Chapter 25

I was awoken by the feel of someone shoving me. I opened my eyes to darkness and as they adjusted to it, I realized that there was a body lying next to me. Panicked, I sat up and turned on the bedside lamp.

"Jonathan! What—" The sentence was cut short by his hand on my mouth.

"Can't you see someone is sleeping over there?" he said, pointing to the bed at the other side of the room.

Seeing Ryan lying there made me realize that I was still in their room.

I pried his hand off my mouth and whispered, "You're just getting back?"

He smirked. "I wasn't even gone for an hour. I can't believe you fell asleep. And him too," he said, nodding in Ryan's direction. "For a moment, I thought I'd catch you guys in a compromising position but I guess Cho is a huge bore, huh?" he joked.

I hit him then turned around and looked at our subject. He was lying on his side, facing us and with his hair against his forehead and with his face relaxed, he looked so peaceful, gently breathing in a nice rhythm.

"Doesn't he look normal when he's sleeping?"

I nodded. In the soft light, he looked more than normal. Cute, even. Scratch that. Not cute but very cute.

"Are you going back to your room or do you want to spend the night staring at him?"

I slapped him again. "I'll be going back in a second but can I ask you a question?" I said, turning to him and looking down at his face.

"You mean 'may.'"

"Thanks for the correction. May I ask you a question?"

He yawned. "You want to know about me and Ali?"

I nodded. "I overheard a few things. Do you love her?"

He turned and lay down on his back. "I don't know." His expression was clear and free of any sarcasm or arrogance. It was the most honest and humble he'd ever looked since I first met him.

"What don't you know about it?"

He shrugged. "I think I'm starting to believe what everyone thinks about me. Before, I was sure that I liked and cared about her far more than anyone ever gave me credit for but these days, I think I'm wrong. Well, I hope I'm wrong." Then he turned back on his side. "You won't tell her that, will you? Because, you know, we've both moved on and all."

I squeezed his hand and promised not to say anything. About a minute later, I said my goodbye and tiptoed out of their room.

The light was still on and Ali still awake when I walked back into our room. I slid under my covers and stretched. I was so happy to be back in my bed. Then I turned to her. "Did you guys have a good talk?"

She snapped the book she was reading shut and put it on the dresser. "Are you done with the light? You mind if I turn it off?"

I shook my head and shortly after, we were in darkness.

"You don't want to talk about it?" I asked. I probably should have minded my business but I was far too curious.

From the creak of the bed, I could tell that she was changing positions. "It's fine. There's not much to talk about."

"You and Jonathan used to date…?" I started, leading her in the right direction.

"Yeah. I thought you already knew that."

"Yeah, sorta. And you broke up after you and Ryan kissed?"

She laughed. "Me and Ryan didn't kiss. Well, not really. Did you know that Ryan and Jonathan used to be friends?"

I shook my head even though I knew she probably couldn't see it.

"They were friends before I moved here. Then shortly after I did, Jonathan and I started dating but I guess he was jealous of my relationship with Ryan. And you know that guy has problems so he was mean about it. One random day, after pissing me off, I went over to Ryan and kissed him. Like a big, wet one." She giggled. "Blech, it was like kissing my brother. But I did it in the cafeteria so you know that everyone saw it. Jonathan found out and got into a huge fight with him. As in a physical fight with punching and all that."

"Wow."

She chuckled. "That's not even the half of it. I felt bad so I explained everything to Jonathan and we made up. But he never fully believed me because he couldn't understand how Ryan could still be my friend even though I used him. Then to get back at me, the day after the one and only time we had sex, I walked into the cafeteria to see him flirting with another girl. That literally was the worst day in my life," she said, not bothering to hide the hurt in her voice. "So I called him later that day and broke up with him. He tried to apologize to me saying that it hadn't meant anything but I refused to listen. The next day, he tried to apologize again but he and Ryan ended up getting into another huge fight in class and when a teacher broke them up, I took Ryan's side. And that's pretty much it."

I rolled to the other side as I tried to digest it all. "How long ago was this?"

"Around a year, maybe."

"And now, what do you think about him? Do you still love him?"

"Of course not. And I don't even know why he came over here tonight. I guess he just wanted to talk and he felt jealous after seeing me with James. But he's seen me with other guys so I don't know what his problem was. But whatever. We talked for a while but there's no way we can ever get back together. Too much has happened, you know."



***



"Smile," Ryan said, shoving his camera in front of my face. "Su Jin Oh, tell the world what you think of Los Angeles, California. Is it everything you dreamed of?"

I covered the lens with my palm and looked over at him. He was dressed in a brown t-shirt with the phrase 'Don't do it' on it.

"Don't do what?" I asked. But as my eyes lingered on his chest, the image of him in his towel flashed in my mind.

I quickly took my hand off his camera and covered my eyes. I really needed to somehow erase that from my memory.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, pulling my fingers off my face. He successfully took one hand off and peered into my face. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Yes. But move back. You don't have to be so close."

He made a face and stepped back. "What's wrong with you?" He pointed his camera at me again.

"Can you film something else? I've already starred in one of your movies. Isn't that enough?"

He shook his head and left the camera trained on me. "That was scripted so it doesn't count. Besides, I think I'm more suited for documentaries anyway. So Su Jin Oh, what do you think of Los Angeles?"

