Second Chances and Lion Dances

Chapter 1

Clover wriggles in my arms. She hates being carried, but she just growled at a Labrador service dog minding his own business. And that's after pulling to the end of her leash to get into it with a feisty Pomeranian. Clover is my older cousin Dylan's dog, and we're taking care of her while he's away. She's already eleven years old, but she hasn't grown out of picking fights with dogs twice-or half-her size. I'm going to need hazard pay for corgi-wrangling duties.

There are more dogs in JFK Airport this morning than at a dog park. I crane my neck to check the arrivals board. Dylan's flight from Zagreb landed nearly an hour ago, so he should be coming through anytime now.

His longtime boyfriend, Theo, has been in Vienna for the last couple of months. After graduating from Juilliard, he landed a coveted spot at the Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy and was chosen to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra at the Salzburg Festival. Dylan flew there to watch him, and then they spent the next couple of weeks traveling around Europe. Theo has a couple more events in Vienna to attend, so Dylan came home first.

It's hard to believe nearly six years have passed since Dylan and Theo got together after a mooncake-making competition during the Mid-Autumn Festival. I was eleven then. Last year, Dylan graduated from the Hyde Park campus of the Culinary Institute of America, and he and Mom have been running Jade's Kitchen-the restaurant that evolved from her old takeout, Wok Warriors. Meanwhile, I'm starting senior year of high school next week.

Next to me, Megan clucks her tongue impatiently. My older sister has been rocking corporate-chic pencil skirts and heels since starting her final-year internship at McKinsey, a consulting firm that, in her words, "charges companies obscene amounts of money to tell them things they already know, but in a very impressive PowerPoint." It's Sunday, though, and she's back to her natural K-pop style of one-shouldered sweaters over tank tops.

She'd planned to join Mom and Dylan at the restaurant after graduating from NYU, even though McKinsey offered to sponsor a part-time MBA if she stayed on. Mom put her foot down: The restaurant could wait. An opportunity like that couldn't.

Somewhere in the arrivals hall, a man is playing a slow and complicated piece on a violin-Bach, maybe, or Brahms. I recognize it in the back of my brain without meaning to, the way you recognize a word in a language you used to speak fluently. I played violin for almost ten years before lion dance took over a couple of years ago. I don't really miss it. I just notice when it's there.

"Hey, Tim." Megan nudges me. "Don't look now, but four o'clock-cute guy, red Pokémon T-shirt, leaning against the railing, and he's totally checking you out."

"He's more likely staring at the adorable but unruly corgi I'm holding in my arms." As I turn my head so I don't get bopped on the nose by a paw or end up with a mouthful of fur, I catch sight of the guy Megan's talking about.

My stomach drops.

That guy is definitely staring at me-and that's because we know each other. More specifically, we got to know each other, really well, in the storage room of the lion dance studio on the upper level of a shophouse in Singapore last summer.

What the hell is Xichen Lim doing here in New York?

Xichen's wearing a fitted T-shirt with Pikachu on the front. He's now sporting a sleek crew cut, which somehow makes him look even hotter than he did when I last saw him. He's filled out, too-shoulders broader, arms leaner and more muscular. The kind of transformation that probably required actual effort instead of my strategy of eat protein bars and hope for the best.

We lock eyes across the distance, and there's no way I can pretend I didn't see him.

Surprise crosses his face. He pushes away from the railing and starts walking toward me. My heartbeat ratchets.

Clover whips around and bares her teeth at Xichen, who stops several feet away.

Good girl.

"Over here! Dylan!" Megan yells. She grabs my arm and drags me toward the other end of the arrivals hall, and Xichen vanishes into the crowd behind me.

Dylan appears up ahead, waving at us as he wheels his luggage in the other hand. He's got that just-off-a-long-flight look-slightly rumpled, hair sticking up on one side-but he's grinning like he knows something the rest of us don't.

Clover barks. A herding dog's bark is loud enough; when it's coming from an extremely attached herding dog who hasn't seen her person for two entire weeks, it's deafening. I put her down, and she races the rest of the way to Dylan, almost knocking him over as she leaps into his open arms.

