Twenty-One Night Stand ✓

1 / prologue

17th July 2011

Maddie Hyun had never understood the significance of turning sixteen. Technically, she could now play the lottery and have a cider at the pub - as long as her dad bought it for her, of course - but there was one benefit that her friends had all pointed out seconds after midnight. Now, she could legally have sex. They all seemed to be ignoring the fact that not only was she completely and utterly single, but that she didn't actually care that much. After all, she knew plenty of girls in her year who had been active for a year or even two - more for a couple of the most promiscuous young women - and it didn't seem like too big a deal.

Her dad didn't seem to agree.

At five o'clock, that time in the late afternoon caught on the cusp of evening, Maddie was getting ready in her bedroom. In half an hour, she was due to leave to meet her best friend in town for a meal out before a film, so she stood in front of her wardrobe with the doors open wide, assessing her clothes and trying to figure out what would look best.

At five past five, her dad knocked on the door that stood slightly ajar. Three knocks; three nervous knocks. A little more time between the second and third than between the first two. Maddie lay one of the dresses she was holding on the bed and pulled open the door with her foot.

"Hey, appa" she said, frowning at a second dress in her hands. Maybe a dress was too ... dressy. And she didn't want to give Peter the wrong impression. It probably would have been easier to have asked a whole group out but of her solid group of five friends, three were on holiday. Only she and Peter were stranded in England with parents whose jobs couldn't accommodate a trip abroad. Especially not during the school's summer, when everyone was off school at the same time and prices hiked.

"Hi, Maddie," said her father, Jung-min. He edged into the room, one hand still on the door handle. His eyebrows pulled together above his nose, his lips pressed into a thin line, and when Maddie looked up at him, she mirrored his expression.

"Is everything ok?" she asked, draping the dress in her hand over her dresser.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said, though his expression didn't change. "Do you have a moment?"

Maddie nodded and stepped back, inviting her father further into her bedroom, and sat on her bed. The dress caught beneath her thigh, wrinkling the thin fabric. "What's going on?"

"I think it's time we had a talk," Jung-min began, and then his expression cleared as he backtracked. "You're not in trouble, ttal." He wrung his wrists and eased his way over to Maddie's dresser to lean against it. The knitted brow returned and he set his jaw.

"Come on, Dad. What is it?" Maddie looked up at him, her eyes imploring his for some kind of hint. "You're kind of worrying me here. Am I still allowed to go out?"

Jung-min smiled, finally looking his age rather than the ten years older that his concern made him seem. "Of course you are. It's your birthday," he said. "You're growing up. You're sixteen now."

Maddie grinned. "I know. Crazy, right?"

Her father nodded and dug his hands into his pockets. "You're sixteen now," he said again, his tone softening. "I know this is not the sort of conversation you want to have with me and I wish your mother was here to talk about these kinds of things but..." He trailed off and Maddie watched him expectantly. Her mother had died almost fourteen years ago, when Maddie was still a toddler, and it had somewhat gone over her head. After a while, she hadn't even noticed the absence of her mother in her life and as she matured, she often found that she had to remind herself of the pain it had caused her father to lose his wife.