The Fortune Flip

by Lauren Kung Jessen

Genres: Asian American; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

This charming rom-com from an author whose writing is “deeply romantic, real, funny, and heartfelt” (Christina Lauren) is filled with Chinese traditions, second chances, and a luck-changing love story that will make readers of Helen Hoang, Jasmine Guillory, and Sarah Adams swoon.

Release date: March 17, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

It’s the fortune teller’s bird that first catches my eye.

It looks like a sparrow, its coloring so white it practically glows. A second bird sits behind the first as they wait in their wooden cage.

“I need my fortune read, please,” I say to the fortune teller sitting behind her table.

As soon as the words come out, the dark sky cracks open, releasing a heavy sheet of rain. With a newly burst pipe in my apartment building, I should take advantage of the free water. This rainstorm is probably my only chance for a shower for the night. Or the week.

Instead of walking the fifteen minutes home from Chinatown to the Lower East Side, I duck under the fortune teller’s tent illuminated by bistro string lights. I sit in one of the chairs opposite her and place my purse, leftovers, and folder on the table.

The fortune teller introduces herself as Wendy. She has curly, chin-length gray hair, bright red lips, and a calm demeanor. She points to the sign behind her. “Fluent English. Fortune Reading. $10/reading. Cash only.”

Conveniently, I carry cash. Credit cards aren’t always reliable, and paying with cash sometimes means discounts. I give her my last twenty-dollar bill. Wendy hands ten dollars back and redirects me to the birds.

This close, I notice the faint red rings around their eyes. I’m both intrigued and intimidated by the alleged power they hold. They’re like small, bird-shaped snowballs, their bodies measuring no more than five inches in length.

They remind me of the time a bird flew into our house when I was in first grade. It was round and soft-looking, with light brown on its feathers and a splash of yellow right between its eyes. I only remember because then, just like now, the bird looked right at me.

“A sparrow,” Dad had said excitedly to Mom. “How auspicious. We should keep going. Happiness is just around the corner. This is our sign.”

“Keep going” didn’t apply to all of us. Mom died later that year. The “happiness” that was supposed to be around the corner? Well. It was less of a corner and more of a wall.

So much for auspicious.

“Do I look at you, or…?” I ask Wendy, wanting to make sure I don’t mess up my first-ever fortune reading.

“Everything should pass through the sparrows,” Wendy says, confirming my assumption. She explains that I’m supposed to ask the birds a question and that they’ll pull three cards from the two boxes on the table. She’ll interpret what the cards mean. “The first card represents our past, which influences our present. The second represents your current state. The third card gives us an idea of what lies ahead.”

What my future holds.

Instinctively, I reach for Mom’s charm bracelet on my left arm. The one I never intentionally remove. The one that somehow broke off without me realizing. Gone is the bracelet with the strawberry charm (her favorite fruit), her July birthstone (ruby), a dove (Dad’s nickname for her), and a croissant (her childhood dog’s name).

I swallow thickly at having lost what feels like a piece of her. At least there’s still the lake house.

I eye the red and orange cards tucked away neatly in their individual boxes.

“What are you wondering about right now?” Wendy asks.

“I’d like to know my future.”

She eyes me. “Anything in particular you want to know?”

“Everything. I want to know all of it.” I fold up the sleeves of my sweater just so I can give my hands something to do.

Wendy simply nods and points to each bird. “This one’s Doc, and that’s Marty, if you’d like to personalize your ask. Make sure to include your name and birthdate.”

“My birthday? Why?” I ask, knowing this personally identifiable information isn’t for these two innocent-looking, warm-blooded vertebrates but for Wendy, who will use the information to guide her fortunes. Or who knows what else.

“It helps me calculate your future,” she states plainly. “I want to give you the most accurate reading.”

Today was already bad enough. Do I really need to know how tomorrow and the next day—and every day after that—are going to be worse?

This impromptu reading was probably a mistake. And impulses have gotten me nothing but regret.

I glance around nervously, looking for an out from being yet another Yen family member about to make a reckless decision. The slick street is lit up by glowing store signs and food stall lights. Round red, pink, and orange lanterns dangle from one side of the street to the other. Through the downpour just outside the tent, I spot others huddled under stalls with signs advertising dumplings and mooncakes and with gold-painted trinkets for sale. Above all that, a large sign reads in blocky font “Good Fortune Fair.”

Oh, right. Mid-Autumn Festival is next Friday. How is it already almost the end of September?

The sign looks more like an invitation instead of the warning that it is. But that’s exactly what I want. No, need. Good fortune.

