Chapter 14: Rules in Her Own Hand

Missy wrote the agreement herself, in blue ink, on the back of a pile of café menus.

She sat at her kitchen table with a cat on each foot and four men reading over her shoulder.

"It's called the Wick Agreement," she said. "I'm not hiring a lawyer to name my own paper."

"Page one is the five terms, in plain words."

"Page two is what happens when somebody breaks one."

Jisung leaned in until his glasses fogged.

"What happens?" he asked.

"You tell the room before the room finds out. Then you fix it. Then you cook dinner."

"That's it?"

"I'm very serious about dinner."

Hyunjin picked up the pen first, his hand unsteady, and signed in a long looping scrawl.

Jisung signed under him, with a tiny drawing of a cat.

Felix signed with a flourish, and kissed the paper, and Missy swatted him.

Chan held the pen over the last line for a full minute.

"If I sign this," he said, "and the company says no."

"Then you tell me the company said no. You don't say yes to them and no to me."

His mouth went tight.

"Chan."

"I'll sign," he said, and did, in small neat capitals.

His writing was perfectly steady, and she noticed it.

Nobody had to say what the paper cost.

Missy blew on the ink and set it under the salt jar.

Jisung yawned enormously.

"I'm calling Minho," he announced. "I promised. Hyunjin, come keep me company."

"I do not keep people company," said Hyunjin. "I loom."

"Then loom nearby."

They went out into the rain, bickering, and the door shut behind them.

That left the kitchen very quiet and Felix and Chan standing on either side of her table.

They had known each other since they were boys in Sydney, and neither could look at the other.

"Felix said something this morning," Chan began.

"I did," Felix said. "I'm sorry. I made it a command in front of a hundred people."

"Don't be sorry. I almost sat."

Felix went still.

"Chan," Missy said. "Who taught you to say that out loud?"

"Nobody," Chan said, to the floor. "Someone told me once I was good at being told. In a room in Seoul. I never went back."

His ears were red.

"I'm a switch," he said. "I've been one for years. You know I can't be told what to do by somebody who doesn't mean it."

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