Page 42 of This Time It's Real
Perfect. Just perfect.
I scowl to hide my embarrassment and quickly smooth my hair back down in a few vigorous pats, then glare at him. “Don’t say another word.”
“Come on, it didn’t look that bad. It’s actually quite stylish—”
“Don’t.”
He bites down on another laugh and mimes zipping his lips, throwing away the key, the full charade, and starts leading me down the street.
“So,” I say after a moment, all the awe and adrenaline from the motorcycle ride gone, and the words that have been brewing inside me the past twenty-four hours finally bubbling up to my tongue. “We should probably talk about yesterday.”
“What about yesterday?”
He sounds genuinely confused, which only proves my worst suspicions correct. He doesn’t care about these things the way I do. He doesn’t have to worry about getting hurt, about the consequences of his actions, how one careless smile and a few fake nice words from him could bring someone else to total emotional ruin.
“Mysister,” I grit out. “You playing with her and her friends. What was that?”
He skids to a halt. “Whoa, hold up. Isthatwhy you’ve been grumpy all morning? Because I was being nice to your little sister?”
The way he phrases it—the judgment in his tone, as if I’m being difficult on purpose—makes my blood boil. “I’m not grumpy,” I snap, walking right past him.
He catches up to me in a heartbeat. “Yeah, no, of course. Because right now your tone and expression are so gentle. Very peaceful. Not at all like you’re fantasizing about strangling me.”
Not strangling, I’m tempted to correct him.Just throwing my fist into your face.
“I just—” I release a loud puff of air through my teeth. “We shouldn’t get our families involved, okay? It’s too messy. I don’t want my own sister to become collateral damage when we break up.”
I wait for some snarky remark, but when he looks at me, his expression is uncharacteristically serious. Even a little sheepish. “Sorry,” he says, surprising me. “I guess I wasn’t thinking about it like that.”
“Of course you weren’t,” I mutter.
“Hey, listen. If it matters that much to you—I won’t do it again, okay?”
My anger weakens slightly, though my distrust toward him holds. “You better not,” I warn, jabbing a finger at him.
He stares down at my outstretched finger, then back up at me, and a much more familiar—and kickable—look of amusement sprawls itself across his features. “Has anyone ever told you that you can be pretty scary sometimes?”
I make a point of walking straight ahead without replying.
The jianbing place is nestled between a local kindergarten, a half-empty parking lot, and what looks like an out-of-business textbook store. Two scrawny, sunburnt men in their late twenties are manning the stall, their foreheads shiny with sweat from some combination of the summer heat, the burning grill, and their uniforms: Both have on aprons and plastic sleeves over their loose white tank tops.
They’re just finishing up with a young mother’s order when we approach from the sidewalk.
“Two jianbings, please,” Caz orders in perfect, local Chinese, then glances over at me and switches to English. “Do you want a drink? Soybean milk? Water? Iced tea?”
I’m still busy trying to get my hair to stay flat. I pause at the question, a little flustered, and reply, “Uh, soybean milk would be good. Thanks.”
“Sure.” Caz turns around and eases smoothly into Chinese again. “Then we’ll just have one medium cup of soybean milk, sweetened.”
The two men shoot us curious looks, but they don’t say anything. They just nod and get to work.
Most of the ingredients have already been laid out over the stand, ready for use at any moment: a carton half filled with eggs; giant jars of black bean sauce and red bean curd and chili oil; a plastic bowl of dough and containers brimming with fresh vegetables.
I watch as one of the chefs spreads the sticky dough over the circular grill in one smooth, rolling motion, until it’s been stretched out paper-thin all the way to the edges. He repeats the process with two cracked eggs, the whites sizzling instantly upon contact with the hot metal, the two yolks sliding to the center like twin suns.
Within seconds, the dough turns a baked, crisp gold. Scallions and cut coriander are scattered onto the surface next, followed by pork floss and a thick bean curd paste and fat, fried dough sticks. The savory scent wafts into the air, mingles with the smoke from the grill.
The other man takes over with the packaging, cutting the cooked jianbing into two and sliding them into a small disposable bag, the steam quickly fogging up the clear plastic. Then, without a word, he extends the bag toward us.
