A Date Rival

"Who is this young man?" Mr. Wu asked in surprise. Even though he tried to be polite, he seemed completely taken aback.

"I want to see the young man too!" Lily yelled from the living room.

Sun Mei wished the earth would open up and swallow her as she heard Lily's light footsteps on the marble floor.

She considered herself lucky that Vivian was not there as well.

"I'm Michael." Michael immediately introduced himself, holding out his hand for a handshake.

"Post-it Michael?" Mr. Wu asked, as if suddenly making the connection in his mind.

Michael frowned as they shook hands. "I don't know." He obviously had no idea what Mr. Wu was referring to.

"Yes, that's you," Sun Mei said in a rush as Lily reached the front door.

"Lily, you are barefoot!" Sun Mei chastised her before Mr. Wu could say anything.

"I wanted to see the young man!" Lily whined before looking at Michael and instantly turning into a shier version of herself.

"You have become a bit of an attraction here, I'm afraid," Sun Mei told Michael while biting her lip in embarrassment.

"I'm okay with that," Michael said with a grin. "It means that you have been talking about me."

"Not really." Mr. Wu interjected unexpectedly as he picked Lily up in his arms. "You were mentioned once in passing."

"Mr. Wu!" Sun Mei exclaimed. She had never expected that her boss would say something so rude.

"Come on, Sun Mei. You don't want Michael to get arrogant, do you?" Mr. Wu teased her.

"And here I thought that you cared for a second…" Sun Mei thought sadly to herself.

"Where are you taking her?" Mr. Wu asked as he turned to Michael.

"We are going to watch a movie."

"I want to go too!" Lily said immediately.

"We have other plans, Lily," Mr. Wu told her patiently. "We are going to a birthday party, remember?"

"No, I don't want to go. I want to watch a movie with the young man!" She pointed at Michael with a pouty face.

Mr. Wu laughed. "Michael is Sun Mei's date, Lily, not yours."

"I want a date, daddy!"

"We'll talk about that again when you are a teenager."

"Now, daddy!"

Mr. Wu leaned towards Sun Mei conspiratorially. "I think you'd better leave before Lily steals your date."

"Maybe she would have more fun on this date than me," Sun Mei thought.

"Shall we get going?" Michael asked her.

"Sure, let me grab my coat." Sun Mei ran quickly to the kitchen to get her coat and purse and came right back out.

When she did, it felt like the atmosphere had changed a little for the worse. She noticed that Mr. Wu was smiling in an obviously forced way all of a sudden.

As they walked out, instead of saying goodbye, he told Michael, "She better be back in one piece, young man. I have your plate numbers now!"

"Daddy, what are plate numbers?" Sun Mei heard Lily ask as her father closed the front door.