“Thank you. For this and that,” I reply. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be sore for a couple of days but I’m fine. I moonlight as a stunt double for Keanu Reeves so my body’s used to it,” he deadpans. “Are you okay?”
“Please. Everyone knows Keanu does a lot of his own stunts,” I say, trying to stifle a laugh. That entire encounter upstairs was just…bizarre. “I think I’m okay, too.”
I was so close to being outed. Bennett helped me cover up my own lies.
Bennett stretches out his back. “You better not be laughing at me!” he says with a grin.
I take a deep breath. “I don’t mean to laugh. I really am appreciative of your distraction, and I know how excited you were to make mooncakes. Let me buy you ice cream as a thank-you.”
“I’d be a fool to turn down ice cream,” Bennett says. “But I’d be an even bigger fool to let you pay. You covered the class. Ice cream is on me.”
“I can’t argue with that, but you did throw yourself on the ground for me.”
“It’s my honor falling for you,” he says sweetly.
I feel a blush creep across my cheeks.
Pull yourself together!
We head to the nearest ice cream shop, where I order a scoop of chocolate and one of vanilla while Bennett enjoys two scoops of peanut butter ice cream. We eat and walk side by side to the nearest park as the sky settles into a pink and purple tie-dye dusk.
“This feels strangely familiar,” Bennett says.
I give him a look. “Yeah. I can’t get over how weird this is.”
“Meeting me again or playing hooky?”
“Both! I’ve never ditched anything in my life!” I say, still stunned by the sudden escape. Adrenaline pumps through my veins. This was not how I saw the evening going.
“Even though one of your traits as a Horse is spontaneity?”
“Well, spontaneity is actually one of the traits I don’t really resonate with.” I lick my ice cream.
“Interesting,” he says, wrinkling his eyebrows. He takes a bite out of his cone. “I’m curious to know more about you. What do you do for work, Olivia?” Bennett asks. He says my name familiarly, as though it’s always been part of his vocabulary.
“I’m…in recruiting,” I say, which doesn’t feel like a lie. I recruit single people all the time for Lunar Love. “I’m taking over the family business.” There. One truth. Now I can rest easy tonight.
“Is that so?” he asks.
I look at him with my nose crinkled. “It is so.”
“What’s that like?”
“Honestly, I love it,” I say. “There have been some challenges lately, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Hard to find good talent?” he asks, taking a step closer to me to move out of the way of a skateboarder and her dog.
“Something like that,” I admit.
“That’s impressive. Congrats. Depending on how quickly we grow, I may need to enlist your services. We’ll see how things go with the business.”
I want to ask how fast they’re growing and what plans they have for ZodiaCupid, but I can’t bring myself to interrogate him any further. I don’t know why I thought Bennett was going to divulge his company’s secrets to someone he just met. Well, met again.
When our elbows distractingly brush against each other for the fifth time, I know it’s time to call it a night. “I should get home. I have a busy day tomorrow. Thanks for the ice cream.”
“Absolutely.” Bennett checks his watch for the time. “I didn’t realize how late it was. This was fun, Olivia.”
“It was something, B.O.B.”
Bennett laughs. “Yeah, sorry about that. My engineer convinced me to make a profile. He said it would be good for me to know what’s happening on the ground level. My team has been encouraging me to go on dates to try the app out. Work has been pretty busy, so this is my first.”
A sliver of me is thrilled that he wasn’t trying to go on dates with someone who wasn’t me. I finish my cone and throw this thought away along with my napkin.
“I can imagine. So you’re here to do research for work,” I clarify, leaving out the “too.” The irony is slightly amusing.
Bennett stuffs a hand into his pocket. “You could say that, but I’m really glad I came. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again. Maybe I can get your number this time? Then we’ll need a little less fate to see each other.”
“You mean a little less algorithm?” I tease, taking his phone from him.
His cheeks turn rosy pink. I reluctantly type my number into his phone so we can take our conversation off ZodiaCupid. The only conversation I ever plan on having with him is about what plans he has up his coral-colored sleeves.
Bennett awkwardly holds his arms out and pauses, signaling that he’d like to give me a hug. I hesitantly reach up and hug back. My arms rest against his firm shoulders, and in this close proximity, I learn that he smells like musk. And mooncake filling.
It takes a second before we realize we’ve lingered. We pull apart, and I adjust the strap of my bag, the chrysanthemums swinging to the side.
“It was nice officially meeting you,” Bennett says.
We smile at each other. I’m in denial that I actually enjoyed myself.
“It was nice meeting you, too, asshole.”
Chapter 6
My instincts guide me as I follow the path I’ve walked for years. With Lunar Love in sight, I step off to the side to admire the building. Four days into my first week and I still have butterflies tumbling and turning in my stomach. Lunar Love’s red exterior, pink window trim, and pink door have remained the same since the very beginning. Pó Po was insistent on the shop’s colors symbolizing luck and happiness.
When I was younger, both the inside and outside of the building felt old-fashioned, as if all the shops in Chinatown were supposed to look a certain way. Now I appreciate the parts of the neighborhood that still exude tradition among a growing influx of trendier eateries and art galleries. To the right of our building, what used to be a bookstore is now a to-be-determined renovated office or retail space. The construction hasn’t started yet for the day, so I’ll have some quiet time to myself.
It was only a year ago that the inside of Lunar Love looked completely different than it does now. Since Day One, the walls and ceilings were painted a deep crimson. The furniture was dark and heavy, and there was an overabundance of stuff: boxes filled with client documents from decades prior, books and torn posters, and bags of donations. It took me eight months to convince Auntie to let me redesign the place.