Give Love a Chai (Common Threads Book 2)

by Smartypants Romance

  Three more days until I’m done with exams and come home to you.

  Yours,

  Andrew

  Secrets destroyed lives. Living for the first seven years of my life with scum like Brandon Parker taught me that lesson early on. He hurt everyone around him whom he was supposed to care for. My dad was always cheating and lying about cheating, gambling and lying to my mom that he hadn’t just gambled our grocery money away, conning people and trying to pretend he was an upstanding citizen—it was a never-ending cycle of lies. Eventually those lies caught up to him and landed him in jail for a blessed eighteen years. It was nowhere near long enough.

  It had been a few years since he finished his sentence, and the state declared him “reformed.” I knew better than to believe that to be the case. People like him didn’t reform. They got smarter about hiding their evilness.

  My mom said that she had no idea Brandon was scum at first. When they met, he had a legit job. It terrified me to think that one day, something could snap within me, and that I would turn out to be just like Brandon. It was unsettling to be uncomfortable with myself.

  As for most things in my life, I tried to do the opposite of what my dad did. He drank until he was punching mad, so I didn’t touch alcohol for the first twenty-one years of my life. Now, I forced myself to drink a beer every now and then just to prove that I could imbibe without losing control. My dad gambled his and my mom’s paychecks. I had never gambled, never even filled out a March Madness bracket. His smile hid lies. I tried to be brutally honest rather than charming.

  Except for that one time, when I had wanted, truly wanted with everything in me, to tell the truth. Except that it hadn’t been my secret to tell. And ultimately, even if I did tell Tia, what did it matter? I was a broke college student with no connections and tainted blood. I was too big of a risk to take on.

  Now, squished in Tia’s closet, with hangers poking at the back of my head and clothes falling around me, I stood in the darkness like her dirty secret. I hated that she couldn’t admit to her parents that she had broken up with Clayton, as if there was even a chance she might go back to him. I hated that she had asked me to hide from her parents, as if she couldn’t face potential criticism about us. I hated that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, defend me to her parents.

  So what if I got an extra four days in our arrangement by being treated worse than dirty laundry? Because if she was still ashamed of us and wouldn’t even acknowledge what was between us to herself or to her parents, then we were doomed regardless of how many days we spent together.

  The closet door was pretty thin, and I had no trouble hearing her mom ask her to forget about me and focus on Clayton. Tia hadn’t responded, and that non-response was enough to make me feel like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. It didn’t matter that Tia hadn’t explicitly agreed. What stuck out to me was that she hadn’t vehemently tried to shoot down the suggestion, or better yet, yanked open the closet door and shouted “ta-da!”

  My hands balled into fists so tight that I could barely feel them, itching to open the door and show Tia and her parents—what? Mr. and Mrs. Wang, I’m bribing your daughter into a pretend relationship by withholding my signature from our divorce papers. Because bribery always made you look great in front of people you’d like to impress.

  I hated to admit it, but it was time to face facts. I wasn’t anything more to Tia than a rebellion. So, what did it say about me that I was willing to accept that role, if it meant having extra time with her? What did it say about my greed for her? Maybe this is how Brandon started turning, maybe he had wanted something that wasn’t his.

  Pacing internally and growing more and more irritated—whether at the situation, myself, or both—I waited for Tia’s parents to leave. They stayed for a few more minutes, chattering in a mix of broken English and Chinese.

  A long time ago, I had tried learning Chinese in an effort to be seen as a more acceptable husband to Tia’s parents, to the point that I could converse about as well as a moderately articulate three-year-old. Years of disuse had atrophied my Chinese to the level of a one-year-old. I could understand very, very simple phrases but couldn’t produce more than basic sounds myself. In this situation, I didn’t need to understand everything to know that Tia’s parents were fussing over her, while she bristled at being treated like a child.

