The Kiss Quotient

by Helen Hoang

  His mom froze, and a tide of red swept over her face as she stared first at Stella and then the bowl. “Let me make new noodles.”

  Before his mom could touch the bowl, Michael grabbed it. “I’ll do it. Sit, Mẹ.” His expression was strained as he removed the poisoned food, and Stella had the horrible feeling that she’d said The Wrong Thing, but she didn’t know how else she could have navigated the situation.

  His mom sat down and eyed Michael’s sisters as they continued their argument in a loose square by the refrigerator. Sighing, she picked up her peeler and resumed where she’d left off with her last mango.

  Stella kept her eyes on her own work, growing more and more nervous with every passing moment. She was painfully aware of the lack of conversation between them, and her instincts urged her to fill the silence—if silence was even the right word. His mom wasn’t speaking, but his sisters were, and the TV had been blasting this whole time. When the piano started playing again, her nerves stretched to the breaking point. That flat A note rang one, two-three, four times. Had anything ever been so irritating?

  “You really should get the piano tuned,” she said. “Where is your husband again?”

  When his mom continued peeling her mango without answering, Stella assumed she hadn’t heard the question.

  So she asked again. “Where is he?”

  “He’s gone,” his mom said in a final tone.

  “Does that mean . . . he’s passed away?” Should she offer condolences? She wasn’t sure what to say now.

  His mom sighed, keeping her eyes on her mango. “I don’t know.”

  The answer tripped Stella up, and she frowned as she asked, “Are you divorced, then?”

  “I can’t divorce him if I can’t find him.”

  Stella stared at Michael’s mom in complete bafflement. “What do you mean, you can’t find him? Was he in an accident or—”

  A large hand gripped her shoulder and squeezed with firm pressure. Michael. “The noodles are almost done. Do you eat peanuts?”

  She blinked at the interruption. “Sure, I’m not allergic.” When he nodded and went to the kitchen island, she refocused on his mom. “How long has he been gone? Have you filed a missing-person re—”

  “Stella.” Michael’s voice split through the air, a startling reprimand.

  His sisters stopped arguing, and all eyes locked on her. Her heart pounded louder than the TV and the piano. What had she done?

  “We don’t talk about my dad,” he said.

  That didn’t make any sense. “But what if he’s hurt or—”

  “You can’t hurt someone when they don’t have a heart,” his mom interrupted. “He left us all to be with another woman. I want to divorce him, but I don’t know where to send the papers. He changed his phone number.” His mom pushed her chair back and stood. “Mẹ’s tired. You kids eat, ah? Maybe go buy something for Michael’s girlfriend if she doesn’t like what we have.”

  His mom left, and the piano music ended abruptly. His grandma turned off the opera, leaving the room quiet but for the crackling of the TV’s static discharge. The sudden quietness was a relief, but it felt ominous somehow. Her blood rushed, her head throbbed, and her breaths came in short gasps like she’d been running. Or maybe she was preparing to run.

  Janie hurried into the kitchen. “What just happened? Why is Mom crying?”

  No one answered, but seven sets of eyes accused her. It was worse than all the noise from before, far, far worse.

  She’d made Michael’s mom cry.

  Stella’s face flamed with embarrassment and guilt, and she jumped to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I need to go.”

  Ducking her head, she gathered her purse and fled.

  * * *

  • • •

  Michael stared at the doorway Stella had rushed through, feeling like he’d watched a car accident in slow motion. A mix of unholy emotion coursed through his veins. Anger, horror, shame, disbelief, shock. What the fuck had just happened? What did he do now? His instincts urged him to chase after her.

  “You better go check on Mom,” Janie said.

  That was right. His practice girlfriend had just put his mom in tears. What a great son he was. He went to look for her without a word. With heavy feet and a heavier chest, he climbed the stairs, walked down the carpeted hall, and paused outside his mom’s bedroom. The door was ajar, and he peered around the edge, finding his mom sitting on her bed. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying. It was written in her slumped posture and the way her head hung.

  The sight destroyed him. No one got to hurt his mom. Not his dad and not his past girlfriends. Not even Stella. “Mẹ?”

  She didn’t acknowledge him as he entered the room and padded to her bedside.

  “I’m sorry about all the things she said.” He tried to keep his voice low, but it came out unnaturally loud. “The piano, the food, Dad . . .”

  He didn’t know how Stella had managed it, but in just a few minutes, she’d found every sensitive spot his family possessed—their tight financial situation, his mom’s lack of education, and his fucked-up dad—and poked right at them. Accidentally. That was clear as day.

  Holy shit, she was bad with people. He’d had no idea how bad until tonight. When it was just the two of them, it wasn’t like this.

  His mom grabbed his hand. “Do you think your dad is okay?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” His lips twisted as he imagined his old man lounging on a yacht in the Caribbean next to his latest wife.

  “Can you email him for Mẹ?”

  “No.” He was never talking to his dad again.

  His mom took a ragged breath and covered her face. “Your Stella was right. He could be hurt. He’s so evil no one would care to help him, certainly not his new woman. She’s only with him as long as the money lasts.”

