Page 48 of Dial A for Aunties

“I’ve been thinking a lot.”

“Uh-oh. Don’t overdo it.”

His smile widens, and I’m treated to a full view of its gorgeousness. It’s a full-on assault. His face should be illegal, the way his dark chocolate eyes crinkle at the edges and the way those dimples appear. He looks like a combination of Daniel Henney and Lewis Tan, a combination that is waaay too hot for his own good.

“I’ve mainly been thinking about feet.”

“Uh.” Okay, this is not where I thought the conversation was going to go. “Well, I’m glad that you’ve picked up a fetish since college...?” I smile in what I hope is a very open-minded way. I think the smile ends up looking slightly demented.

Nathan laughs. “Sorry, I wasn’t being clear. Though it’s interesting that that’s where your mind went.”

“Oh, like there’s a different way to take ‘I’ve been thinking about feet’?”

“Good point. Anyway, more specifically, I’ve been thinking aboutyourfeet.” He winces and quickly adds, “Okay, wait, that came out a lot creepier than it should have.”

“Yeah, that did come out pretty creepy,” I laugh, though the thought of Nathan thinking about anything that has to do with me makes things inside me flutter.

“I’ve been thinking about how, when you go to sleep at night, your feet wag back and forth.”

I bite my lip as memories come rushing back. Of us, tumbling about under the sheets, not leaving my bed for days. Of the conversations we had in between devouring each other, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. We’d talk about everything, from physics to games to mutual friends, and we’d watch from bed as the sky went from inky black to smoky purple and wonder about how we’d just spent the entire night awake and didn’t feel tired at all.

That first night we spent together, as I was dozing off, he said, “Do you always do that with your feet?”

My feet stopped still. “Do what?”

“No, don’t stop. They were like, wagging back and forth under the covers.” He turned his head to look at me, smiling. “That’s so cute.”

“Sorry,” I moaned. “My mom said my future husband would complain about my restless feet.”

He laughed. “Your future husband?”

“Well, according to her, I can only share a bed with one dude in life, and that’s my husband.” I wince inwardly at the magnitude of this statement. “Not that I’m saying you’re my future husband, I mean, you’re not the first guy I’ve shared a bed with. I’ve been with plenty others before. Not plenty, but like, you know. I don’t want to marry you, is what I’m saying. I mean, not like—”

His mouth covered mine in a sweet kiss that ended with us giggling at each other, our lips still touching.

“I know what you mean,” he said gently. “Don’t worry. The feet don’t bother me at all.”

And then we had fallen asleep like that, in each other’s arms, and I’d woken up with him hard against me, and—

I snap back to the present, with Nathan—my Nathan—smiling down at me. I grin weakly, my stomach fluttering at the vivid memory of our first night together. Did he bring up the feet thing on purpose, to remind me of that night?

“This is probably the most important weekend of my career,” Nathan says. “The success of this wedding will basically make or break the hotel.”

I nod weakly. “I understand.”

“I really should be focused on work and making sure everything goes well, but Meddy—god, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss.” He leans close to me, and everything about him fills my senses. His scent floods me, that good, clean, fresh smell he has that has nothing to do with cologne. He’s always smelled of fresh, warm laundry. “I should be focusing on making sure everything goes well, but I keep coming back to you.”

Of course, now that he’s talking about it, it’s all I can think of too. He’s so deliciously close to me, I can see his ridiculously long, thick eyelashes, and the way the muscles in his jaw move as his lips part ever so slightly. He dips his head toward mine. His lips are only an inch away when my phone goes off. We jump apart, and I scramble to pick it up. It turns out to be my alarm, set to go off five minutes before the penjemputan.

“Alarm. It’s time for me to go in,” I say, waving the phone vaguely. My heart is screaming. Can hearts scream? Mine’s doing some weird shit, anyway.

Nathan gives a rueful smile. “Maybe later, when there’s a lull, we can talk about us?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” More than anything, I long for the chance to talk things out with Nathan, to close the years’ worth of gap between us, to know everything that’s gone on with him.But the dark worry of Ah Guan’s body in my hotel room resurfaces from the depths of my consciousness like a swamp monster, and I step away from Nathan. “We’ll talk,” I say, and it comes out more curt than I wanted. Nathan’s smile loses a wattage or two, but he nods before walking away, leaving me feeling like I’ve lost him for the second time in my life.

18

Chinese-Indonesian weddings are filled with small ceremonies. Before the penjemputan, there is a short veiling ceremony, where the parents of the bride kiss her on the cheek and then put the veil over her face, thus completing her transformation from woman to bride. It’s usually a tearful occasion; in most Chinese-Indo families, no matter how old you get, kids usually live with their parents until they get married and move out. So for most families, this is goodbye, and the veiling ceremony is a visual reminder of it.

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