I pull out my phone and check to see if Momma responded to my email. Nope. But I have one from Jane:
gracie: i looked up the sexy korean you told me about and OMG I WANT! please bring him home in your suitcase. or else. but the singer is cute, too! have you met him? you can have that one, but I call dibs on the drummer.
love, your stuck-in-america little sis.
p.s. you better write me! that one measly email with the james bond, “from south korea, love you” or whatever thing at the end (how lame is that, btw)? not enough. send me deets about the smokin’ hot koreans ASAP!
p.p.s. did you see that new article on e? totes lame.
I laugh so hard, I snort. So like Jane. I can hear her voice in my head, reading the words in that matter-of-fact tone she always uses. If I don’t bring Yoon Jae back to her, she might disown me. She’ll threaten to, anyway.
But when I click on the link she added at the bottom of her message, my stomach clenches. My face in JPEG form stares back at me, beneath the headline, “Where is Grace Wilde, and why isn’t she with family during this hard time?”
I don’t bother reading the article. I don’t have to. I know what it says, what it’s saying I did—abandon my family when they need me the most.
Sophie and the others party on, but I’ve lost the energy to dance or do anything besides linger at the bar and sip my soda, surfing the Internet on my phone, Googling my name and letting each new article about Dad or Nathan slam into me like a bus.
No one asks me to dance, and I can’t decide if I’m more relieved or irritated to finally be just a girl instead of Nathan Cross’s sister or Stephen Wilde’s daughter. I left home to get away from people recognizing my face, away from reporters like the ones talking about me online, but now that I’ve finally got that anonymity, I don’t know what to think of it.
Ten o’clock, and I still haven’t seen Jason since I abandoned him on the dance floor. Anxiety grows inside my chest, but I push it back down. He’s fine. And who am I to be worried, anyway?
Around ten thirty, Sophie drapes her arm around my shoulders and says through pants, “Are you ready to go? Tae Hwa said he has a surprise for us back at the dorms.”
I’m not sure how many more surprises I can handle after my interaction with Jason, but I force a smile and a nod.
Sophie’s gaze sweeps the bar. “Where’s Jason?”
“I haven’t seen him in over an hour,” I answer.
Her face pales, then she says something to Tae Hwa, who disappears into the crowd. Sophie pulls out her phone and presses it to her ear like she’ll be able to hear anything in here. She groans, still searching the room, and calls again.
“Shouldn’t have left him alone,” she says. “So stupid.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She throws her phone back into her purse with unnecessary force. “I’m an idiot, that’s what’s wrong.”
I open my mouth to ask her to clarify, but I spot Tae Hwa making his way through the crowd, half carrying someone at his side. My stomach drops when I recognize Jason, arm tossed across his friend’s shoulders and head slumped forward.
Sophie rushes to him, taking her brother’s face in her hands and letting out a stream of frantic Korean at him. He peers up at her with glazed-over eyes, and she frets over him even more.
“We need to get him back,” she says, throwing bills onto the bar to pay for our drinks. “Come on.”
She leads us out back where no one will see us, Tae Hwa hauling Jason a few steps behind us. When we step out onto the sidewalk, I can hear Jason muttering under his breath, though I’m not sure if it’s Korean or just unintelligible English. He stumbles over a crack in the pavement, nearly sending both him and Tae Hwa to the ground.
Yoon Jae makes to support his inebriated bandmate on the other side, but Jason shoves him away.
“Get off me!” He staggers free of Tae Hwa, running a hand through his hair and swaying like he might lose his balance.
He looks at me and, for a moment, stands completely still. His eyes clear enough to reveal a rawness that lurks beneath the surface of his coldness, a pain that runs deep. Shock ripples through me at seeing my own buried grief mirrored in the eyes of someone else.
He takes a step toward me but lurches and almost hits the pavement before Tae Hwa catches him. We manage to call the limo driver and get Jason into the car. He sits between me and Tae Hwa, but he throws off his friend’s restraining hand and leans his forehead against my shoulder. Heat radiates from that shoulder all the way to the tips of my fingers and up to my hairline, and my heart sputters when his palm falls on my bare knee.
“Oh, Grace, I’m sorry!” Sophie leans over and tries to move her brother, but he swats away her hands.
“No, it’s fine.” Only a slight tremble to my voice. “He’s not himself right now.”
A soft laugh rumbles deep in Jason’s chest, vibrating into me. I feel his lips pull up into a smile against my shoulder, and he mumbles something I don’t catch, his breath warm against my skin. I focus on my own breathing to keep it from verging into hyperventilation.
When the limo mercifully stops in front of the entrance to the school, we make the trek to our dorms, which has never seemed so long before tonight. Sophie and I follow the boys into their dorm. Yoon Jae heads up to his room, but I go with the others into Tae Hwa and Jason’s room.
Sophie pulls off her brother’s shoes and peels both jackets off his back. As she yanks the hoodie off his arms, his T-shirt hikes up and I have to look away from the strip of skin above the waistband of his jeans.
She gets him onto the bed, and he sprawls across the comforter, face smashed into the pillow and one leg half hanging off the side. Chewing on her bottom lip, Sophie wipes her index finger below both eyes, and I realize she’s crying. I get that she’s worried, but there’s something more going on here than Jason getting drunk on his birthday. I resolve to ask her later.