  Their dynamic had always fascinated me. Maybe because theirs was the only other family dynamic that I had the chance to observe at close range. It was night and day compared to my own family’s. One, none of the Wangs had a criminal record. Beyond that, while my mom was an amazing woman who had survived a horror of a husband, she had been too busy working multiple jobs and making sure we had a roof over our heads.

  On the other hand, Tia’s parents’ world revolved around her. It wasn’t just the material things, but also the time and care they took with her. In middle school, when Tia asked if she could go to summer camp, her parents had spent days researching the best programs around the country and polling their friends. When Tia had expressed an interest in math, her parents learned how to use YouTube so they could watch videos of college math lectures.

  Once upon a time, I had hoped that love and care would expand to include me. Clearly, they hadn’t and still didn’t feel the same.

  When the Wangs finally left, I opened the closet door, holding my shoes that Tia had tossed into the closet, to find Tia staring contemplatively at her floor-to-ceiling windows. Try as I could, regardless of what my mind was telling me, self-preservation was simply not in the cards for me when it came to this woman. Just seeing her was enough for me to throw out my resolve. Forget about resetting expectations.

  Knowing with every cell within me that our arrangement was going to end up with me being left behind, I still pursued blindly on. “It’s a little touristy, but I’ve heard good things about the Esplanade. I was thinking we could start day one with a picnic by the Charles River.”

  Eyes widening slightly, Tia stuttered, “I thought … um, I wasn’t sure … after, um …” Trailing off, she gestured in the general direction of my closet jail.

  Forcing a light laugh that I didn’t quite feel, I affected a teasing, casual tone. “It’s a first for me. Next time, let’s find a more spacious hiding spot?”

  “How much did you hear?” Her hands twisted strands of her long, dark brown hair, twirling around and around her elegant and ring-less fingers. Thank God she gave back the ring yesterday. I didn’t want to see another man’s mark on her.

  I read the worry in her. Whatever my trepidations were, hers were tenfold. Now was not the time to push her. “Hey, listen. You didn’t want your parents to worry. I get it.” I hated that I did. Brandon Parker’s son did not have the same ring as Senator Davenport’s golden son. “Let’s just call it a night. Do you teach tomorrow?”

  “No, only Tuesday through Friday. I usually make Mondays a quiet work day.”

  “Do you want to play hooky from work and go on a friendly picnic tomorrow? I’ll pick you up here.”

  “Friendly picnic?”

  “The friendliest of picnics.” My lips quirked up in a smile. “I’ll find an unassuming basket with no expectations, maybe some peanut butter and jelly. I’ll bring some tea too. How serious can you get while debating the merits of crunchy or smooth peanut butter and drinking tea?”

  Her chuckle felt like a bigger win than having a tricky defamation suit against my company tossed out last month. And that had been cigar-worthy.

  Smiling slightly, Tia countered with, “What if I told you that I like neither? Almond butter, sunflower butter, Nutella are all the rage now.”

  “Okay, okay, my difficult lady, you can have your flower butter and pea milk, and I’ll stick to my old-school PB and J, full of allergens and sugar.”

  “Ew, pee milk! Who drinks that?” Tia’s scrunched-up face made me want to kiss her puckered lips.

  “P-E-A, not P-E-E.” I smiled at her, trying not to think about kissing her. “Get yo
ur mind out of the toilet.”

  In mock seriousness, she explained, “Well, another new craze is drinking cat poop coffee, made from coffee berries that civets eat and then poop out. I thought it was a natural extension that someone figured out a way to make artisanal P-E-E milk.”

  Damn. It was hard to have her real smile turned on me and not want to grab her closer. Her turned-up lips made me want to kiss the corner of that smile and absorb the laughter bubbling underneath the surface. Let her warmth and light chase away the darkness lurking inside of me.

  I could have kissed her then.

  I wanted to kiss her then.

  If I leaned in closer, she might even kiss me back.

  Instead, I stepped around her to the little dining table and started dumping the half-eaten food back into their containers to save for later. From the side, I saw Tia reach out as if to stop me.

