Page 171 of Force Play
“Hey, Eomma. Why are you awake right now?”
“No sleep,” she laughs. “So I talk to you instead, Jae-Hyun. Surprised you awake now.”
I chuckle heartily. “My friend woke me up.”
“Friend?” I can hear her curious tone through the phone. She knows what time it is here and that it wouldn’t be afriendwho woke me up.
“Yes, Eomma. She’s a friend.”
“A girlfriend?” she prods.
“Nota girlfriend.” Something flashes across Lucia’s face, but I can’t tell what it is. “She’s just a friend.” I put my hand over the microphone and look over at Lucia now. “Do you want to say hi?”
This time, I do recognize the look on her face—complete surprise. “You want me to say hi to your mom?”
“Why not?” I shrug.
“Yeah, okay,” she smiles, and warmth blooms through me.
“I’m putting the phone on speaker,” I say into the receiver before pressing the button to do so. “Eomma, this is my friend, Lucia. Lucia, this is my mother.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Lucia says brightly. “Jae-Hyun has told me a lot about you.”
“I never meet Jae-Hyun friends.”
I scoff and roll my eyes. “You’ve talked to the guys, Eomma. And you’ve literally met Cole.”
“But no girls. Lucia special.”
My cheeks flush at the comment. Yeah, Lucia is special. Really fucking special.
There’s a reason I’m so obsessed with her.
“Like he said,” Lucia interjects. “We’re just friends.”
I don’t like the way the word sounds when it falls from her lips.
Huh, that’s weird.
“Anyway,” she says now, looking up at me. “I’m going to head down to the lobby and grab us some coffee. I’ll be back up in a little bit.” She leans closer to the phone. “It was lovely talking to you…”
“Hye-Won,” I tell her.
“Hye-Won.”
“Nice to meet you, Lucia,” my mom says, and I watch as Lucia gets up and gets dressed before heading out of my hotel room. My mom must hear the click of the door because as soon as Lucia is gone, she says, “You like her.”
“What?” I say, turning off the speaker and bringing the phone back to my ear. “Like I told you, we’re just friends.”
“You not,” she asserts. “A friend not in your room this early.”
“Yeah, we’re definitely not getting into that discussion, Eomma.”
The last thing I want to do is talk about my sex life with my mom.
“You like spending time with her?” she asks, more gently this time.
“Yeah,” I smile. “She’s pretty incredible.”