  He fisted his hands as a familiar rage threaded through his muscles. “That amount of money should last a long time.”

  “Not the way he spends. He thinks he’s a big shot. Nothing was ever good enough for him, remember?”

  Not this again.

  Michael clenched his jaw as his mom launched into another retelling of a story he’d heard a thousand times. He sat down next to her and listened with half an ear so he could make the appropriate sounds when she paused.

  Words like uses women and bad person and liar stuck out, and he couldn’t help noticing how well they applied to himself. Look at all the lies he told. Look at what he did to pay the bills. Look at him taking money from Stella for doing what any other guy would do for—

  Cold horror soaked into him. This was why it had felt so wrong to accept Stella’s proposal. It was wrong. He was taking advantage of her. What kind of man accepted money from a naïve woman to teach her things she could learn for free?

  He’d finally taken the last steps and become his dad. That couldn’t be right. That wasn’t him. He was better.

  Their arrangement had to end right now. Where was she? Fuck, was she waiting for him outside?

  He shot to his feet before his mom’s story was half finished. “I have to go, Mẹ. I’m sorry about . . . tonight, about everything.”

  “There’s no need for sorry. If you love her, we’ll learn to love her, too.”

  At the mere mention of that word, sweat broke out over his brow. “I don’t.” That made his actions worse, didn’t it?

  His mom waved his protest away. “Bring her back another day. Mẹ won’t microwave the plastic when she’s here.”

  “You shouldn’t microwave it any time.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She said the words in such a manner that he knew she would continue doing things her way regardless of what she’d been told, and Michael swore to himself he’d throw all her plastic away and replace it with something safe. Right after he spoke to Stella.


  “Good night, Mẹ.”

  “Drive careful.”

  He escaped the house in record time, but he came up short as he stepped outside.

  She was gone.

  He gripped one of the porch’s wooden support pillars and dragged in deep breaths as his heart rate slowed and his mind cleared. Cool air, the buzzing of bugs, and the distant whir of a car’s motor.

  Maybe it was best that she wasn’t here. He needed time to compose a decent parting speech. Something short but nice. It was him, not her, and—

  No matter what he said, she was going to cry. The thought twisted his guts into knots. She’d think it was her fault. Because of how awkward she was in bed and out. Because of the unintentional debacle tonight.

  He walked to his car and got inside. After he turned the ignition, he sat with his hands on the wheel. He didn’t know where to go. Her place or his? They needed to talk, but he wasn’t ready for her tears on top of his mom’s.

  The new box of condoms on the passenger seat caught his eye. He’d bought countless such boxes over the past three years. He hadn’t looked forward to opening any of them as much as this one—because Stella was different. Now, he’d be back to using the contents of the box with countless Fridays of women, providing a simple service for fair payment. It didn’t hurt or take advantage of anyone. That was better than what his dad did. Michael could do that and still be himself. Too bad he didn’t want any of those women like he did Stella.

  He pushed the box onto the floor and out of sight before heading to his own apartment. Tomorrow. He’d do the right thing tomorrow.

  { CHAP+ER }

  14

  Stella completed her bedtime routine in a numb haze. It wasn’t until she laid her head down on her pillow that she started crying.

  It was over now. He’d asked her to be good to his family, and she’d made his mom cry. You couldn’t undo something like that.

  Her gut demanded she tell Michael the truth. Though he wasn’t aware of the true extent of them, he already knew about her issues: sensitivities to smell, sound, and touch; her obsession with her work; her need for routine; and her awkwardness with people. What he didn’t know was there were labels for that, a diagnosis.

  But was pity any better than hatred? Right now, he thought she was insensitive and rude, but he still viewed her as a regular person who happened to have some eccentricities. With the labels, he might be more understanding, but he’d quit viewing her as Stella Lane, awkward econometrician who loved his kisses. In his eyes, she’d become the girl with autism. She’d be . . . less.

  With other people, she didn’t care what they thought.

  With Michael, she desperately needed to be accepted. She had a disorder, but it didn’t define her. She was Stella. She was a unique person.

  There was no way to salvage this situation. No way to keep him.

  She still had to apologize to his mom. She’d never made someone cry before, and it filled her with self-loathing. His mom’s evasiveness made sense now that she knew about his dad. Stella wished she could have understood earlier, before she hurt the woman and ruined everything, but all she could control were her future actions, not the past.

  As the night dragged on, she constructed and reconstructed her apology, recited it over and over in her head. When the sun rose, she dragged herself out of bed and got ready to tackle the day.

  She drove to the same strip mall she’d gone to yesterday and parked in front of Paris Dry Cleaning and Tailors. As soon as they flipped the sign, she’d apologize and leave.

  A night of sleeplessness had left her head clouded, and her heart ached from the relentless pressure of her anxiety. Her fingers had been clenched around the wheel so long the joints were locked. She was drained and wanted to get this over with so she could go to the office and lose herself in work.

