“We should go to Heartful first. Hopefully, you’ll find something there since you get an employee discount,” he said.

Heartful was the small but popular and on-trend boutique that I worked at part-time. I had been lucky enough to get the job thanks to Jezabel, the store manager, who was Kai’s classmate. She remembered me being her underclassman in high school, and I remembered her, too. I recalled that she transferred to another school before the end of her senior year.

One day during a slow period at work she shared with me that she had decided to work for a few years after high school instead of going straight to college, much to the disappointment of her first generation Filipino parents who had hoped she would have gone to school for nursing. In the end, it worked out better than she had expected because shortly after she’d started work here, she was surprised to find out that she’d been promoted to store manager. Even though she said she’d been surprised, I wasn’t, and I don’t think anyone else that knew her would be either.

Although she and I hadn’t been more than acquaintances in school, Jez had a reputation for being outgoing and caring. Jez was everyone’s friend; she had a way of automatically connecting with people. Those traits coalesced with the fact that she was an incredibly hard worker made it obvious to anyone with eyes that she was the perfect person for the position.

“I’d planned to—Jez sent me a text yesterday to let me know that she put some dresses on hold that she thought I'd like,” I said with a smile. Jez’s sense of style was on point, and she had a talent for picking out things people would look good in; she should have become a professional personal shopper or stylist, but I suspected that the boutique’s owner paid her more than enough to keep her around.

“I’ll go shower and get ready, but in the meantime why don’t you have your breakfast?” Kai seemed hesitant to leave, to end our conversation. He was probably afraid that I’d clam up again while he was gone, and I didn’t blame him for feeling that way.

“Okay. You can leave your dishes on the table; I’ll re-use them so I don’t have to wash as many dishes later.” I really disliked doing dishes and in my opinion one less set of things to wash made a significant difference. That was why we had the rule—the one rule that mattered in this house: I cook, you clean. I was the one who instated that rule—way before Kai took guardianship of me—because I was usually at his house anyway, and I almost always cooked. However, since Kai had prepared breakfast this morning the dishes would obviously fall under my jurisdiction. Sigh.

“Sure,” he laughed as he reached over and patted the top of my head as he walked past me, heading for the stairs.

“No problem.” I rolled my eyes. It irritated me a bit when Kai pet me but it had become a bit of an inside joke between us since he was five feet ten inches tall and I was a diminutive five feet even. Ten inches might not seem like such a big difference until you were trying to reach something on the top shelf—which was where I was convinced he hid all the good snacks.

As I set my plate down on the table, I picked up Kai’s Galaxy Tab to read through my favorite Asian blogs. I unlocked the screen and discovered that the browser had been left up and he had been searching, ‘how to confess your love to someone.’ Raising an eyebrow, I put the tablet back exactly where it had been. That had been a very unintentional gross invasion of his privacy and I was embarrassed. I felt my face heat up. I rested my head in my hand before I covered my eyes. Maybe it was time for me to buy my own tablet to avoid the risk of any more unexpected discoveries.

I made a mental note to find out if he needed help talking to the girl that he liked. I had to do something to make up for that embarrassing faux pas. But I mean, really, what were best friends for? I’d be his secret wingman and he’d never be the wiser.

Distracted by this new train of thought, I momentarily forgot about Mr. Dream, who inexplicably gave me the strength to carry on.