  Damn, I was used to saving every last scrap of food, even if I didn’t have to anymore. “Sorry, did you want to throw this away instead? You didn’t eat much, so I thought—”

  Shaking her head as if she knew exactly what I was thinking, which she probably did after years of seeing me clean my plate better than any high-efficiency dishwasher, she said, “No, let’s save it. I might need a backup lunch, depending on what’s in that unassuming picnic basket of yours tomorrow.”

  My shoulders relaxed. I stepped out into the hallway outside her apartment. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” she whispered.

  I knew that I could have easily stayed longer, now that the crisis of her parents’ impromptu slap of reality had been averted. However, if I wanted any chance of proving that we were more than sex buddies, I needed our two weeks to not start with sex. And while I didn’t know exactly where I wanted this thing with Tia and me to end up, I also wasn’t ready to give up something real and substantive with her.

  I forced myself to keep walking away and my eyes in front of me. Because if I looked back, I might have given in.

  I wanted to give in.

  And by giving in, we’d doom our relationship.

  Chapter Twelve

  Andrew

  December 17, 2008

  Ting Ting,

  I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about my dad. What if I become him?

  None of my college buddies or even my roommate knows about my dad. I am too ashamed. My whole life I’ve been so ashamed to be Brandon Parker’s kid. It’s much better that no one on campus know about him. He’s my dirty secret to carry.

  Two more days until I see you.

  Yours,

  Andrew

  Monday was sunny. My hotel room overlooked the city and its crooked streets that made no sense. I could see pedestrians crisscrossing Copley Square near my hotel, minding their own business, ignoring cars and bikes.

  Boston was the epitome of a city that was built before the introduction of city planning. I had been here a couple times before for work and, honestly, hadn’t given the city much thought before. Now, it seemed charming and accessible in a way that New York City or Chicago wasn’t.

  Or maybe someone had casted a rose-colored glow to the city.

  Usually, I was great at compartmentalizing. It was what made me a top lawyer, able to work on multiple cases with different clients, and what had enabled me to leave behind the baggage of my past. But all my usual tricks didn’t work when it came to Tia. Thoughts of her popped up when I went for a run this morning and when I cleared my calendar for today. When I grabbed coffee, I wondered if she drank hers black. I turned on the morning news and thought of how she had preferred reality dating shows in the past. Did she still? It was as if ten years of trying to compartmentalize our marriage had suddenly blown up in my face.

  Did I believe in fate? Not really.

  However, I believed in being ready and seizing opportunities. Except I wasn’t sure if I was ready or wanted to seize this opportunity. Or what the opportunity even was.

  I had moved on.

  Really, I had.

  I had examined our marriage, identified what went wrong, internalized my mistakes, and accepted the situation. Case closed.

  Except now, it felt as if the case had closed with incomplete evidence. The fact that we were still married was a wrench in my case—a game-changing Hail Mary, a half-court-shot wrench.

  Like any good lawyer worth their retainer, I couldn’t disregard new evidence without at least considering it. Which is what I planned to do. I reminded myself of my decision last night to not lead with sex. We could just talk for the next couple of weeks.

  Liar. I couldn’t even fool myself.

  Promptly at noon, I rang the intercom outside of Tia’s building. This time, she buzzed me in almost immediately, without even checking who I was. Maybe I was too suspicious, or maybe my work in the security industry had made me jaded, but I reminded myself to tell her about some of the reasons why our clients hired us in the first place.

  All thoughts of security soon fled my mind when she opened her door, wearing jeans that hugged her just right and a fleecy sweater that both covered her up and made me think of snuggling under blankets. Naked snuggling, that is.

  Hell, this woman was going to send me to the hospital.

  Diagnosis? Perpetual hard-on.

  “Hi,” she said, waving slightly before bundling herself up.