  Five minutes before nine, the sign flipped from Closed to Open. Taking a deep breath, Stella picked up a second box of chocolates and a bouquet of peach roses and exited her car. Inside, Janie sat behind the front counter.

  She lifted her attention from the textbook on her lap and blinked in surprise at Stella. From the tense set of her mouth, it was not a good kind of surprise. “Hi, Stella . . . Michael doesn’t work on Saturdays.”

  “I wasn’t looking for him.” What was the point? They were done. She held up the roses and chocolates. “I brought these for your mom. Is she here?”

  Janie’s expression softened. “Yeah, she’s here.”

  “May I speak to her, please?”

  “She’s working in back. I’ll take you there.”

  She followed Janie into the backroom and stopped in front of a green commercial sewing machine, where Michael’s mom was busy feeding fabric beneath the sewing foot with quick efficiency, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

  Stella’s muscles tensed, and her heart thundered. It was time to do this. She hoped she didn’t screw it up. She hoped she said the right thing.

  Janie murmured something in Vietnamese, and Michael’s mom looked up. Her gaze jumped from Janie to Stella.

  Stella swallowed and forged ahead. “I came to apologize for last night. I know I was rude. I’m not . . . good with people. I wanted to thank you for inviting me over to your house.” She held out the flowers and chocolates. “I got these for you. I hope you like chocolate.”

  Janie snatched the truffles before her mother could touch the box. “I do.”

  Michael’s mom accepted the flowers and sighed. “We still have a lot of food left over from last night. You should try to come again.”

  Stella looked down at her feet. Michael would be horrified if he saw her at his mom’s tonight. “I need to go. I’m truly sorry about last night. Thank you again.”

  She turned around to leave but caught sight of Michael’s tiny grandma at the couch. The old woman nodded at her, and Stella fumbled on something that was half curtsy, half bow before she left.

  * * *

  • • •

  Michael walked into the studio and tossed his duffel bag on the blue matted floor next to the other two bags.

  The fighters in the middle of the room broke apart, took five steps back, switched their swords to their left hands, and bowed.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” said the fighter on the right. It was Quan. A helmet obscured his cousin’s face, but Michael knew it was him by his voice and the name embroidered in white on his black sparring gear. Also, Quan was an inch shorter than his baby brother.

  Khai waved a gloved hand at him and seamlessly switched from sparring to strike drills using his reflection in the mirror. Ten whip-fast head strikes, ten wrist strikes, ten rib strikes. Then back to the beginning. Ten more head strikes . . . When Khai worked out, he worked out. There wasn’t downtime. His single-minded focus was impressive. And reminded Michael of Stella. He released a heavy sigh.

  “Don’t usually see you Saturdays. What’s up?” Quan asked.

  “I wanted to get some sparring in,” Michael said as he scratched an ear. He usually spent Saturdays running and lifting weights—things he could do alone since he was tired of people after what he did on Friday nights. Today, however, he didn’t want to be by himself. He knew he’d just think about Stella the whole time. After deliberating through the night and most of today, he still didn’t know how to break things off without hurting her. It had to happen, though. And soon. He should call her after he finished sparring and arrange a meeting. Face to face was best.

  “Suit up, then,” Quan said. “Class starts in an hour. Teacher took the day off, so loser leads class—little kids’ class.”

  That was the perfect incentive to win. Children brandishing sticks were horrifying. You’d think smaller kids were less dangerous, but they were actually the worst. They spun around the studio like tornadoes, hitting beneath your armor or stabbing you in the balls, all by accident. They
didn’t know any better. Kind of like Stella in social situations.

  And Khai.

  As Michael put his gear on, his eyes kept gravitating toward Khai as he methodically worked through all his strikes ten at a time. Always the same number and always the same order. If Stella ever took up kendo, Michael could see her doing the exact same thing. After last night, there were a lot more similarities between her and Khai than he’d originally thought. Khai never noticed when he tripped upon sensitive conversation topics, either. He was also horribly honest, creative in strange ways, and . . .

  His gaze jumped to Quan as an unexpected suspicion rose. “You asked if I thought Stella was like Khai.”

  Quan undid the laces behind his head and pulled his helmet off. Dark eyes regarded him steadily. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Did she tell you something I should know?” He remembered that night, how it had felt like he’d interrupted something when he’d found them outside the club together.

  “After she finished hyperventilating from overstimulation, yeah. She told me something,” Quan said.

  “She was hyperventilating?” he heard himself ask. His stomach dropped, and coldness prickled over him. What kind of ass was he that he hadn’t known and hadn’t been there for her? He should have been the one. Not Quan.

  “Too many people, Michael. Too much noise, too many flashing lights. You shouldn’t have taken her there.”

  Everything clicked together then. “She’s autistic.”

  “You disappointed?” Quan asked with a tilt of his head.

  “No.” The word came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat before he continued. “But I wish she’d told me.” Why hadn’t she told him? And why had she let him pressure her into going to the club? She must have known what it would do to her.

  And last night. Shit, it must have been awful. The TV blasting, the piano, his sisters shouting, everything new . . .