This is what happens when very bad days strike. It’s impossible to resist anything that might make me feel better. After a quick, soul-crushing trip to the New York City Clerk’s Office, I went to Sweet Escape, my favorite candy store. Then I went to dim sum to satisfy my sudden cravings for BBQ pork steamed buns. The restaurant had just sold out of char siu bao, the only thing I wanted in the first place. I overcompensated by ordering ten dishes off the cart. After all, I did wait two hours for a table, so I was getting my money’s worth. I paid sixty-five dollars for an assortment of fried, steamed, boiled, and baked dishes and treats—taking most of it to go—not worrying about it until after. I haven’t splurged on dining out in, well, who knows how long.

The good news is that I now have leftovers. Red bean sesame balls and shrimp rice noodle rolls may just be my saving grace later.

I take a steadying breath. I’m already here, and the birds are waiting. “Okay. Sure. Doc and Marty, I’m Hazel Yen. I was born on October 13, 1996, and I’d like to know… what does my future look like? Please. And thank you.”

I don’t know how to talk to birds, exactly, but I figure good manners couldn’t hurt.

Under the orange glow of the lights, Wendy lifts both cage doors open.

Doc, the bird in front of the box with the red cards, hops out first. Marty steps forward onto the box with the orange cards. Doc moves his beak along several of the cards, taking his time with each one. My heart beats in anxious response.

Please pick good fortunes, please pick good fortunes.

I catch myself as a flicker of hesitation pulses through me. This is self-sabotaging at its finest. In an instant, this all becomes too real.

I pick up my stuff and wait for the right time to make my escape. But then Doc makes his selection from the back of the box. A few cards are dragged up together, but Wendy picks the highest one before giving Doc a grain of rice as a reward for a job well done.

My heart lurches. There, lying right in front of me, is an actual card with a prediction about what my life might look like.

Who knows? Maybe that card will be calming instead of cautionary. Maybe the cards will shed light on why, just hours ago, I was laid off without any explanation. And maybe, on the day of signing my divorce papers, I’ll get reassurance that there’s love—a lasting love that I can count on—out there for me.

Maybe I’ll learn that today wasn’t actually a very bad day, but instead a very lucky day.

Oh god. I sound like Dad.

Worst-case scenario, it’s all bad, and life will be exactly as it has been.

Doc repeats his steps as Marty takes a couple of hops forward and lifts a card from the front. This time, only two cards are dragged up. The most prominent one in the stack is what Wendy begins to reach for.

I lean in closer, 100 percent of my attention on the cards and what they’ll reveal.

Possibilities swirl around my mind. Like a life buoy, I cling to potential answers about my future like maybe these cards just might save me. Like maybe—

“Toffee!” someone shouts behind me.

What happens next is a blur.

There’s a smear of white, black, and red, the sounds of bird wings flapping, paper shuffling, and… meowing?

In reaction, I hold my arms up over my face and shut my eyes. My bag of leftovers swings out of my hand.

A few seconds later, it’s quiet.

“Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry,” a man’s voice says.

I slowly lower my arms and open one eye to find a frazzled Wendy, with Doc and Marty back in their cage with slightly ruffled feathers, and a white guy in a tie-dye, long-sleeve Henley holding a black-and-white cat in a harness. He and his cat are drenched.

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the neon tie-dye like I’m seeing sunshine after stepping out of a dark movie theater. It’s as though a pack of highlighters leaked all over his clothes. The man—who looks slightly older than me, thirty maybe?—comes into clearer focus. As he steps toward me, I have to tilt my head back because he takes up so much vertical space, his blue baseball cap a shade darker from the rain.

The man apologizes profusely. To his credit, he does look sorry. Under the bistro lights, the cat’s tea-green eyes seem to match his. On second glance, this guy’s pupils are rimmed in teal, warmed by the outline of thick brown lashes.

I follow his mesmerizing blue-green gaze as it drifts from me to the ground.

All my stuff has been knocked over, my bag of leftovers split open. Now the siu mai and lo bak gao are covered in… street. There goes my midnight snack.

Tie-Dye Guy steps under our tent and bends down just as I do, our foreheads knocking against each other. We both grunt.

He kneels beside me and sets his cat down next to him.

“It’s fine. I got this,” I say, shooing him away.

The man lifts my now-empty folder. Beside it are my divorce papers, the ink practically still wet. Well, now it’s literally wet. And smudged. Which doesn’t matter, really, now that it’s all over and done with. Even with it being a straightforward, no-fault divorce, it still cost hundreds of dollars. It was my most expensive mistake to date.

