Red Thorns (Thorns Duet 1)

r fifties, but he barely looks thirty.

“Ms. Chester?” he asks with a flawless American accent as he offers his hand.

I shake it firmly. “Uh…yeah.”

Stop ogling the man, Nao.

It must be the chase from earlier that messed with my mind.

He motions at the diner’s door. “Are you coming in?”

“Sure.” I breathe deeply before I follow him inside.

Tracy’s barely has any patrons, despite it being a Friday night. Partly because this town’s football crazies celebrate at The Grill and partly because this restaurant barely functions.

Its decor is reminiscent of the nineties pictures I’ve seen in Mom’s albums, and the black leather of the booths is chapped in places. The tables have some doodling like what’s found on high school desks and the lighting is hardly there.

The waitress, a middle-aged woman with killer eyebrows, leads us to a booth at the back.

The PI orders omurice without checking the menu. Ha. They have that here? That dish reminds me of my childhood when Mom used to cook it for us all the time.

“Just soda for me,” I tell the waitress.

“Right away, hon,” she hums, the sound echoing in the distance as she walks away.

“I see why you were reluctant about meeting tonight,” the PI says, and at my bemused expression, he motions at my hoodie. “Black Devils.”

“No, believe me. I don’t care about those douchefaces. I just wear their hoodies because we get them for free on campus.” You sure as hell cared when Sebastian scored tonight.

Get out of my head!

I take a sip of my water and smile at the PI. “Should I call you Mr. Collins?”

“That would make me feel like an old man. Kai is fine.”

Jeez. Beautiful people’s names are as mesmerizing as they are. “Nice to meet you, Kai. Is that Japanese?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. What a coincidence. I’m of Japanese heritage, too. At least, from my mom’s side. How do you write Kai in Kanji?”

“The character of ocean.”

“That’s so cool. Mine is written with the characters of honest and beautiful.”

His onyx eyes soften with a smile. “So what did you want to talk about, Ms. Chester?”

“Just Naomi.” Ms. Chester is Mom in my head.

“What’s your request for me, Naomi?”

I interlink my fingers, then release them and swallow more water, letting the cool liquid soothe my throat. Talking to a complete stranger about this is harder than I thought.

“I…uh…I want to find my father,” I blurt the last part.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I’ve never seen him.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “I was born to a single mother and never met my father.”