We entered the first coffee shop we came across. I had no idea how far we had walked from the precinct. Nobody had spoken on the way there, and even after a server showed us to a small round table, the silence followed us inside.

My mom sat beside me and took considerably longer than necessary arranging her coat over the back of the chair. She opened her bag, looked for something inside, closed it again and moved her coffee spoon even though our drinks hadn’t arrived yet.

Across from us, Geonsu sat with both hands beneath the table. I looked at him once. He looked at me at exactly the same time. We both looked somewhere else.

My mom finally settled back into her chair.

“First of all, thank you for helping my son last night.”

Geonsu straightened. “Oh. You don’t have to thank me, ma’am.” He nodded slightly but looked no more comfortable accepting it.

My mom watched him for a moment. “I assume you were the friend whose apartment he stayed at.”

There it was.

“Yes, ma’am…” His hands appeared from beneath the table only so he could immediately start doing something with them. “But I offered to get him home first. My apartment was closer and he wanted to shower, so I thought—”

“I’m not asking you to explain why my adult son was in your apartment.” My mom’s mouth pulled slightly at one corner. “He has been deciding where he sleeps for quite a few years now.”

Geonsu lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. My mom looked between us. I suddenly became very interested in the empty sugar container near the wall.

“How do you two know each other?”

“Nari,” I answered. “His sister.”

“You know his sister?”

“She used to go to school with Romina.”

My mom nodded slowly. That seemed to place Geonsu somewhere more understandable in her head.

“And you were at the bar because of her?”

“It was her birthday.”

The server arrived with our drinks before she could ask anything else. My mom thanked her and pulled her cup closer, stirring it once before looking across the table again.

“So, what do you do, Geonsu?”

“I’m a chef.” 

My mom’s eyes moved over him. “Really? I thought you might be a bouncer.”

“Tsk, mom…”

“What?” She picked up her coffee. “He has enough muscle for it.”

Geonsu started laughing. It came out unexpectedly enough that I looked at him. He glanced at me over the table, still smiling, before lowering his eyes to his cup.

“Where do you cook?” my mom asked.

“Toscana. It’s next to Bella-Donna.” Geonsu’s head tilted my way.

“I know where Toscana is.” She lowered her coffee. “Cony still runs it?”

Before Geonsu even answered her, something changed in my mom’s face. “Wait.” She leaned back slightly and looked at him again. “You’re the sauté chef.”

Geonsu looked surprised. 

I looked between them. Apparently, my mother had once again discovered somebody in New York she knew through three other people.

“She told me about an apprentice they had years ago.” My mom narrowed her eyes slightly, trying to remember. “She sent me pictures of some of the dishes from the final exam too.”

Geonsu's entire posture changed. “Really?”

“Yes,” My mom answered and started describing it.

I picked up my coffee and watched them.

Five minutes ago, she had been looking at him as if she wanted his identification. Now they were discussing a plate of food I had never seen.

His face lit up. He leaned closer when my mom pulled out her phone and started looking through old messages for the pictures Cony had sent her.

Apparently, that was all it took.

Her chair gradually moved away from mine as they talked, until she was sitting closer to Geonsu than me. She asked him what he had used for one of the decorations on the plate, then somehow moved from that to why her osso buco always dried out before she was satisfied with it. Geonsu asked how she cooked it, frowned at her answer and started explaining something about temperature.

“What about you?” Geonsu asked after a while. “What do you do?”

“Makeup. Mostly television and news.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “How long have you been doing that?”

“A few years. I got my license about five years ago, but it took me a while to actually start working.”

“What did you do before?”

My mom paused. Her eyes came to me. I knew that look. I gave her a small shrug and took another sip of my coffee.

“I was a stripper.”

Geonsu’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh.”

My mom watched him over the rim of her cup.

Geonsu rubbed the side of his nose. “That must’ve been really hard.”

She lowered the cup. “What?”

“Physically.” He gestured vaguely with one hand. “The pole stuff. I tried–” He stopped and his face changed. “Not stripping.”

I nearly inhaled my coffee.

“I mean the pole.” His ears started turning red. “At a gym. Once. Somebody had one of those classes and I couldn’t–” He made a frustrated movement with his hand. “It’s really fucking hard.”

My mom stared at him, then she started laughing. Geonsu laughed too, mostly at himself by then, and rubbed the back of his neck.

After that, I mostly listened.

They somehow ended up comparing workouts. My mom insisted dancing through an entire shift had been worse than anything she did at the gym now, while Geonsu argued that fifty minutes on a StairMaster should qualify as psychological torture. From there they moved to wine, then a television show they had both watched, and by the time I finished my coffee, my mom had stopped looking at him between questions as if she was still deciding what to do with him.

“What are your plans for Christmas? I would love to invite you over.”

“Mom.” I stared at her in disbelief. “He’s pretty busy, on weekends especially. And he might have plans with his family on Christmas, you cannot just…” Geonsu interrupted me before I could finish. 

“I am free on Christmas.” His answer came out considerably faster than anything he had said to my mom all afternoon.

I looked at him. “You don’t spend it with Nari?”

“She has plans this year.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So I can come by. I mean…” His confidence disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived. “If that’s okay with you too.”

“If you have time, come over for Christmas.”

His mouth pulled into a smile before he lowered his eyes. “Okay.”

He finished what remained in his cup and glanced at the time.

“I should probably go. You two probably want to get home.” He stood and pulled his jacket from the back of the chair. “Thank you for the coffee, ma’am. And for inviting me.”

“Denise.”

Geonsu paused.

“You can call me Denise.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Thank you, Denise.”

He pulled his beanie on, said goodbye once more and left.

He turned right and passed the window a few seconds later. His hands disappeared into his pockets as he walked, shoulders raised against the cold. I followed him with my eyes until the edge of the building swallowed him from view.

When I looked back, my mom wasn’t looking through the window.

She was looking at me.

“Well… He’s nice,” my mom said, calling over the server, ready to pay for the coffees. 

“Oh, the coffees were paid for by the man who left your table,” the server said. “Would that be all?”

“Yes. Thank you.” My mom was smiling and looking down inside her bag. 

“Well, he is nice, I guess.” I raised my eyebrows at her.

“Pfft. Let’s go.”

She started to walk first, urging me to go home and relax. As we were walking down the stairs of the subway entrance, a strong wind blew our hair violently to the back. I reached around my neck and raised the scarf higher. 

The scarf! I forgot. As we were waiting for the subway, I texted Geonsu about his scarf, telling him how sorry I was for forgetting to give it back. He texted me back immediately.

[It’s okay. I didn’t forget about it though. I hope you’re warm enough until you get home :)]