“Uh, here,” the man says, stuffing the papers back into the folder and handing it to me. There’s a micro lift in his eyebrows, telling me all I need to know. “Please, let me help.”

I let out a pathetic laugh. “Nothing about this”—I gesture to myself while holding a piece of turnip cake—“can be helped.”

He lifts one of the fallen-apart dumplings, the shrimp dangling precariously. “I don’t think it’s our fault. They don’t make dim sum like they used to.” As he says this, the shrimp gives up and falls.

The cat comes up and licks it. At least one of us gets to enjoy it.

All of this makes me laugh because it’s exactly how I feel. Like shrimp that’s fallen on the dirty ground, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

My reaction surprises us both. Tie-Dye Guy joins in, and for a second, it’s nice to be laughing with someone, our sounds blending into one. His laugh feels like being covered in a dry, warm towel after coming in from the rain. It seemed impossible, but I think a fraction of my stress melts away.

Our eyes lock as I’m catching my breath. Up close, he’s even more beautiful than any person has a right to be. It’s a weird thought to be having while sitting on the street in the middle of Chinatown.

Then I remember the fortune teller. The reading.

Any gains from our nice moment disappear when Tie-Dye Guy’s smile falls, and he says, “You’re bleeding.”

I press the back of my hand to my forehead, the turnip cake wobbling between my fingers.

“No, your arm,” he says.

Spanning the underside of my right forearm are long scratches. As soon as I notice it, the area begins to sting.

“Perfect,” I mumble, tossing the food back into its container.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Tie-Dye Guy says, helping me up.

“We don’t need to do anything.”

He holds his arm out. “At least wipe your hands on my shirt. I have to wash it anyway.”

I eye him. “Your shirt’s bad enough. I don’t want to make it worse.”

Tie-Dye Guy laughs. “Wow. Haven’t heard that one before.” He straightens his arm. “Come on.”

It’s tempting. I hate the feeling of having dirty hands. But also, he’s a stranger. “Absolutely not.”

“Really, it’s fine,” he insists. “Of all my bad shirts, this one’s my least favorite.”

I don’t want sticky fingers or for my clothes to smell like dim sum. Especially when there’s no water for laundry.

I give in and use his arm sleeve as my napkin. “Thanks.”

It’s not like I’m embarrassed about taking him up on his offer. I just can’t look at him directly as I do it. The fact that his gesture seems chivalrous says a lot about my day.

My attention drifts back to Wendy, who’s been busy tending to her birds. I look down at the table. It takes me a second to process what’s happened.

Once I do, I feel my heart drop to my stomach. My hands fall from Tie-Dye Guy’s sleeve, grazing his knuckles on the way down. I inhale sharply, choosing to believe that this sudden intake of air is a reaction not to the short-lived skin-on-skin contact, but because of what I’m witnessing.

I was wrong about my worst-case scenario.

A bad fortune is better than a fortune that was never supposed to be yours.

Because after all that commotion, I now find myself with not three fortunes, but six.

No one move!” I say, holding my arms out.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember where Wendy placed the first card. It’s too hard to know now that there are six cards on the table.

“It was that one, right?” I ask Wendy. “I remember Doc picking that one and you flipping it over there. Or was it Marty?” I lean closer to the birds. “Do you remember what fortunes you picked?”

“Fortunes?” Tie-Dye Guy asks, looking over at Wendy’s booth sign. “Tell me I did not just mess up your future.”

“There’s a very good chance you did.” I hate how panicked my voice sounds. I’m not freaking out over a fortune-telling reading, am I? It all becomes too overwhelming. I feel myself detach a little.

“Let’s look for little beak marks,” Tie-Dye Guy proposes.

The three of us scan along the sides of the cards, looking for evidence of having been freshly plucked.

According to Dad, bad things happen in fours. In Chinese culture, the number itself is considered unlucky. It sounds too much like “death.”

I think the same logic applies to mistakes.

Mistake #1 was not making myself indispensable at work. I spent practically the entirety of my twenties at that place. I was loyal. That’s rare these days. Was I the muscle behind their best reports? Yes. Did I have the most historical context, having been at the company for nearly eight years? Also, yes. But clearly, I was not essential enough to keep when my company merged with a bigger one.

Now I no longer have a job. The same job that not just supported me but also Dad and my brother. Plus, I liked being a data analyst. It suited me. And I worked hard for it.

It took my manager no more than a minute to sledgehammer the foundation of my life. It isn’t personal, he had said at the end of a full day of work. And he’s right. It isn’t. Because that would mean I’m more than just a cog in a machine, a line item on a spreadsheet.

Mistake #2 was coming to a fortune teller. How, exactly, was this supposed to make me feel better?

