It was just beginning to spit rain when I pulled into Charlie's driveway. Jisung and I ran across the lawn, up the stairs, and into the house.

I hung up my jacket and kicked off my shoes. My dad would be back in an hour or so; he and Billy Black liked to scale their fish and watch the sun go down.

I looked at Jisung — sitting on the floor and bodily yanking his boots off — and imagined living with him. In a house that was only ours, where we could stay in bed all day and avoid responsibilities. A smile spread across my face.

He looked up at me, and his eyebrows raised at my expression. "What's that smile?"

I crouched down behind him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. "I'm thinking about living with you. You know, in a house. Someday."

He froze, and quickly came back to life. I could hear a smile in his voice. "Do you want that?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Of course I do."

"It's a deal."

He petted the side of my head. "What do you want to do in the meantime?"

"Wanna play a board game?"

"Sure."

I hooked my arms under his and lifted him to his feet. He laughed, held my hands securely against his ribs and didn't let me release him.

We eventually made it to the shelf behind the stairs, and picked out the checker board. Charlie had games for company — a lot of his buddies had kids. We headed to the living room, sat down on the floor, and put the board together on the coffee table.

Jisung stared at the red and black squares, his pupils ticking, buzzing, and then moved a black piece.

"Do you play often?" he asked.

"Not since last year. I absolutely dominated, so be warned."

"Who did you play?"

I pressed my lips together. "My six-year-old cousin."

"So you're on a kindergarten level," he laughed. "Got it."

"What about you? When did you play last?"

"Long time. I'm banned from these kinds of games. Mindreader problems."

I touched his hand across the table, frowned when his eyes found mine.

"It's okay, my love." He smiled a little. "I'm used to it."

"Is Felix allowed to play, with his power?"

"Nope. But we make do. Our favourite game is 'throwing random stuff at each other until someone gets hit.' It's more fun than it sounds."

"No, that sounds awesome." I moved a piece. He moved his next instantly, like he had a plan and I'd played into it. "What games are you allowed to play?"

"Twister — it doesn't require strategy. Jacks is good, too." He laughed. "Sometimes we braid each other's hair. To see who's fastest. Felix wins every time, his hands are tiny and agile. I'm a close fifth." He reached over and tugged on a lock of my hair. "I put that in this morning."

I palmed my head and felt a small, tight weave. "I had a braid in my hair all day? Oh, my god."

"It's cute." He slid a piece into place with one finger.

"Wait, if you're banned from games that involve strategy, why are we playing baseball tonight?"

"They know I like baseball, so they let me have the advantage. Felix, too. It honestly doesn't help much, the mind reading. Oh, he's gonna throw low — oh, he's gonna throw a curve ball. They've actually gotten pretty good at hiding their thoughts from me. We're all just a bit over-competitive."

"Tonight should be fun," I muttered. He smiled.

By now, I could tell I was going to lose this round. If he thought his family was competitive, then he never should have fallen in love with me.

I shrieked and pointed over his shoulder, and then swiped a few of his pieces off the board while his back was turned.

He spun back and eyed me, but didn't seem to notice the missing pieces. We kept playing for a little while, in silence, occasionally stealing a suspicious glance.

"So," he said then, "is tonight the night?"

"For what?"

He moved a piece. "That I meet Charlie."

I shrugged.

"I introduced you to my family."

I moved a piece. "Your family is cool, it's different."

He laughed — a loud "HAH" sound. "They are not cool."

"They seemed cool."

"They're not."

"Well, Charlie is even less cool. And I don't know why you want to meet him so bad. Are you still afraid you'll kill me or something?"

He sighed and moved a piece. "I guess it's just... he's your dad, he's a part of your life. I want to be a part of your life — like, an actual, known part. Your boyfriend. I want to be close to you in every way humanly possible."

My smile was unstoppable, though I tried. "Fine. You can meet Charlie."

He clapped his hands once and threw his arms in the air.

"I just hope you know you're bringing my worst nightmare to life," I said. "This is going to be hell."

"You're exaggerating. He's a nice guy."

"Yeah, to other people! He's my dad. He's gonna embarrass me, mark my words."

"Don't worry, love. When he does, I won't laugh too hard."

"See, that's not helping."

He jumped the rest of my checkers and won the game while I wasn't paying attention. He sucked his lips into his mouth, an eyebrow popped high, and laced his hands together on the table. I'd never seen him so blatantly smug in all my time with him, and I pretended not to adore it.

I slumped against the couch and moped while he packed the board up. Leave it to me to cheat and lose regardless.

Once all the pieces were stored away, he crawled toward me and kneeled over my legs, held my cheeks in his hands and planted kisses all over my face.

"My beautiful, precious loser," he murmured against my lips. I laughed.

"You definitely cheated," I said. "I saw you slipping pieces into your pocket."

He glared at me. And then dumped a handful of red checkers into my lap. I gawked at him for a moment, and then fished my own stolen pieces out of my pocket. Our laughter was unhinged.

"I can't believe you cheated!"

"You cheated more, cheater!"

"You're unbelievable." His ears perked up. "Charlie's almost here."

"Oh," I said, heaving a breath, "great."

He collected the last pieces and tossed them into the cardboard box. He turned back to me and traced his thumbs up and down my nose. His smile was empathetic and wholly delighted.

"I'll leave now," he said, "if that makes the interaction any less horrifying."

It would definitely make it worse if he found us here — a stranger and his son doing who knows what.

