—I don’t think I’ve met—”
Okay, now I’m not interrupting Grandma because I think this is funny.
“A lot of the kids are nowadays,” Grandma says. “But I think you two would get along.”
Brendan finally gets what’s happening and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“I think a lot of people have always been gay, Grandma,” I say. “And Derek’s married, remember?”
“Also, I’m not gay,” Brendan says. He gives me a little devilish glare for not sparing him.
“Oh, dear,” Grandma says. “I do wish Derek would call. I never know what’s happening in his life.”
I know for a fact that Derek calls her once a week, and yet she’d probably try to set him up with his own husband at this very wedding, if the two of them weren’t off on some “spiritual journey” in Australia that seems to involve lots of scuba diving and high-end shopping.
Grandma spots some other cousin and shuffles off, and Brendan shakes his head at me. “You knew what she was going to say.”
Brendan gets mistaken for being gay a lot, because of the pink hair. He’d never admit it, but I’m pretty sure he encourages it so that he doesn’t get hit on by girls and sent into panic attacks.
“I did. But you know I’m incapable of saving you from social embarrassment when it happens to amuse me.”
Brendan smiles. He also knows I’d never set him up for something he couldn’t handle, and after four months of being more or less joined at the hip, I have a pretty good sense of where that line is.
His blue eyes hold mine for an extra long moment. I wet my lips, which suddenly feel all too dry. Maybe I should get another drink.
“You know,” he says, his gaze dropping to his shoes. “I still haven’t gotten that dance you promised me. We need to show off those new moves of yours.” He looks back up, and I wonder if that’s a hint of nervousness in his expression?
He’s never nervous around me, not since that very first day. Something is definitely different.
My pulse feels thready, remembering how it felt to be in his arms a couple days ago in our attic studio, when I told him I was worried about having to dance at the wedding. He offered to show me how to dance—a skill I’ve never possessed.
But with Brendan as a teacher . . . The memory itself makes me a little breathless.
“The world should definitely not be denied these new moves of mine.” I take his hand as he leads me to the dance floor, just as the jazz band starts in on Etta James’s “At Last.”
I see Mei-Ling grinning at me triumphantly, as if she was somehow involved with timing it that way.
Brendan’s arm is around my waist, one hand at my lower back, his other hand clasped with mine. Guiding me through the steps, as I try not to count out loud or step on his toes or bob my head like a chicken. Brendan’s good at leading, though, and doesn’t criticize, and it’s not long before I don’t have to try—we’re just dancing, and I fit perfectly against him (one advantage of these awful torture-heels is the extra three inches of height they give me—which now makes him three inches less than a full foot taller than me).
God, this feels so good.
The thing about Brendan is, he’s not only my best friend, he’s my Desert Island Person—you know, like if I had to pick one person to be marooned with on a desert island for the rest of my life. My DIP. (Did I make that up? Should I trademark it?)
That’s saying something, because I’ve actually been on a desert island when I was on Starving with the Stars—so I know the helpfulness of being able to construct decent shelter out of, like, sticks and rat guts or starting fire with nothing but sand and soggy kelp. I’m pretty sure Brendan would suck at all that about as much as I did, but I’d pick him anyway, even over my main celebrity crush Daveed Diggs. Who I also think would probably suck at harpooning dinner eel, but could entertain me by preforming all of Hamilton in his Lafayette accent while wearing a coconut bra.
Come to think of it, I bet Brendan could do that, too. The thought makes me giggle to myself. Or maybe not so much to myself, because Brendan raises an eyebrow.
“I wonder why the coconut bra is a thing,” I muse.
He groans. “Are you thinking about Daveed Diggs again? Why is he always wearing a coconut bra in your head?”
“No, I don’t mean why it’s a thing for me.” Though that’s probably a good question in and of itself. “I mean, like, in general. It would be super scratchy. And I can’t imagine it provides much in the way of support.”
“Hmm. Probably not.” He reflects on this. “Maybe it’s the equivalent of a boob job. Makes them seem bigger? And really . . . roughly textured?”
