Chapter 464 | My Kimchi Jjigae and Your Pajamas

Chapter 464: 464 | My Kimchi Jjigae and Your Pajamas

The Graff box flashed into Alexis’s head. It sat on her mother’s vanity next to the Chanel No. 5, empty and navy blue, and her mother had polished the lid with a cloth that morning. Alexis had stood in the doorway in her robe and nodded. She had said the ring would be beautiful, and her mother had smiled at the box, not at her.

Her grip tightened on the phone until the case creaked.

"Both, okay, I want both, and I hate that I want both, and I’d literally rather eat glass than admit that to you."

Silence came through the speaker. Kumiko’s hand flew over her own mouth. Chloe did not move at all, and Alexis watched the tiny gold hinge of her glasses catch the purple light.

"That’s the right answer," Chloe finally said. "People who say only him are lying to me, and people who say only the door are using him."

Kumiko sniffled loudly into her own sleeve. "That’s so mature, Chloe-chan, you’re so emotionally intelligent, I’m going to cry more."

"You haven’t stopped crying since Tuesday."

"Because everyone keeps being beautiful at me!"

Chloe pulled a pen from behind her ear and wrote something on a legal pad off camera. Alexis could hear the scratch of the nib. She had seen investment bankers at her father’s office write like that before they cut someone’s funding.

"Sunday at seven in Unit 404, and I’m cooking dinner," Chloe went on without looking up. "You’ll eat what I make, and you won’t comment on the plating."

"I don’t eat carbs after six, it’s a whole thing, my nutritionist has a whole chart."

"You’ll eat my kimchi jjigae after six, and you’ll thank me in Korean. Kumiko will teach you the phrase."

"Kamsahamnida!" Kumiko shouted, then clapped both hands over her face. "Sorry, sorry, that was loud, I’m practicing on my own time!"

Alexis opened her mouth to argue. Nothing came out. Nobody in her entire life had ever told her the right answer to anything. They corrected her posture and her fork choice and her dress length, and they sent her back to try again. Chloe Kim had just looked straight through the phone and told her she got it right on the first try.

Her eyes burned again. She blinked hard and stared at the top of the screen.

"Bring pajamas too, Alexis-chan, we can do sheet masks after dinner!"

"Nobody said anything about pajamas, Kumiko."

"I said it just now, so somebody said it!"

"One more condition, Alexis." Chloe capped her pen. "You don’t get to wear his shirt to my table."

Alexis’s hand went to her left cuff on instinct, where the frayed grey edge of the henley peeked out under the cashmere. She had worn it under three different sweaters this week. She had slept in it every night since Koreatown.

"I’m not giving it back, it’s mine now through adverse possession, I literally looked it up."

Chloe’s mouth shifted by exactly two millimeters. It was the smallest smile Alexis had ever seen on a human face, and it hit harder than her mother’s biggest.

"Keep it, then, because I own four of them and he hasn’t noticed."

"I definitely noticed that," Jordan called from the other end of the bench.

"He did not notice anything, he blamed the dryer." Chloe reached for the screen. "See you Sunday, Alexis, and don’t be late."

The call ended. The screen went black, and Alexis stared at her own reflection in the dark glass. Blotchy cheeks, wet lashes, and a mouth that had just agreed to dinner with her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend’s other girlfriend. Her mother would need to be hospitalized.

She held the phone out to Jordan without looking at him. His fingers brushed hers when he took it. A jolt ran straight up her forearm into her newly loosened shoulder, and she yanked her hand back into her lap.

"You survived Chloe Kim," he said, pocketing the phone. "Most people need a week to recover."

"She’s terrifying, I literally want to be her when I grow up, and I’ll deny that in a deposition."

"She’d love that sentence. She’d frame it."

"Tell her, and I’ll key your Civic. I’ll key it in cursive."

He stood and held out his hand to help her up. She ignored it on principle and rose on her own, and her knees wobbled under her. His hand caught her elbow before she could stumble, warm through the cashmere, and he let go the second she found her balance.

He let go every time. That was the worst part.

They walked back along the gravel path toward the lot. A woman with a golden retriever passed them going the other way and gave Alexis a long look. It was the dog owner from earlier, the one who had heard the moan. Alexis lifted her chin and stared back until the woman found something fascinating about her leash.

Her black Mercedes sat under a eucalyptus tree at the curb. Jordan reached past her and opened the driver’s door before she could touch the handle, and the leather smell rolled out warm from the afternoon sun.

She did not get in. She turned around and grabbed the front of his jacket in one fist. He went still under her hand. His chest was right there, hard under the canvas, and his heartbeat thudded steady against her knuckles.

She wanted to kiss him so badly her lips tingled. She wanted to pull him down by the collar and find out if he tasted like the cedar on his shirt. She held his jacket instead and breathed through her nose.

"Tuesday at two, and bring the hands."

"Clear it with Chloe first."

"I literally just cleared it with Chloe. She’s basically my HR department now, and she has a legal pad."

Jordan looked down at her, and something warm moved behind his hazel eyes. "Then Tuesday at two, princess."

She let go of his jacket and smoothed the wrinkle she had left in the canvas, twice, because her hand would not stop. Then she dropped into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut before her face could do anything else.

Through the windshield she watched him walk back toward his white Civic, hands in his pockets. He did not look back at her even once. She sat there and watched him go anyway.

The car was silent. She lifted her left wrist to her face and pressed her nose into the frayed grey cuff. Cedar and laundry soap filled her lungs, and under that sat the warm clean smell of his skin.

Her phone vibrated in the cupholder. Harrison’s name lit the screen above a message. "Dinner Thursday? My assistant will send three options by EOD."