Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
They all wanted the romantic dinners, the Instagram-worthy vacations, the conversations into the night, the candlelit sex.
The touching.
The touching.
The touching.
I couldn’t touch humans.
That was my worst-kept secret.
I loathed the feeling of foreign, sticky hot skin against my own. I did not shake people’s hands. Didn’t slap people’s backs, nor kiss people’s cheeks.
I did not hug, cuddle, or make out.
And sex?
Entirely out of the question.
The mere thought of someone laying on top of me made me violently sick.
Flashbacks of the time I’d spent trapped under my father’s lifeless figure lashed against my skin like a spiky leather belt each time I went as far as contemplating kissing someone.
I decided to spare my father’s goddaughter.
“No.” I tore the woman’s Polaroid between my fingers, letting pieces of her sprinkle to the floor like confetti. “Not interested.”
“I’m never going to wear the dress I bought for his wedding.” Celeste Ayi shook her head and knocked back the whiskey in one sip, slapping the tumbler against the drink cart. “I should just wear it for a date.”
Mom straightened her blazer, calculating her next move.
I bared my teeth. “What?”
She stood tall, chin up, suit impeccable, not a hair out of place. But inside, I knew she was falling apart. That every day, I broke her heart, woke up, and did it again.
“Are you gay?” It came out in one whooshed breath. Not laced with judgment but rather desperation.
A plea to explain the past decade.
Anything that made even a little sense, so she could decode my inability to find a wife.
She must’ve been holding the question in for years.
“No.”
If I were, I wouldn’t be alone.
“You know you can tell me—”
“I’m not gay. It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
My inability to tolerate whomever I cannot use or exploit, let alone be affectionate with them.
“I have standards.”
“No one meets them.”
“Well, they’re not very social. Just like their owner.”
“I did hear a rumor.” Mom knotted her arms behind her back and strolled to the opposite wall. My Damien Hirsts and Warhols bracketed each side of her. “That you were here with some young woman at the party?”
My jaw locked at the mention of that little fugitive. “She was a nobody.”
“A nobody you spent three hours with.”
She appraised me, returning to the coffee table and retrieving the Polaroids from beneath Ayi’s boba. She swatted off the condensation.
We were alike, Mother and I, in the sense that we did not tolerate imperfections in anything we did.
“We played Go.”
She stopped. Sneered. “Is that code for something?”
“Yes.” I resumed my aimless journey, searching for a shred of evidence my unwelcome guest had indeed intruded a couple nights ago. “It is code for playing Go.”
I touched ornaments, documents, and furniture. Made sure everything was where it should be.
So far, it did not seem as if the little octopus had helped herself to a souvenir. Everything was here, not an inch out of place.
“I heard that she’s…” Mom’s shoulders rattled with a slight shudder. “A blonde?”
Funnily enough, I didn’t even remember her hair color.
I remembered that it was pale.
And that she wasn’t horrible to look at.
That I didn’t feel bile rising up my throat when we stood too close for comfort.
That I did not immediately step back when her scent invaded my system.
“Is she now?” I stopped in front of the shelves behind my desk screens, inspecting them. “That may well be. I didn’t pay attention to her. Only to the fact that she had two brain cells to rub together and might be considered a decent player by a mediocre player.”
Behind me, Mom’s breaths came out in tremors.
Not the news you hoped for, is it?
Then again, I hadn’t given her the kind of news she wanted for years now.
“Is she smart, then?” She sniffled, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “What does she do in life?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, what are her degrees in?”
“Not sure she has any kind of formal higher education.”
I adjusted a carved wooden figurine of Shou Xing on my shelf. The God of Longevity. A lot of that missing in the Sun household.
I moved on to the next shelf. “Frankly, I doubt it.”
Octi appeared too feral to sit through four years of tertiary education.
Something peculiar caught my eye.
Mother gasped. “How much do you know about her?” She raked her fingers through her hair, ruining her new blowout. She snapped her fingers at Celeste Ayi. “We need a credit check, criminal record, and extensive psychological profile before you can publicly be seen with her.”
My thoughts drowned out her voice.
The little shit.
Octi had tried to steal my jade pendants. The his-and-hers. Dad’s final acquisition.
A deep, crescent hole hugged the lock. She hadn’t lied. She had come here for the art.
Only she’d failed to mention she came to fucking steal it.
I did not get along well with humans.
I got along even worse with thieves.
“Zach? Zachary?” Behind me, Mom started pacing, her steps thumping on the hardwood despite her negligible weight. “Are you listening? What of the fact that people said her dress was completely inappropriate? Would you at least consider sending her to my personal shopper? I’ll pick up the bill.”