“You have such a low opinion of me,” I observed.
Kai shook his head.“No, I have an urge to go out with you.I just need to know the limits so that you don’t kill someone while we do it.”
I blinked at him, momentarily lost for words.As usual, a little self-deprecation eventually filled the gap.“All this because you want to use my pool,” I said, inwardly wincing even as the words left my lips.
He refused to rise to the bait.“I thought that was why we had sex,” he said, matter-of-factly.
I looked around us, hurriedly, to see if anybody had overheard.The people at the tables nearest didn’t seem to be paying any attention.
“Do you have to be so loud?”I asked him, feeling awkward again.
Kai stuck his tongue out at me; I had a glimpse of him as an unruly child, making life hell for his parents.
“Do you have to be so uptight?”he countered, answering my question with one of his own.“Are you really so ashamed of sleeping with me?”
I couldn’t help it, I had to laugh at that.
Kai stared, seemingly confused by my reaction.
“Seriously?”I asked him, still chuckling.“I’m pretty sure if you asked anybody in this room, they’d express clear and significant surprise that you’d wanted to have sex with me, not the other way around.”
He snorted.“I mean, I can ask...”
I narrowed my eyes at him.“Don’t you dare.”
Eventually he held up his hands in submission.“Fine, fine, no impromptu surveys tonight.But I’m just going to point out that this is another of those times when you’re being super-critical of yourself, and it’s getting kinda annoying.Can we have one evening where you’re not completely down on yourself?”
Turning the water glass in its ring of condensation on the table, I mulled the possibility.“If I say yes, what exactly does that entail?”
He stared at me in what I could only read as amazement.“I think you’re the only person in the world who needs a contract for something as straightforward as “don’t be a dick about yourself,” and it’s blowing my goddamn mind.”Kai shook his head, slowly.“Okay, I’ll make it easy for you.You don’t get to say anything negative about yourself.If I pay you a compliment, you accept it.Hell, you even think it over and try to see why someone - anyone - might say something nice about you.Maybe none of it will sink in, maybe we’ll get lucky and you’ll decide, oh god, I don’t know...decide that you have nice fingernails or something.Anything!”
I made a show of examining my fingers, glancing from left hand to right.“Well, I suppose I do have rather shapely cuticles,” I conceded.
He gulped down some water, then let his head fall back in exasperation.“Fine,” he said, eventually, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”
I resisted the urge to suggest that must’ve been his attitude when we’d had sex earlier.It only seemed like it would aggravate him again.
“So,” I asked, as salads arrived in front of us.I had to admit, they looked good.“What made you want to go into medicine?”
Kai pushed a forkful of leaves into his mouth, then gave a tight grin as he chewed.“I didn’t have much of a choice, really,” he explained, swallowing.“It was basically the parental expectation.”
“Both your parents are doctors?”I prompted, stabbing a piece of cucumber and then using it to round up a chunk of goat’s cheese.
“My dad is, yes.And his dad, too.It was always just assumed that I’d follow in those family footsteps.”
I nodded, wondering how it might have felt had my parents decided there was a hereditary legacy I was required to continue.We didn’t have that sort of relationship.
“Do you at least enjoy it, though?”
Kai paused, clearly thinking through his answer.“I resented it at first,” he said, finally.“When it seemed like it was being forced on me.But over time I think you start to find something good in anything.”He skillfully captured a few slivered almonds on the tines of his fork.“I enjoy getting to work with people, and trying to help them figure out answers to stuff that has been frustrating them, or making their lives difficult.And it turns out I’m not bad at remembering long reams of facts, which doesn’t hurt when it comes to exams.”
I tore off a piece of bread, gesturing with it.“So you want to be a doctor when you qualify?Like, in a hospital?”
He wrinkled his nose.“Good question.I don’t really need to decide quite yet, and to be honest I’m still not entirely sure.How did you decide that you wanted to be...oh.”He set down his fork.“I just realized that I don’t know what it is that you do.”
It was a pointed reminder that, for all we’d done together, we were still effectively strangers.
“Well, I’m basically the person who makes sure shit goes to plan for a big company nobody has ever heard of,” I explained.“Think of, like, a party planner, but instead of cake and balloons and a DJ, it’s keeping lawyers and contractors and managers in line.Turns out, I’m actually unexpectedly good at it, which is weird what with the rest of my life being so fucked up right now.”