Which brings me to Mistake #3: running into Tie-Dye Guy. Or no. Him running into me.

“Again, I’m really sorry. Toffee wasn’t trying to hurt the birds,” he says once we find that, unfortunately, there are small indents on every card. “Toffee just—he has this stuffed toy that he loves… it’s a bird.” He grimaces. “I can see where this all went wrong.”

Wendy looks unamused by this.

The cards are a mess. A physical representation of my life, it seems. Money, a job, love, my future. It was all too much to hope for, clearly.

“Can we get the birds back out here? Do they have muscle memory or something?” I ask Wendy.

“The fortunes have been selected,” she says definitively.

I shake my head. “They picked two very specific cards for me before this guy and Coffee even got here.” I try very hard to suppress the fact that a black cat has crossed my path. I do not need any more bad luck today.

“His name is Toffee, and technically, he isn’t my cat,” Tie-Dye Guy says, like this might absolve him.

Toffee sniffs the air and lies down like this entire ordeal has exhausted him. Now that the damage has been done, he couldn’t care less about the birds.

I stretch my neck up to look at Tie-Dye Guy. It’s hard not to notice his height. He’s got to be at least a foot taller than my five foot three.

“You’re the one walking him,” I press, the edge in my voice sharper than necessary. I rub my temples. “That makes you responsible for this.”

“Well, yes,” he says guiltily. “Toffee’s muscle strength usually isn’t that… forceful. Or sudden. He requires his daily walk or else he gets grouchy and tired. He’ll keep Mrs. Walker up all night, so I need to maintain his routine.” He tilts his head. “Though the rain didn’t help.”

“You,” Wendy says, pointing from Tie-Dye Guy to the empty seat next to mine. “There.”

I turn to face him. “No there. No sitting.”

Tie-Dye Guy freezes in place, now half squatting over the chair.

“But she told me to,” he says.

My mouth drops open in silent protest until I can find the words. “But what if you get good fortunes and they were actually supposed to be mine?” I ask.

The man seems to consider this. “Or they could’ve been bad and I’m sparing you from an unlucky life.”

“Too late for that,” I mumble.

“What’s your name?” Wendy asks him.

“Logan,” he responds. “Logan Wells.”

Wendy nods curtly. “Good. Let’s finish this reading. Just ten dollars more for the extra three cards.”

Logan glances at the sign and pats himself down as he remains in his bent position. “I don’t carry cash.”

“What about the cat?” I ask dryly.

“I’m sure he’d be more than happy to share his catnip,” he says, opening his wallet. “Would you accept a MetroCard? Now that they’ve been phased out, one day they might be valuable.”

Wendy shakes her head. “Cash only.”

Logan looks at me for permission to sit. “I like to think that I could do this all night, but I helped a friend move earlier this week. Five-story walk-up. I don’t think I have much longer.”

“My birds did draw these cards for a reason,” Wendy says, putting the pressure on.

I steal a glance down at The Reason sitting contentedly next to Logan’s leg, which is where I look next. Even soaked, his jeans look soft and well worn, like they might be his favorite pair. They’re plastered against his thighs, accentuating his well-defined—and probably now burning—quad muscles.

I ignore the explosion of heat in my chest and nod to the chair. “Please. Stay a while. And you know what? My treat,” I say with forced pep. Paying it forward is supposed to help, right? Maybe this good deed will stop anything else bad that’s coming my way.

Or maybe I’m desperate to see what each of those cards says. But really, maybe it’s because today I want to be right about something: that my fortune isn’t so good. Not before, not now, and not in the future.

“But are you really prepared to know what your future holds?” I ask Logan.

He lets out a sigh of relief as he sits and smiles at me. A double parentheses brackets his mouth on both sides. It’s like his smile has caused a ripple effect across his cheeks. Every physical part of him screams man, but this? This feature of his is boyishly charming.

“It’s not how I saw this walk going, but why not?” Logan says. He even sounds… excited? “I’m open to seeing what happens.” Our eyes linger on each other’s for a beat too long. God, he really does have pretty eyes. “Only if it’s alright with you, though. Would you be okay doing this together?”

Together. This all started because of my bad decision. Now I’m in it with a perfect stranger.

I slide my last ten-dollar bill out of my wallet and reluctantly hand it over to Wendy. First candy and dim sum. Now fortune-telling. My budget is going to hate me.

“That’s really nice of you,” Logan says. “Thank you. I owe you.”

Wendy slips the bill into a soft pouch and points to the three cards. “Just like in life, we’ll have to work with what we’ve got. Those fell closest to you, Hazel. Let’s call them yours.” She gestures to me. “Please state your name and birthday, and ask your question again to Doc and Marty.”