I laugh. “Sexy, right? Who doesn’t want to feel those up?” I look down at my own chest, which isn’t exactly the Kansas plains, but definitely not the Rockies, either. Though this dress does cling to them nicely, and the keyhole neckline actually manages to show them off, such as they are. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope Brendan would notice. “Bigger, though . . . I could use that.”
His eyes drop to my chest, then quickly away. “Come on. Your coconuts are great the way they are.” He gives me a side-eye smile, and a flush of heat goes through me.
Is this still just our normal flirting? My heart is racing, and as badly as this conversation could turn out, I have to know if I have any chance, or if I should be burying these feelings along with my angst about my absentee mom and my unrequited crush on Chris Pine (who would also look good in a coconut bra).
There’s only one way to find out. I steel myself, something that’s somehow easier with his arms around me, with the weight of his hand in mind. “So, I probably shouldn’t be asking this so soon on the heels of talking about my boobs . . .”
Seriously, Su-Lin? Is that really the way to start this conversation?
Now both his eyebrows are raised.
Too late now. Full speed ahead.
“But, um,” I continue, “just in the interest of checking in on things . . .”
“If there’s something you want to ask me, you can just say it,” he says, though he knows full well my need to preface potentially uncomfortable questions in super awkward ways.
“Right. Okay.” I let out a breath. “I just wondered if you’re feeling like you might be ready to date. In general, I mean.”
He blinks a little rapidly and his shoulder tenses up, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to get rejected again, like that first time we went to lunch to talk about the business. I called it a date, and he had to break it to me that he never ever ever dates and maybe never will.
But then he lets out his own breath and smiles hesitantly.
“Yeah,” he says, so softly I have to strain to hear it. “Yeah, I’m definitely getting there.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to keep from breaking out into a full-on victory cheer. After all, him feeling like he might be able to date doesn’t necessarily help me.
Still, I’m nothing if not an eternal optimist. “Are you thinking about asking out anyone in particular?”
“Well, there is this one really awesome girl,” he says, and the flirtatious spark in his eyes makes my heart flutter. “She’s beautiful and funny and crazy, and I know she was into me when we first met. I was thinking about seeing if that’s still a possibility.”
I feel like I’m floating, higher and higher with every word. He does like me as more than a friend. He does
want to date me.
“She sounds pretty great.” I’m trying to keep my tone all coy and nonchalant, but I’m excitedly bouncing on the balls of my feet again, which isn’t great for nonchalant or dancing.
“Yeah.” The look he gives me is both soft and full of the heat I can feel coursing through me. “She is.”
My breath catches, and for a horrible second, I’m sure this is too good to be true. “It’s me, isn’t it? Is it me?”
Brendan laughs and pulls me closer, guiding me in circles. “Yes, it’s you. You’re the only girl who could make me want to date again. I haven’t felt that in three years. But . . .”
But? My floating pauses, my stomach lurching a bit.
There’s some sadness in his smile. “Wanting to and being able to jump into something without my chest feeling like an alien is about to burst out of it are two very different things.”
I rest my head on his shoulder. I still feel like bouncing just knowing he wants to be with me, even if his desire isn’t as strong as mine.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “The idea of a—a relationship, it’s just . . .” I look back up at him, and he seems paler at even having said that word. “I can’t just leap into anything serious like that, I just . . .”
I can see that he’s frustrated—with himself, with his panic disorder. Hopefully also with his horrible ex-wife who still must have some hold on him despite cheating on him for years and generally being awful to him.
“I want to,” he says, and I can tell he means it. “I really want to. But I don’t know if I can.”
“Okay,” I say, and we dance in silence for a bit, while my brain tries to pull together what this means and what to do about it. This moment feels tenuous, like if I say the wrong thing, I’ll be friend-zoned forever, or worse, lose him entirely. “What if we dated, but . . . casually?”
Brendan’s head tilts. “You and me,” he says skeptically. “Casual.”
I hope he means it like I think he does—that anything that happened between us would be heavy and serious. People don’t usually assume I’m capable of being serious about anything, but Brendan knows me well enough to know otherwise.