Page 52 of Worth Fighting For

“Cool. You mind if I ride with you?”

“You don’t want to gallop ahead with the wind?”

Shang laughs. “I swear you think I’m actually the guy from our ads. It’s the long hair, isn’t it?”

“That sounds about right.” I can’t quite understand the change that’s happened to reveal this Shang—silly and relaxed and teasing. It’s such a marked change from the Shang I first came across, all buttoned-up and stiff. “But really, though, wouldn’t it be boring riding at my pace?”

Shang shrugs, pursing his lips. “Cloud here got a stone in his shoe and it took me a while to remove it. The rest rode on ahead, so I was getting kind of lonely.”

“Oh. Then sure, I would be glad to have your company,” I say. As soon as I say it, I half wonder if that was too eager. But then I realize I don’t really care; somehow, over the past couple of days, Shang and I have gotten to a sort of easy camaraderie, almost as though we are friends instead of this weird business relationship that we started off with. I feel my own mask slipping, and for the first time, I don’t care enough to put it back on. And anyway, it doesn’t hurt to ride with Shang, especially given how gorgeous he looks atop his horse. He may kid about looking like the guy from the Wutai Gold ads, but he really isn’t that far off, all muscled chest and shapely arms and those thighs that have obviously never missed a leg day. And the way he directs his horse so easily, moving his arms with casual grace…I can’t remember the last time I was this attracted to someone.

“So, uh, this whole horseback riding champion thing…” Shang says. His voice trails away and he gives a meaningful sideways glance at me.

A million excuses crowd my head, and I’m about to make up some story about some traumatic experience during some riding competition, but when I open my mouth, what comes out is: “Yeah, that might’ve been a slight exaggeration.”

Shang chuckles. “Okay. Still, I was impressed that Slugger even let you on. James has been trying to ride her for months now, and she still keeps giving him her hind legs.”

I break into a huge grin. “Really? I would’ve loved to see that.”

“Yeah, he keeps threatening to sell her to a glue factory.”

I roll my eyes. “Sounds like James.” I pat Slugger. “Don’t worry, Slugger. James is all talk and no action. Slugger’s a really good judge of character.”

“Yeah, most horses are. But why did you lie about being a horseback riding champion?”

“Oh.” I bite my lower lip, wondering how honest I should be with him. I’m so tired of pretending, and Shang feels like the one person I can be honest with, which is ironic since he’s the one person I shouldn’t be honest with. But somehow, I sense that he would be okay with the truth, and after days of playing a role, all I want to do is pry my mask open, just a crack, and let a tiny sliver of truth out, and so I say, “It seemed like the sort of thing your family would appreciate in a business partner.”

“Ah.” Shang frowns and doesn’t speak for a while. My mind chases its own tail in circles, wondering if I’ve said the wrong thing.

“I didn’t mean—” I begin.

“You’re right,” Shang says. “It is the kind of thing they like. My uncles and aunties, they’ve got this whole image of the American man that’s basically the Marlboro Man. You know, the stoic cowboy who is strong and does things like ride into the sunset and hunt for his food and loves whiskey and guns.”

I nod slowly.

“When they first moved here from China, they were seen as outsiders and outcasts, and at the time, there were all these Marlboro ads everywhere. And I think they felt like in order to fit in, they had to become the Marlboro Man.”

“Is that why they’ve got this chip on their shoulder about being hypermasculine?” I say.

“Yeah. Especially with the media doing everything it could to emasculate Asian men, I think my uncles felt like they had to go to the extreme, be the most toxic alpha males they could be. I mean, I’m not telling you all this to excuse their behavior, I just…”

“I get it.” And I do. Even though the portrayal of Asian people in the media has improved over the years, I’m not so young that I don’t remember the stereotypical characters that Asian actors were often forced to play. The way the male actors would be stuck with the harmful “Chinaman” role with high-pitched voices and silly antics, and meanwhile, Asian actresses would be given hypersexualized roles with awful, dehumanizing lines that made them sound more like sex bots than anything human.

“How did your parents deal with it when they moved here?” Shang asks.

I take some time to ponder this. “Their whole philosophy in life isKeep your head down and don’t make a fuss. So I think whatever abuse came their way, they just kept their heads down and chugged along.” My words weigh heavily on my chest as I say them. I think of Baba and Mama when they were my age, young and full of vibrancy, living in a new place where they weren’t necessarily welcome and telling themselves that they needed to make themselves smaller, to take up less space so nobody made a fuss about their presence.

“Yeah, I’m familiar with that mindset. A lot of my friends’ parents were that way, too. I guess our families kind of went to different extremes, huh?”

I nod.

“Um, to tell you the truth, I had an ulterior motive coming back here to talk to you,” Shang says.

“Oh?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Oh?” I say again. What could he possibly have to apologize for? This entire time, it’s been me making all the mistakes.

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