I can't help but grin watching their reunion. Nothing is purer than a dog's joy. Especially after said dog was trying to start World War III with every other canine in the terminal five minutes ago.

"Hey, stranger," Megan says to Dylan as we catch up to Clover. "Hand over the souvenirs or you're catching the bus home."

"I got you guys Mozart balls," Dylan deadpans. Megan makes a face, and he chuckles. "They're actually called that, and don't knock them till you try them. Mozartkugels are pistachios, marzipan, and nougat in a dark chocolate shell."

"I still can't believe you were at the Salzburg Festival," I say. "The atmosphere must have been amazing."

"It was awesome," Dylan says. "Although you'd probably have appreciated the concert more than I did."

"Yeah, I bet your eyes were glued to one particular violinist," I tease. "I don't suppose you noticed the rest of the legendary Vienna Philharmonic doing their thing."

"There were others?" Dylan laughs. "Hey, don't you have lion dance practice on Sunday mornings?"

"It got moved to this afternoon," I tell him.

It all started a couple of years ago when my best friend, Sienna, dragged me to the Lunar New Year open house of the Lion Wanderers, a troupe in Brooklyn's Chinatown. Lion dance is equal parts competitive sport and cultural art form, with mind-blowing choreography, complicated staging, and different kinds of props.

Our sifu, William Chan, used to be one of the judges at the Genting World Championship, the most prestigious tournament in lion dance. When he moved to Brooklyn from Kuala Lumpur five years ago, he set up the Lion Wanderers. He keeps in touch with his counterparts back home, and he was the one who arranged for me to join last year's summer program with the Singapore Wushu Dragon and Lion Dance Federation. I spent three weeks in Singapore with the best young lion dancers in Southeast Asia, drilling technique into my head and learning from coaches I'd never have access to in Brooklyn.

That's where I met Xichen.

We were partnered together, and we spent those three weeks rehearsing routines, pushing each other to be better. When we ended up in that storage room after everyone else had left, the kiss just . . . happened. Like we'd been building toward it the whole time. It felt natural. Right. The first of many.

Three weeks. That's all it was. A summer fling. A footnote in life. Definitely not enough time to feel like someone rewired a part of your brain.

But it was the first time I'd ever let anyone in like that. That's the part I keep getting stuck on. Not the length of our connection-the depth. I'd spent my whole life being the careful one, the guy who thinks before he leaps.

Then Xichen came along, and somehow I just . . . leapt.

Our last kiss was at the airport, where he promised we'd stay in touch after I went home.

He never did. Not a text. Not a DM. Nothing.

The worst part wasn't the silence. It was what came after. I closed myself off-not just to other guys, but to everyone. Became more careful. Stopped leaning on people. Sienna noticed before I did. "You used to tell me everything," she said a few months later, and I didn't know how to answer because she was right. Those three weeks hadn't changed me-how they ended had.

Clover is panting, her tongue hanging out, her tail wagging hard. It's difficult to believe this is the same dog who used to bark at strangers. After Theo and Dylan got together, Clover found her place in the world with her two favorite humans. She still hates other dogs, but she mostly ignores people now.

As I reach for the handle of Dylan's luggage so he can hold Clover's leash, Megan lets out a pterodactyl shriek that startles everyone in a twenty-foot radius.

"WAIT-" Megan snatches Dylan's left hand and holds it up. "OH. MY. GOD. Is this what I think it is?"

A plain white-gold ring encircles his fourth finger. Dylan's beaming face is the only answer we need.

Megan engulfs him in a fearsome hug, her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs kicking off the ground. People around us probably think she's the one who just got proposed to.

Clover barks, confused at the ruckus.

"Meg, you're scaring Clover." I quickly grab the leash that Dylan let go of.

"Oops, sorry." Megan disentangles herself and gives Clover a couple of apologetic pats before whirling back to Dylan. "When? How? Where?"

"Prague," Dylan says, his eyes shining. "At sunset. On a boat along the Vltava River. It was . . . perfect."

After Dylan lost his mom seven years ago, Theo was the best thing that happened to him. If anyone has earned a happy ending, it's these two.

"When's the wedding?" I ask.

"Since it's already the start of September, probably mid-December?" Dylan replies. "Over winter break, so you don't have to miss school."

