Chapter 27 - Bubble Tea & Other Drugs

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Chapter 27

Fang and I get in a black car together. We narrowly escape from the cell phone photo-snapping gawkers lining Zhaojiabang Road. By now, I assume Fang had been recognized, and his location had been posted online. As we weave into the backstreets to avoid traffic and head for the highway, Fang finally unclenches his fists and begins to relax in his seat.

"We're going to drop you off at your apartment first," Fang assures me. "I've kept you out late enough."

"It's all right. This is the most excitement I've had since getting here. I hope I didn't upset Liyuan too much by showing up tonight. I wish I could apologize to her. If she only knew that I am just a student acupuncturist, she would know I would never have the gall to take her place in the spotlight."

"There's no need to apologize," Fang says with a wave of his hand. He doesn't clench the fist again after making the gesture. Instead, he lets it lay down on the black leather of the backseat. 

His hand is only about two inches away from my thigh, and I don't think anything of it. He deserves to spread out and relax back here. It's his car and driver, after all. Before I can scooch further to my side to give him more room, Fang starts speaking again. This time he's gesturing with his other hand, as his eyes remain fixed out the window at the passing street lights.

 "Liyuan and I, destiny never had anything in store for us. Call me a romantic, call me an idiot, but I need a little more than eyelashes, clear skin, and red lipstick to fall in love. Do you understand what I mean?"

Yes, even though he was explaining things to me in a mix of our combined languages, I understood. I understood better than he knew. At that moment, I realized I felt the same way about Calvin. He was all well-oiled muscle and mischievous smirks, and I thought that could be enough, but it wasn't. 

I didn't love Calvin.

 I just wanted to possess him. And that's what makes this so hard because when I looked at the events of the past couple of days, honestly, I realized that I was in love with the idea of falling in love in a foreign land with a beefcake hunk. I was filming a movie inside my head, but everyone involved in it was only acting.

Maybe that's why Calvin cheated on me. He wasn't feeling it, and now as I thought about it, neither was I.

"I felt like I was going through the motions with Calvin," I confess as the silence drags on between us. Only Fang's hand breaches the space between us, and he pats me on the knee with it. 

The gesture is not nearly enough to warm up the icy atmosphere inside that car. I feel as though I need to offer Fang something, some small, vulnerable fact about myself because tonight I've seen so much of his broken, glamorous world. It's more than enough gossip to fill a year's worth of supermarket tabloids. 

I could at least tell him about my failed high school crush. "He was handsome, ripped, but there was nothing under it all — not for me at least. I convinced myself if I slept with a guy with the body of an underwear model, somehow the feelings would follow."

"Exactly!" Fang says with a relieved sigh. "But it's my job to feel things, to create art that inspires other people to fall in love. It's exhausting, and I can't pretend anymore."

I didn't like the sound of his confession. It's like he's giving up. Now, this is troubling to hear for a guy whose mental health is as precarious as Fang Yao's. I'm sure that as a high school student, I'm in no position to help him with his feelings of despair. Instead, I nod and pat his hand, the one that is resting on my knee.

"You don't have to pretend, not around your friends. I'm here to listen to you whenever you need it."

Fang looks at me with a mocking light in his gorgeous hazel eyes. His mouth jerks up in a rueful smile — no a smirk. He's not making fun of me. He thinks I'm making fun of him.

I'm about to shake my head at whatever expression of disbelief that is about to come pouring out of his pouty, delicious mouth when he stops me. No, he doesn't stop me with his words. Fang Yao stops me with his lips. He leans in and presses his mouth against mine. I can't believe it is happening. Maybe it's the alcohol that is making me hallucinate. Wait, I don't think alcohol does it. Is this happening? Am I dreaming?

Fang's lips are sweetly firm against mine. I can smell his body wash on his upper lip, and it mixes with the beer on his breath to form a gentle but intoxicating scent. I know that this moment, here, with the smell of the black leather seats, will be imprinted on my memory for as long as I live.

For a second, I'm kissing the most alluring, perfect specimen of a man in the entire world.

And worse yet, I'm falling in love with him.

Fang is breathless when he finally pulls back. He's apologetic now, and his eyes are searching mine for a reaction. He sits back and sighs. He searches for words but for once, his ability to talk eludes him. The silence is back. His hands are on his lap now. He's keeping his distance from me. It's like he doesn't know what came over him.

"I'm so, very sorry," he tells me. "I won't do that again."

"Don't be sorry. I'm not," I blurt out because Fang looks so ashamed. "I didn't hate it."

Before he's able to try that again, the car arrives at my apartment. Fang waves to me from the backseat window. I turn back at the doorway to the lobby to see him blow me a kiss with two fingers. The car speeds off before I'm able to respond.

I ride the elevator up to my apartment and wonder if I should pinch myself. What the heck happened tonight? Did I really kiss the most famous bachelor on his side of the Pacific Ocean? Maybe it was all a feverish dream, and I'll wake up in my bed beside a bucket of fried chicken and the DVD machine still stuck on Season 6 of Sex and the City. I enter my apartment, and I'm still floating on air.

I check my messages—nothing from any of my friends. There's a weird voice mail from my dad saying that he thinks the bubble tea store is a stroke of brilliance after running the idea by his much more business-savvy friends. 

His friend even gave him his own bubble tea take-out window in front of Szechwan Supreme since he lost his food truck license. How about Finn's Bubbles? He asks as though dedicating his bubble tea stand to me is a big enough honor for me to overlook his marijuana and general shitiness as a father. Finn's Bubbles, because a fish has fins and they also blow bubbles — get it?

I reply — FYI, I'm in Shanghai right now, and it's the middle of the night. Maybe send your voice mail when I'm awake next time.

I lie awake in my bed and think about Fang's lips. A few minutes later, another voice mail pops up.

It's my dad again. Once again, he conveniently forgets that I'm half a world away and need to sleep.

"How about a cheesecake flavored one? Or a Pringles flavored? Do you think your friends will like it? We can score the menu items on degrees of Bobaliciousness. We can sell cheeseburger-flavored Lion's Head Meatballs to go with the tea. It will be keto."

I roll my eyes. Oh, good grief. My dad's bubble tea store is going to be more cringe-worthy than the Asian cuisine they serve at Disney World.

"Why don't you blend an entire apple pie into one of them? This is New York, after all, the big apple."

He doesn't reply to that. I think even my dad finally got the hint regarding my sarcasm. I lay down in bed and wonder what Fang would think if he knew that he was dating the daughter of a marijuana-smoking bubble tea store owner. 

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