“Moo ping.Grilled pork. Just eat it.”
Yes, definitely food therapy. Tender meat marinated in something complex—soy sauce, palm sugar, garlic, and herbs he couldn’t identify. The char from the grill added smokiness that made the sweetness pop.
“Good?” She watched him with a slight smile.
“Katie would have loved this.”
“Would have?”
He should deflect, change the subject. Instead, “She died four years ago. Car accident. Drunk driver ran a red light.”
Chloe’s face went soft. “I’m sorry.”
“She was a teacher. Third grade. Used to say she was raising the next generation of people who would fix the world’s problems.” Another bite of the grilled pork. “She would have liked you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She had the same thing you do—that need to help people even when it’s dangerous.”
They moved through the bazaar side by side, looking at the food offerings—pad thai, grilled chicken, fried oyster omelets. She stopped at a stall of crispy grasshoppers and silkworms.
“No. Please, for the love, no,” he said.
She laughed. “Your turn.”
He paused at a stall where a vendor was flipping what looked like pancakes.
“Roti.” She watched the vendor spread banana and chocolate across the grilled dough. “Thai pancakes. You’re going to love this.”
“I’m in.”
He bought one for her, then for himself.
Therotiwas crunchy on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside. They ate it while walking past stalls selling grilled squid that sizzled over open flames.
“You also need to try the mango sticky rice.”
He had. In fact, he’d eaten most of these before, but he wasn’t quite ready to?—
A scooter honked, and he grabbed her around the waist, pulled her to the side.
She didn’t seem to mind.
Huh.
She stopped at a stand with sarongs and haggled with the female vendor, then shook her head. He grabbed a pair of bamboo flip-flops. His had worn out.
The scent of incense rose, mixing with the smells of the food. And everywhere, music, the chatter of shoppers, a sense that the night wasn’t quite ready to shut down.
Him either. The dognap on the sofa had sluiced new energy into him. Or maybe it was just?—
“Have you ever been up there?”
He followed her gaze toward the distant golden spires of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.
“Once,” he said. “Years ago, when I first visited here. Three hundred and six steps to the top, but the view...”
“Three hundred and six steps?”