"Not really," I rubbed it in.

His confidence ebbed. "You don't have to do this, you know." His earnest face, so concerned for my wellbeing.

"I'm giving you a hard time. You want this, and I want what you want. Besides, you're excited about it — it's adorable."

"You're too nice to me."

I locked eyes with him. "I'm exactly as nice to you as you deserve."

He started vibrating in that tiny way again. Was it because his emotions were just too big to keep inside? It made me want to hold him steady.

So I did. I wove my arms around his middle, pressing my lips to his. He let himself down on my lap, and his shaking seemed to subside as the space between us melted away.

I heard tires on the driveway outside, and an engine cut out.

Jisung pulled away. I let my head fall back against the couch.

"That's Charlie," he sighed. "See you soon."

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you more."

He vanished, leaving a Jisung-shaped hole in my arms. I lugged myself to my feet and brought the board back to the game shelf. The front door slammed shut, and I heard the sound of boots clomping across the linoleum.

"Minho?"

"Yeah, Dad, in here."

Charlie marched in, carrying two scaled and gutted pikes by their tails, and gave me a proud smile.

So I cooked his fish to mediocrity while he cleaned up. We were sitting at the dinner table within thirty minutes — silently, as per usual. I stared down at my plate, trying to come up with a way to broach a certain subject...

"What kind of spice is this?" Charlie asked, interrupting my thought.

"Er, paprika," I replied. "What do you think?"

"It's real good, son," he said. I could tell a 'but' was coming. "But it's not as good as — cayenne, right? — cayenne."

"We ran out... I can go to the grocery store tonight."

He harrumphed and shrugged. "You don't have to if you're not going out anyway."

"I am going out, actually."

"Another girls' night?"

I rolled my eyes. "No. I, um, have a date."

Charlie's fork stopped on the way to his mouth, and he stared at me from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"You have a date?" he said.

"Yeah."

"With... a guy?"

"No, with a coconut."

His face flattened. "Who is he?"

"Jisung Han."

His mouth gradually widened from a little o to a big O as he connected the dots. "Dr. Bang's kid?"

"Yup."

"He's your 'something'? I thought you two weren't dating."

"Uh, things escalated."

He kept eating, his moustache twitching to the side. "Where are you going?"

"We're gonna play baseball with his family."

"But you hate sports."

"I'm neutral about sports."

He poked at his fish, pouty. "You'd go grocery shopping on a date?"

"I'll go after. We're taking my truck." It didn't really matter whose car we were taking — Jisung would come with me either way.

"Do I get an introduction?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah, you do."

"Oh, goody."

I narrowed my eyes.

"When will he be here?" Charlie asked.

"Soon." I heard a knock at the front door. "Or, like, now."

Charlie got to his feet and walked away from the table. I galloped ahead of him, reached the door first and flung it open.

Jisung was there. He swiped his wet hair out of his face and smiled at me. I didn't realize how badly I'd missed him until I saw him. I kissed him on the cheek, forgetting to be embarrassed.

He swatted me on the arm, scandalized, and then turned to Charlie.

"Hi, Chief Swan. It's great to get to introduce myself properly. I'm Jisung Han." He held out his hand.

Charlie shook it. I leaned one arm on the doorframe, relieved.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "How's your dad doing?"

"He's great, thank you."

"I hope you realize what you're getting yourself into," Charlie said then. I grabbed my jacket, preparing to make a run for it. "Minho's not really a sports guy."

"I'm well aware," Jisung said. "He was being kind to my family. He has total veto power."

"Which is unnecessary." I jabbed my elbow into Charlie's ribs. "Because I'm happy to go."

"Right, right," Charlie said. "Say, Jisung, you wanna hear about the time Minho tried out for baseball?"

"That would be amazing for me."

"No, we're leaving now," I interrupted, and stepped out onto the porch.

"But I want to hear the story," Jisung said, smiling with his whole face.

I took his arm and dragged him down the steps. He stumbled along behind me, cackling.

"Minho, wait up," Charlie called suddenly.

I climbed the stairs again and stood in front of him. He adjusted my jacket and licked his thumb, trying to smooth out my eyebrows.

I whipped backward Matrix-style and batted his hand away. "Ahh! Ew!"

He ignored me. "Have a good time." He patted my shoulders. His grey-blue eyes were unexpectedly fatherly and gentle.

"Um, thanks," I said. "I'll get you that cayenne."

"Thanks, kid."

"Don't wait up."

"Be back by eleven."

"All right then."

I hopped down the stairs, met Jisung on the lawn, and turned back to wave at Charlie. He waved in return and retreated into the house.

"That went well," Jisung said.

"Yeah, actually. You're good at kissing up."

"I am — thank you for noticing, you're very astute."

"Okay, tone it down."

"Anything you want, sweetness."

We got into my truck, and I started the engine.

"Hey, you mind if we go to the grocery store after the game?" I asked. "I promised Charlie cayenne."

"Sure. That sounds nice. Domesticated."

I smiled, pulling out of the driveway.

"It's the other way," Jisung said.

"Oh." I prepped for an elegant twelve-point turn. "Should you be driving?"

"Maybe. It's okay, I'll give you directions. You're about to hit the car behind you."

I slammed on the brakes, spinning around. I was nowhere near the car. When I looked at Jisung, he was smirking.

"Real freaking funny, jerk."

"I know it was, my love."

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hope you liked it ^^