Andrew offered a sympathetic smile, but I couldn’t read what was going on beneath his piercing gaze.

“Never mind,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to know.” Not to mention, I was breaking his rule again.

Quietly he said, “It’s never easy for the client.”

Paul glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

We rode in silence despite Paul’s exceptional conversational skills.

The cozy café had photos of menu items on the wall and a golden plastic cat by the register waving its arm to bring in good luck. The familiarity soothed me.

“Do you want to share the banh mi?” Andrew asked as we stood in line.

I found BANH MI OP LA on the wall in big block text, then looked at the tiny sandwich pictured beside it. “What? No way. I want my own.”

“Sorry, force of habit,” he replied quickly. When I tilted my head to ask for more details, he hesitated before explaining, “When I’m on the job, I try to eat as little as I can when the parents aren’t present so I can stuff myself to the brim in front of them.”

“Ah. Especially if they cooked, right?”

He nodded, then said with a grin, “For mooncake points. You know how it is.”

“I do.” I really do.

Maybe he was bending his sharing rule because he’d meant it earlier when he said he was just a friend right now. Or maybe my Hongbo situation was so pathetic that these were pity details and consolation jokes.

He added, “If you don’t eat enough, you get in trouble, and two seconds later they turn around and tell you you’re too fat, right? You just can’t win! With… anything.” His gaze shot to the floor, but only for a second before it returned to me. “I mean, I’m sorry about your situation. Seems like you’re between a shítóu and a hard place, no?”

The Mandarin kept throwing me off. Why would he use it when he didn’t need to? I’d understand if it was a word that didn’t have an English equivalent, but, come on, “rock”? I had relayed to Andrew my mom’s frequent complaints of Why can’t you embrace where you come from?, so was this part of the job and he was Method operative-ing, staying in character even though it was just us? Or was he actually that in tune with his Chinese side?

“Do you want me to stop using Mandarin around you?” Andrew asked.

Damn, had he always been this perceptive, or did he learn it on the job?

“Nah, it’s cool.” Maybe I’d pick up the habit and get my mom off my back for a minute. But probably not. Especially when I didn’t really want to start melding my two sides.