Make Me Yours

The next few minutes were spent making introductions. She met his friends, who met hers and everyone seemed to settle into easy camaraderie. Jenny entered into a conversation with Yun about women’s rights, Mariah and Charles found their way to the dance floor, and Zoey and Xen were finally left alone.

They took one of the sofas and sat, all cozied up. It felt nice.

“I thought there were three of them. There was another blonde in the elevator,” Xen began.

“Oh… Yes. Carrie. She already promised her neighbors that she would babysit their kids so they could have a night out to themselves. She loves kids so much and looking after them is something she enjoys doing. She couldn’t cancel on them last minute.”

He nodded slowly, as if digesting her words carefully.

“I guess there will always be another opportunity to meet her.”

“Definitely. They’re always around when we all aren’t so busy.”

He glanced at Jenny and Yun, and back at her. “You all seem really tight. They are also very protective.”

Her face creased in a smile. “We all are of each other. That’s what friendship is all about, after all. Having each other’s backs.”

“Hmm. I can relate. It’s the same for those men and myself. They’ve been there for me through the worst times.”

She knew what he was referring to, but she couldn’t miss the opportunity to make the joke.

“A man like you having worst times? Oh wait, your first hangover? ‘Cause according to what’s in the media, you were a straight A student and born with the silver spoon. You’ve not exactly known worse times.”

Thankfully, he understood her joke. So, he laughed instead of picking offence like she had feared.

“Well, there was the hangover. There was also one time I decided to try heroin for the first time. It was my last. I got so high that I started cracking windscreens with a baseball bat. I ended up in a cell for the night. By the time I felt better, there were a few thousand dollars’ worth of windscreen debts on my head, a charge for doing drugs, one for social misdemeanor, another for noise pollution and the last for abuse of properties. The fact that I wasn’t American didn’t help, either. They were willing to call my school, which was definitely going to call my parents. My folks would have killed me. Those guys saved my ass with one prank phone call, pretending to be the principal. They got Mrs Shu from our favourite restaurant in China Town to play my mother and with a dip into my funds; they managed to get the debts cleared and the cops to set me free on bail. After that, I told myself: never again. Alcohol – yes. Although, I haven’t gotten drunk in fifteen years. Drugs? Never again.”

These were the kind of stories one wouldn’t get in the media. They were the best kind. She had thought that she already had plenty of knowledge about Mr Li, but she hadn’t deluded herself into believing that she knew everything. She was glad that she hadn’t.

“Wow. Who would have thought that you have a police record? I assumed you were the stellar child. The good boy with no taint to his name.”

“Well, technically, I do not have a police record. My father found out somehow about the incidence years later and made them erase it completely.”

“Wow. I guess that’s what money and power could do.”

He shrugged as though it meant nothing. “I guess. Anyway, I have done a couple of things I am not entirely proud of in this life. I too was young once, and stupid. It comes with youthful exuberance, I guess… and thinking that you can get away with anything just because you are young.”

“You did get away.”

“Yes, but many people do not.”

She understood this, and the fact that he did too impressed her even more. This wasn’t a man that lived up in the clouds, oblivious to harsh reality of life. He appeared to be very aware of them.

Hmm… just what more was there to know about Mr Li? How many layers did she have to uncover before she saw everything?

He went quiet for a while, just sat there, his left feet tucked under his right thigh as he stared into space. Zoey wondered what he could be thinking about. He must have heard her thoughts, for he answered then.

“I don’t think one ever stops learning, you know? We believe that as we grow older, we know better and there are mistakes we would never make, because we know better…”

She nodded, telling him that she was following his line of thoughts.

“However, I do believe that there are mistakes we still are bound to make for the rest of our lives, because no one ever knows it all. I said there were things I did because I was young and stupid. But there are still things I do now that are just plain… wrong. If I do not have my youth to blame for my stupidity anymore, could I then say that I am just plain stupid?”

Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she asked, “Stupid things, like thinking you could sneak the Belmont property off my hands?”

He chuckled then, relaxed into the sofa and turned to look at her. The moment their eyes met, something shifted in the air. Something that made her even more aware of him, and this potent attraction she felt. His eyes were so gray. She hadn’t noticed how gray they were, until now. They were odd, yet beautiful.

“I let you know I was coming for you, Miss Martins. You can hardly call that sneaking.”

“Oh, well, true. Not to mention that move you thought of to make this a win-win situation for everybody was a pretty wise one.”

“Well, as much as I would love to take the praises for it, it was Yun who thought of it.”

“Still, you agreed to it. Because, you understand that it was a wise decision and only a wise man can recognize wisdom. Not to mention, only a very kind and generous man would be willing to do what you have decided to do for those residents.”