Megan arches an eyebrow. "So soon? Are you pregnant or something?"

Dylan laughs. "Theo's got a bunch of international concerts lined up next year. We want to get married before he disappears to the other side of the world again. We're keeping it to family and friends-although once you add relatives from both sides, everyone from the restaurant, and Theo's Juilliard classmates, we're still looking at a couple of hundred guests."

Compared to the Crazy Rich Asians-style wedding Theo's family could throw, a couple of hundred guests practically counts as eloping. Ironically, their relationship started when Theo, heir to billionaire Malcolm Somers's business empire, took Dylan as his plus-one to his cousin Nora's wedding in the Hamptons, and a photo of them kissing on the dance floor made the front page of the tabloids.

Megan is typing on her phone, so absorbed that she doesn't realize she's blocking the way and people are making annoyed noises as they try to get past.

Dylan pulls her aside. "What are you doing?"

"Yelling at my soon-to-be COUSIN-IN-LAW, what else?" Megan narrows her eyes at Dylan. "Wasn't Prague, like, your second stop on the trip? I can't believe you two kept your engagement a secret from us for over a week!"

"I know, I know. I wanted to tell you guys in person." Dylan holds up his palms. "I offer ice cream and gelato as penance."

"Deal. And I want to hear EVERYTHING." Megan marches toward the exit.

As we follow her out of the terminal, I can't help searching the spot where I last saw Xichen, but he's no longer there.

Good. Great. Totally fine. It's not like I spent the last year wondering what I did wrong, or how someone could kiss you like you mattered and then ghost you like you never existed.

Nope. Not thinking about that at all.

Chapter 2

I'm more rattled than I want to admit as I ride my bike toward the Lion Wanderers studio that afternoon. The familiar route usually settles me, but the three espresso shots I downed after the emotional whiplash at the airport have left me hyperaware of everything. Someone upstairs is blasting Hokkien songs. A group of elderly men has set up a mahjong table outside a pharmacy that sells medicated oils and balms from China.

The studio is on the second floor of a converted warehouse in Sunset Park, a few blocks from where Wok Warriors used to be-Mom's old takeout squeezed between a laundromat and a comic book store. A nail salon is in its spot now, and they kept the green paint on the exterior walls. Mom always said green was lucky.

I take the stairs to the studio, trying to calm my racing heart. I usually look forward to practice. Lion dance has become the one thing that's completely mine-I chose it, and I'm good at it. Like Dylan reconstructing our Por Por's lost recipe for blue snow-skin mooncakes, lion dance is my way of reclaiming a piece of our culture.

Though right now I'd settle for reclaiming my ability to think about literally anything other than my summer fling. Was Xichen still at JFK, waiting for a flight? Or is he visiting New York? I keep replaying the moment we locked eyes-the surprise on his face, the way he started walking toward me before Megan dragged me away.

I step into the studio, which smells of Tiger Balm and sweat and ambition. Sienna's already there, stretching by the mirrors, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail so high it makes her look like she's ready to commit athletic violence. We've been best friends since seventh grade, when we spent an entire summer walking every block of Sunset Park together hunting Pokémon. I still remember the time she marched up to a cute boy at a Pokémon raid who I'd been trading glances with-as freshmen, we were both too shy to make a move-and asked for his number while I hid behind a lamppost.

"Guess what?" I tell her. "Dylan's engaged. Theo proposed in Prague."

"What? That's amazing!"

"It was supposedly very romantic. On the river and everything." I'm distracted as I drop my gym bag and start my own stretching routine, still thinking about seeing Xichen at the airport. "I'm really happy for him."

Sienna eyes me with that look she gets when she's running diagnostics on me. "Everything else okay?"

I consider brushing it off with some combination of fine, great, perfect. But this is Sienna, and she'll see through me in a heartbeat.

"I saw someone at the airport," I say, sinking into a lunge. "Someone from Singapore."

Her eyes go wide. "Storage room guy?"

Sienna was there for the aftermath-the obsessive phone-checking, the anger, the resignation. She doesn't need a recap.

"Yeah," I say. "Him."

"That asshole." Her voice goes flat in a way that makes me glad she's on my side. "What's he doing here? Did he see you?"