"So you once told me—glmph!" You almost choke as Gary Chen, expertly wielding a set of chopsticks, pops a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken into your mouth. "Thanks," you mumble as he grins.
"You were gonna say?" he purrs as he pulls you more closely inside his embrace.
"I was going to ask you about Justin Roth. What's the appeal?"
"If you're asking sex appeal, you tell me."
"No, I mean for, uh—" You put your mouth to his ear. Well, you put it to his ear as best you can: his hair falls to earlobes, and so does edge of his ski cap. "Gary Chen," you murmur. "You said," you continue more loudly, "he likes to hang out with Justin. So what's the appeal of him as a friend?"
Chen shrugs. "He's just cool, I guess. Doesn't give a shit about anything, doesn't freak out, just takes people as they come." He pauses, and you see a muscle in his cheek tighten. "Gary had kind of a shitty time of it in elementary school, middle school. On account of being—" He does a double-take at you. "Well, you can guess."
Yes, you can. Yumi had her own troubles with people—emphatically including ones like Chelsea—who made a big deal about the fact that Yumi's skin and hair and ... eyes ... were not of "standard issue."
"Well, Justin's just easy to be with," he continues. "And he's pretty impressive. Smart. Does shit, like hunting with a bow, that a lot of people don't do." His eyes travel over your face. "Why, is that who you're thinking about for your second?"
"Thinking. And David Kirkham?"
A grin—slow, lazy, terrifying—spreads over his face. "My man Kirkham? Yeah, we have fun together."
"Sell him to me."
But instead of answering right away, Chen holds your eye, and his expression falls. He turns away and takes a couple more bites of his own food.
"He can get laid," he says at last in a very clipped way. "I supposed you'd consider that a selling point."
"Was that why you were trying to sell him to me earlier?"
Chen shifts in his chair, and his arm falls halfway off your shoulders. "Look, he's Gary's best friend," he says in tinny and unhappy tone that's closer to Chelsea's native tone than Chen's. "That would make it really convenient if you went there. And it is like he's the only person Gary can really treat like an equal. I think they've got a lot of the same stuff inside."
That sounds like a good thing for you, but it also sounds like Chelsea wouldn't like it.
She'd probably like it even less if you asked for Chen to be your second while she went somewhere else.
Or maybe she'd find it a relief. You won't know unless you ask.
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