“The response to your first post was overwhelming: beyond expectations.” My publicist pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger. “You should be proud.”

“Thank you.” I grin. I am proud.

She takes a sip of the coffee I’d offered her before. I can sense that there’s something else she wants to say marinating on the back of her tongue. She sets the coffee back down.

“Has your husband given it a read?”

“Not yet.” I suppress a laugh. “He said he wouldn’t, he’d just get jealous.”

“‘A Novelist’s First Love.’” The younger woman recites the project title with a flourish. “I bet he’ll read it out of curiosity.”

“Maybe.” I shrug, sipping my tea. “He’s not the type to go out of his way to satisfy his curiosity, though.”

She nods, crossing her legs as she leans back. A smirk twists across her features. The marinating thoughts seem ready to be served.

“Tell me, you didn’t really ask out that boy so suddenly and vaguely, did you?” She asks in a hushed and amused tone. Somehow, I saw it coming.

I throw back my head as a laugh tumbles past my lips.

“Of course I did.”

My attention jumped from the projector screen to the black bucket hat and back again. My notes reflected the distraction, chemical formulas cut off by question marks and doodles.

I nearly jumped as an elbow softly jabbed itself into my shoulder. I looked over in surprise at the shock of orange hair bouncing with laughter.

“You can copy my notes after class.” Hyejin promised me in a whisper, calming herself down with a flick of a curl behind her ear.

“Thanks.” I responded sheepishly, my cheeks feeling hot with embarrassment at being caught. I kept my head down, carefully transcribing the lecture. I only let myself look up to copy diagrams from the screen, careful not to allow my gaze to wander.

“Hey.” Hyejin turned to me as the professor ended class, the smirk on her lips perfectly accented by a little mole on her cheek. I took her notebook as she slid it toward me across the table. She was a year ahead of me, and a biology education major, but we got along well. “You want me to get his number for you?”

“Whose number?” I asked innocently, knowing full well who, as she pointed to Jiwon with a tilt of her head.

“Kim Jiwon’s.” She whispered to me, smirk still in place. “He’s in my grade and friends with my boyfriend. I could get it for you unless you just like staring at his back.”

I shook my head and told her I already had his number.

She just laughed.

She probably didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me, either. I couldn’t tell her he was my boyfriend. Not when we didn’t sit next to each other in class and I stared at him like a stalker. Were we even really dating?

I had never dated anyone before. I didn’t know what it meant, what that included. Were we dating just because we said we were?

Maybe Jiwon misunderstood me.

“Who’s that?” Hanna asked with a mouthful of chips, pointing at the flashing light on my phone.

I swiped the screen: an unread message from Jiwon.

“It’s Jiwon.” I told her with a shrug, going back to my task at hand: painting Hanna’s toenails an obnoxious shade of pink.

“You’re not replying?” She glared at me with furrowed brows as I held down her foot to keep it from wiggling and messing up the paint. “That’s weird, Hayi…”

“He does the same thing.” Another shrug. “He knows I’m busy, he probably heard us come up here. It’s not a big deal.”

Hanna let out a big sigh, her eyes rolling into the back of her head like the exorcist.

“You two aren’t really dating, you’re just friends hanging out with special titles.” Hanna continued to glare as I switched to her next foot. “You should be careful since you’re the one that’s always been asking him first. To the movies, to date. You’re the one that’s been forward.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked innocently. “All the magazines said it’s okay to ask boys out first.”

“You