A cold breeze passed and I zipped up my sweatshirt higher. "I think it's colder than I was led to believe. Hey," I said, pointing at the ground. "Those are Michael Jackson's handprints." I held onto the digital camera that was hanging from my wrist and pointed it at the square. "My friend, Il Woo, will love this. I need to take a picture."

We compared our hands and feet to other imprints made on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and when we stopped to watch a street performance, Ryan rested his hand on my shoulder. But a few seconds later, he suddenly took it off and put it into his pocket. When I looked at him inquisitively, he looked away shyly and said, "Sorry about that. I forgot that I'm not allowed to touch."

I scrunched my nose. "Don't bring that sh.it up again. In fact," I said, pulling his arm and wrapping it over my shoulder.

He looked down at me with a question in his eyes.

"What? Can't friends do this?" I asked as I pulled his arm tighter around me. "Friends can do this. Or you don't want to?"

He shook his head and laughed. Then he turned to watch the performance without any further comments.

Even though I didn't wrap my arm around his waist to make the half-hug complete, I leaned into him and watched the two-man team perform their acrobatics.

Ryan made a comment I didn't hear but I laughed with him anyway. It was definitely good to have friends, especially those that made you smile even when there was no real reason to.



***

"Excuse me," Ryan said, squeezing into my row.

I laughed as he sat in Ali's former seat. "So you're the sucker she exchanged with," I said, glancing back at Ali who was now sitting with James. "I thought you said she'd never exchange a window or aisle seat for a middle one."

Ryan fastened his seatbelt and grinned at me. "Yeah, but I got sick of all her begging. And now she owes me one."

I looked away and tried to look as uninterested as possible. "And it must have been a huge sacrifice for you. Didn't you want to sit next to Holly?"

"She wasn't seated next to me on this flight."

"Oh. Would you still have exchanged seats with her if you'd been next to Holly?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

I furrowed my brows and looked away. He didn't know? I so didn't like that response. "You mean you like her for real?"

He sighed. "Why are you so interested? Must we talk about her again?"

"No," I mumbled. "I just wanted to know. What's the big deal?"

He pushed me gently then laughed. "If anything happens with Holly and me, you'll be the first to know."

What the fu,ck? I opened my mouth to say something then thought better of it. No. He must have been kidding. He was far too smart to really like someone like that.

He picked up the inflight magazine and flipped through it. "I wonder what movie they are going to show."

"Are you going to buy the earphones?"

"Probably. Now that I don't have anywhere to rest my head, it'll be hard to sleep. Can you entertain me for the next 5 hours?"

I bent down, picked up my handbag and rummaged through it. "I can't entertain you but maybe my Creative Zen can. I uploaded some video files before we left," I said, pulling it out.

"Cool. Do you have any food too?"

I sent him a lopsided frown and pulled out my half eaten package of chocolate chip cookies. "I'm providing both the food and the entertainment. What's your contribution?"

"Myself." When he saw the smirk on my face he said, "What? That's not good enough?"

I gave him one earphone and stuck the other one in my ear then went through my playlist and clicked on a file.

"What's this?" he asked as the intro began.

"It's a drama."

About a minute later, he said, "In Korean?"

I put my finger against my lips, gesturing for him to shut up.

He took out his earphone and turned to me. "How am I supposed to understand this? There are no subtitles!"

I took mine out and looked back at him. "Your mother wants you to learn Korean, right? So consider this your first lesson. Now, I have to rewind this," I said, pressing one of the buttons. "If the battery dies on me, you're dead!"

We were about ten minutes into the drama when he suddenly laughed.

"What's so funny?"

He pointed at the screen and laughed but after seeing the confused expression on my face, stopped. "They didn't say anything funny?"

I shook my head. "What's funny about asking someone when their doctor's appointment is?"

He scratched his ear in embarrassment. "Oh, that's what he said?"

I giggled. "What do you think he said?"

He laughed to himself and told me that I really didn't want to know.

As we watched the drama with him laughing and commenting on scenes he clearly misunderstood, I found myself feeling the sudden urge to kiss him.

I stopped myself and rested into my chair, causing Ryan's earphone to fly out of his ear.

"Hey! My ears are precious, you know."

I rolled my eyes and handed him both earphones.

I couldn't figure out why but I really had, for some reason, wanted to kiss him. Not anything major but just a quick kiss.

So maybe Yvette had been right. The main lights had been turned off, he and I were cuddled up together watching the drama and the mood was set. It really didn't have much with me wanting him.


"Aren't you still watching this?" he asked, showing the screen to me.

I shook my head.

"Good. That means I can find something else to watch. I don't know what you find so great in seeing a man cry because some girl rejected him."

I could barely see his face but with the way his lips were highlighted by the lights on my video player, I almost felt like it wouldn't really have been the worst thing to kiss him right then.

I turned away and smiled to myself. So this was what it meant to have your hormones rage, huh? Wanting to touch any guy within a 15 foot radius?

His hand brushed against mine and I felt a tingle. Actually, it was more like a buzz. I moved my hand away so that it wouldn't happen again. Okay, so it was no longer a laughing matter. I really did enjoy hanging out with him but in the grand scheme of things, my hormones raging for no good reason didn't quite work.

If Min Ki had been around, would I even have had the chance to think such thoughts about him? If he'd had a girlfriend sitting at the other side of him, there would never have been a point where it would have just been the two of us laughing in the dark. So maybe, just maybe, it was time to get rid of the sexual tension between us and get him a girlfriend. Someone who wasn't Holly but someone who made him happy. And made things easier between us.