  “Hi,” I parroted, trying to decide on a proper greeting. Not naturally a hugger or toucher in general, I had an urge to do just that. Luckily, Tia, who was a hugger, stepped into my space to wrap her arms around me briefly before bouncing back.

  Suspiciously, she looked around me. “Where’re the unassuming picnic basket and the PB and J you promised me?”

  A grin broke out on my face at her disgruntlement. “Patience, I have them stashed in a safe spot.”

  Mollified, she turned to head to the staircase. With mock sternness, she called out over her shoulder, “Well, let’s go, then, Andrew. I’m hungry.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We headed toward the river. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence, as I was too aware of her next to me, but I wouldn’t call it strained either. It seemed that a night’s sleep had calmed her nerves. I was hopeful that she was opening herself to whatever this was between us.

  Or I was being delusional, and she was just sucking it up in order to get rid of me in two weeks’ time.

  When we reached an intersection, Tia moved to cross the street. My left arm shot out to stop her. “No, this way.”

  “No, this is the quickest way to the Esplanade. That’s where we’re still going, right?” Tia asked.

  “I know a different spot. Trust me, you’ll like it.” Taking a chance, I grabbed her mittened hand in my bare hand and tugged her to the right.

  A thrill shot through me when she didn’t pull away. A couple weeks ago, I had gotten into a heated discussion with some of my coworkers on whether sex or hand-holding was more intimate. I was firmly on the side that sex was—how could it not be, when you were literally sticking a part of your body into someone else’s body? Yet, I had to admit that there was an intimacy in holding Tia’s hand in public, like a little visible acknowledgement of our togetherness.

  I glanced down at Tia. A giant red hat with a pomelo-size pouf at the top hid most of her face. As if she could feel my gaze, she looked up, smiling tentatively, before averting her eyes. I squeezed her hand through the thick mitten to reassure her.

  A long-withheld breath later, I felt the flutter of a squeeze back. Whatever happened in two weeks, I would relish this single moment of complete contentment of holding hands and walking the streets of Boston together.

  Soon, we approached the address that I had memorized. Ignoring her confused look, I pulled her into the lobby of an upscale residential building, decked out in marbled columns and plush rugs. I stopped by the concierge to greet him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Parker, please go right ahead and let me know if there is anything else you need.” The portly man
in uniform pressed a button to open an elevator door.

  “Thank you, Bobby. Please make sure we’re not disturbed.” I nodded my head as Tia and I walked into the elevator.

  Once the door closed, Tia turned to me, her face scrunched up in a question. “Where are we? What are we doing here? How does that guy know you?”

  “It’s a surprise,” I said, anticipation blooming for once with Tia in a non-sexual way.

  “You hate surprises,” she said as the elevator dinged to signal that we had reached the top.

  “I hate to be surprised,” I clarified, covering her eyes with my hands. I guided her out of the elevator and through a door. “I enjoy surprising you.”

  “As long as the surprise isn’t some couples CrossFit class,” Tia joked.

  All I heard was “couples.” Batting down hope, I chalked the word up to a slip of her tongue. I dropped my hands from her eyes. “What do you think?”

  “Wow.” She spun around the rooftop garden that overlooked the Charles River. On the side closest to the river, I had set up a cluster of pillows and blankets on top of a red and white checkered picnic cloth that covered an air mattress, alongside a plain basket filled with food. Dozens of flower pots and string lights transformed the roof into a secret garden.

  So what if I had to call in several favors to get this space, pay exorbitant prices to get a florist to decorate the rooftop, and run around like a maniac this morning to find everything? The delighted look in her eyes was worth it. I could never tire of pampering her, just to see her smile at me, wide and inviting, with no hesitation.

  “Wow, all it needs is a random hot tub and some red roses,” she said, bending to smell some flowers whose name I didn’t know.

  A laugh burst out of me. That’s one question answered—she still watched awful reality TV shows. And I had watched enough with her in the past to recognize her reference. “Are we on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette?”