So it was probably a coincidence that he decided to drop my hand as soon as his nameless friend showed up. However, after he grabbed his much larger suitcase, he fell in step with the ogre, speaking with him in rapid Cantonese. Leaving me to follow.
I wasn’t one of those ugly American tourists who got upset when people conversed in a language I didn’t understand. But I felt a little abandoned as I trailed them to the airport garage where the ogre had parked a black Audi RS Q8.
This was another way Han was opposite from Brad. There’d never been a lot of hand-holding for us in private. But in airports, out and about, and at public-facing events, Brad had always made sure to take my hand. When I was pro, too, he and his PR team wanted everyone to know that we were the surfing dream couple.
Han turned back to me long enough to throw my suitcase in the trunk before I could do it myself. But other than that, he didn’t acknowledge me at all as we drove for about an hour to the Rhode Island Coast.
And by the time we pulled drove through the gates of his super lux apartment building, I began to wonder why he’d brought me along at all.
However, those miserable thoughts fell away when we walked into a grand foyer.
“What the…?” I said to the two of them, my mouth falling open.
As it turned out, the stone building I was sure had to hold at least six super nice apartments when we pulled up was just one house. A mansion like I’d only ever seen in movies with a huge living room on the right and what looked like a receiving room on the left. Both spaces had more square feet than my parents’ entire two-bedroom house.
This must be the home Han told me he shared with his fellow Dragons. I continued to gape as we made our way toward the grand staircase. This was waaaay more space than three guys needed. I mean, three whole families could live here, no problem.
“Do you want me to take her to a hotel or something?” the ogre asked Han, finally in English. He glanced back at me like I was a dog he kept forgetting Han had brought along with him.
“I’ll show her to my room,” Han answered, also in English. “Then I’ll go see Victor.”
The big guy looked from Han to me like Han had suggested he was going to store a pile of radioactive trash in his room as opposed to taking it out to the dump where it belonged.
I shifted uncomfortably. Was this the kind of racism I’d heard about? Growing up in Hawaii, things had been pretty cool between other Asians and me. Filipinos had a reputation as a kind of get along with everybody group, and military Blacks had a long history of staying on and thriving in Hawaii. But my dad had grown up in California. He’d told me stories about Blacks and Asians sometimes clashing.
The ogre took my carry-on from me like a reluctant valet. But as he and Han walked up the stairs with me trailing behind, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was one of those Asians who didn’t want anything to do with Blacks.
Without any warning, a song started blasting when we were halfway up the stairs. Dramatic and strange, a singer with a Freddie Mercuryesque voice wailed about how his lover had left him with no happy ending.
The ogre glared up at the song blaring from unseen speakers.
“Son of a bitch! I took his phone and the Alexa device. How the fuck is he even playing that damn song again?”
The ogre raced away with my bag, leaving me on the steps with Han.
“C’mon, my room is right at the top of the stairs,” he told me.
When we arrived at Han’s room, I spotted my bag—abandoned outside an open door at the end of the hallway. And the ogre was yelling, “Give me the remote, Vic. Give me the remote, or I swear I’ll rip the fucking television out of the wall.”
Vic… Victor, the boy who’d had his tongue cut out.
I could also see him in the doorway, dressed in a long dark velvet robe even though it was the dog days of summer. His face appeared sunken and gaunt underneath a patchy beard. One of his hands was fisted around a nearly empty bottle of clear liquor while the other signed something back to Phantom that I couldn’t understand.
“She’s gone,” the ogre yelled, apparently too angry to bellow in Cantonese or sign language. “You’re the one who let her go, so you’re the one who needs to just accept it already instead of acting like a fucking psycho, playing this song on repeat. Now give me the remote!”