“Like Back to the Future Doc and Marty?” Logan asks. “That’s clever.”

Wendy smiles, waving toward her setup. “How could I not?”

Is Logan… befriending the fortune teller? He’s definitely getting the good fortunes now.

I turn away from him. “I’m Hazel Yen,” I whisper to the birds.

Behind me, Logan laughs.

I give him a look over my shoulder, and his laughter subsides, a residual smile on his face. He just sits there with his well-worn jeans and his bracketed mouth and looks at me. Really looks at me. It’s not a face-off, but I treat it like one, and for the next couple of seconds, we’re just regarding each other.

And then I remember the situation we’re in.

Who cares if Logan’s hot, even in that eyesore of a tie-dye shirt? The man ruined—and then joined—my desperate attempt for answers. It does feel slightly reassuring, though, to know that I’m not the only one making mistakes today.

“What? You don’t want me to know your name and birthday?” Logan asks.

I furrow my eyebrows and glance away. “Of course I don’t. I don’t know you.”

My colleagues at work don’t—didn’t—even know my birthday.

Logan dips his head to meet my eyes. When he does this, it’s like he’s trying to show me that I’m all he’s focusing on. There’s nothing, and no one, else.

“Fine.” He runs his hands down his thighs, his forearms flexing. “But then you don’t get to know mine.”

There’s a charge in the air surrounding me and Logan.

I feel my body spin in his direction. “And here I was hoping to get you something nice,” I say.

A bigger smile stretches across Logan’s face. “Well, you missed my last thirty-one birthdays, so I wasn’t expecting much.”

Wendy clears her throat, and I startle. The last thing I want is a connection with another good-looking guy. I’ve got the proof in the folder in my bag to see how that would end. “As I was saying… ” I angle back toward the birds, lean in, and whisper, “I was born on October 13, 1996. What does my future look like?”

I sit back against the seat, my cheeks heating. I have no reason to be embarrassed. Knowing more about the future is the entire point of this. Still, I feel too exposed. Too impulsive.

An impulsive fortune-telling. An impulsive marriage. Why do I do this to myself when it all leads to nothing good?

“Great question,” Logan says, rubbing his hands together. Veins run like little streams along the back of them, trickling out toward his long fingers. His hands look strong, like he could carry heavy things all day long and not even be tired at the end of it. “I’m going to ask the same.”

I try to focus on what’s important here: the cards. My fortune. My future.

Wendy unfolds the first card and smooths it over the table. “We’ll begin with your past, then analyze your present and future,” she says.

The cards are intricately painted in vibrant colors, depicting scenes with characters who look otherworldly. On this first card, a smiling woman in gold gestures toward a child. They’re surrounded by six vases filled with flowers.

“You carry a lot of responsibility,” Wendy says, her mouth turned down. Is that a frown? “You have for a long time.” She holds my gaze for a few long seconds. “You’re living too much in the past. You were happy then, but you were also sad. You’re missing out on the present. Get in touch with your inner child. Play. Have fun.”

My throat goes dry. I don’t attempt to speak. Everything Wendy just said was eerily accurate. I cross my legs and my arms like I’m folding myself up. Usually, it comforts me, but right now, I can’t hide.

My responsibilities practically roll out in front of me, like a mental news ticker. They’re in no particular order because order would imply control, of which there is none. Bills. Student loans. Mortgage. Rent. Food. Health care. Money for Dad and Jerry.

Wendy analyzes the second card, which shows an older woman in flowing robes lifting her hands to a cobalt sky. Multiple swords fly above her, pointing somewhere off the card. I can’t tell if she’s defending herself, taking action against someone else, or practicing her skills.

“You’ll experience a loss soon,” Wendy states.

I huff out the last of the air in my lungs. Literally? Or does she mean that theoretically? This card is supposed to represent the present. I’ve already lost my bracelet, job, self-respect, hot water, and dim sum. I’d say I’ve lost enough today as it is.

“A loss? What loss?” I ask.

“It’s going to be a difficult time with the suddenness of it,” Wendy explains, her face neutral. “You may not understand or be ready to face your deeply buried wounds, but dealing with them will set you free.”

“Maybe it’s the dim sum, and it’s behind you now,” Logan says so genuinely I think he’s trying to help.

“It’s actually underneath me,” I retort. To Wendy, I say, “Going to be sounds like a future thing.”

“It’s a fluid timeframe. These cards are responses to your question, but this entire reading only lasts three to four months,” Wendy explains. She unfolds my thi. . .