Page 64 of Salty, Spiced, and a Little Bit Nice

“You know what that means, don’t you?” She waved her cup of milk tea at me. “Jenna and I were right. He likes you.”

Jenna nodded. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be going out of his way to do all those things for you. He got you cute pajamas in your favorite color, for goodness’ sake! It might seem simple, but trust me, it speaks volumes. It shows that he’s paying attention. I’ve never had anyone I’ve dated in the past buy me cute pajamas or made me birthday noodles.”

“You need to find better exes,” Kim commented. “But I agree.”

“My point is,” Jenna continued, “I understand that you might be reluctant to trust him and admit to yourself that you like him, because it’s scary. You’re scared that he might hurt you again. But he’s doing all the right things now. So maybe he’s not the same person that had hurt you in the past. Maybe he’s changed.”

Her next words were drowned by the booming, rhythmic drumbeats, and the cymbals and gongs that filled the air, signaling the start of the dragon dance performance. Ten costumed dancers, each holding poles attached to the long body of a giant, fierce-looking red-and-gold dragon puppet, began to move in time with the beats; swaying and swishing the poles in a wavelike motion, bringing the puppet to life. The crowd took videos as the dancers holding the heads began jumping over the dragon’s middlesection, followed by the rest of the performers, before turning around in a spiraled formation, creating a mesmerizing visual spectacle.

But I wasn’t paying attention to the dragon dance, or the lion dancers that appeared after.

I was thinking about what Jenna had said.

Because she was right.

The younger Alec from a decade ago probably wouldn’t even remember when my birthday was, or what my favorite color was. He wouldn’t even know what low-GI foods or insulin pumps were, let alone want to learn about how they work. That Alec had run for the hills at the first sign of trouble.

But the older version of him had more than proven he had changed. That he wasn’t the same person who had hurt and abandoned me all those years ago. He did thoughtful things to look after me, wonderful things that made me realize that he accepted and appreciated me for who I was, diabetes and all. He made a conscious effort to get to know the real me, to be involved in my world, even though a lot of other people didn’t care to, or even want to. And if I ever needed proof that he was now a different, a better person, all I needed to do was look at the ever-expanding list of Alec’s Supremely Thoughtful Gestures.

Maybe Jenna was right. That it was okay for me to finally admit that I like him.

That Imore thanlike him.

My stomach sank as realization hit me: I was falling for him again, in a major way. It was inevitable, hurtling toward me at a breakneck speed.

And no matter how many lists or plans I made, there was nothing I could do to stop it.

CHAPTER 18Always Heed Your Internal Alarms

GPG get-together tonight with Jacqui, 7pm. U free?

I’ll pick u up at 6.

My stomach did a somersault when I read the message.

“Everything okay?”

I looked up at Mike. We were at Java Spice for lunch, and I’d been scrolling through my emails as he chatted with Mr. Tanujaya when Alec’s message popped up.

“All good.” I tossed my phone back in my bag without replying to the message. I needed time to think it through, maybe do a pros and cons list before replying. The right thing to do was to say yes, but I wasn’t ready for the awkwardness that would inevitably set in. I hadn’t seen him for a few days, because he’d been leaving the house earlier and coming back later than usual, presumably to avoid me after the weekend’s WhatsApp conversation.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you last week, but where are you from?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I moved out here from the East Coast.”

“No, what I meant was, where’s your family from?” Mike pointed at himself. “Me, for example, my father was born in the States, but his grandparents migrated from Taiwan back in the 1800s. Is your family Chinese? Korean? Japanese?”

“I was also born here in the States, but my parents are Chinese Indonesian. They migrated from Indonesia when they were younger.”

“Ah. That’s why you wanted to meet here for lunch.” He nodded. “You ever visited your families overseas?”

“Several times. Would love to go back someday.”

Our food came—grilled chicken and rice for him, and mie goreng for me. Imight havedefinitely did not order that dish because it reminded me of what Alec had made for my birthday.

“I haven’t been to Indonesia, but I heard it’s beautiful. Bali’s on my bucket list. Maybe we can do a trip together, see the country, visit your extended family.”

I raised my eyebrows as an alarm quietly rang at the back of my brain. One coffee meet-up and one lunch, and he was already inviting himself to go on an overseas trip to visit my family? “Uh, maybe we can talk about it later.”

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