Against All Odds

by Aarti V Raman

  Now, he was a little appalled at his own loss of control with the card dealer, Sophia. It was a wonder she hadn’t slapped him for the callous way he’d behaved with her. Thinking he could buy her time. Just because he wanted to.

  He felt a moment’s remorse at the loss of a potential something he didn’t exactly have a name for. He just knew leaving her had been the right thing to do. He wasn’t that kind of man anymore.

  It freaked him out just a bit that he’d become that man in a heartbeat, for this woman.

  For Sophia.

  So, it was best they stay out of each other’s way.

  Bharat was too revved up and still on American time, so he decided to hunt up some food on deck before going back to the shore.

  He chose an all-night café called Docker’s on the first floor of the liner. It had a charming, Americanized down-home sort of ambience and good, strong coffee. In short, ideal for his purposes.

  Bharat sat at a corner booth with a view of the entrance, as was habit.

  He used this window of time to catch up on his emails. His phone, an unwieldy seven-inch screen, was encrypted with biometrics (retina scan) just like one of two airgapped laptops he’d built with Shiv. He finished replying to urgent requests – meetings, lunches, and dinners.

  There was one request for a dating app he’d logged onto for the sheer boredom of it two months ago. They were prompting him to come back.

  Don’t you miss having someone in your life? Do you want to be alone?

  Bharat deleted the email and consigned it to the junk folder. He didn’t have time to ask himself such ridiculous questions.

  Besides…

  His thumb hovered over the letter keys as he perfectly recalled the way Sophia had snapped at him that she wasn’t part of some fictional movie or book.

  Her hair had crackled with static and he’d wanted to bury his hands in it. To feel it move over him. All over him.

  His reaction was visceral, immediate. And very unexpected.

  Bharat prided himself on his steely control, preferring it to the hedonistic freedom he’d enjoyed before. For him, sex was a biological imperative now. Nothing more. He didn’t do lust.

  It implied wanting something beyond acceptable limits and he was never going there.

  Yet, here he was. Thinking about a defensive blackjack dealer. Wondering if he could find out more about her. It was weird and exhilarating.

  Very unlike him.

  Because his 149 IQ brain couldn’t come up with any convincing answer for why he was thinking about her, he let it slide out of his mind.

  He continued answering his emails and queries on the inter-team messaging app with no pause in routine. The team he’d finally hired to assist him with refining the build – systems and networking architecture as well as UI/UX and aesthetics - sent in responses to a few doubts. Doubts he wanted clarified before he took his meeting with the Singapore people.

  He wanted no doubts about his program.

  Caliban was his myth, his legend. The thing he’d slaved over for. Caliban was an evolution in the way business would be done if the prototype was to be believed. And it was, after extensive testing on a bar in Pasadena called Geeks Will Be Geeks or GWBG, for short.

  It had to be. Bharat had designed it himself.

  Well, mostly.

  Shiv had double checked everything he wrote and ironed out the most obvious bugs but he’d done it for the fun of it. Not because it was his everything.

  Not like it was everything for Bharat.

  The idea of it was simple – an artificial business intelligence that would enable launching a manufacturing plant (he’d restricted it to tire manufacturing at the moment) from start to finish – that is through building, setting up, operations, forecasting and running - with a single program. Caliban.

  And Caliban was Bharat’s Taj Mahal. His magnum opus.

  Bharat finished going through the responses his team sent in and decided that things were as much on schedule as they could be. He shut down his phone, it was close to five thirty am and the coffee burned through his system.

  He looked up idly when the door to the café tinkled open. His idle gazed sharpened when he saw the newest customer.

  Sophia.

  Chapter Six

  Sophia’s eyes widened when she saw him. Then a small grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  Sophia inclined her head in greeting but didn’t really expect a response. So, it was almost a shock to her system when he waved her over.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalking me.” Sophia took her wireless earphones off.

  Bharat’s eyes narrowed. “Those are very serious charges, Sophia Ray.”

  Sophia grinned. “I’m a very serious woman.”

  Bharat grinned too. “What are you listening to?” He nodded at the neon green earphones.

  “Raabta,” Sophia replied. “The Amit Bhattacharya version.”

  “I love that version.”

  “Me too. It’s way better than the Arijit one, no?”

  “Agreed. Although, if you want great bass you need to change your equipment,” Bharat said cheekily.

  “Equipment?” Sophia asked. Without being aware of it, she sat down opposite Bharat.

  When she’d settled her bag next to her, her knees brushed his. And a frisson of reaction ran up her thighs at the slight contact. Holy cow. She needed to get a grip.

  “I meant your shitty Chinese-made earphones. How many times do you have to charge them each day?”

  “I should have known you were a pakka geek,” Sophia muttered. “And if you must know. I didn’t buy these because they are so amazing sound-wise.” She paused. “They’re such a pretty color and go with my phone cover.”

  Bharat chuckled but didn’t dispute her defense. Instead he said, “I thought you’d have crashed by now. Your shift’s over, right?”

  “I’m starving,” Sophia confessed. “I always eat here before turning in.”

  His lips quirked in the half-smile again. “In that case, you could be forgiven for thinking I was stalking you.”

  Sophia shook her head. “I’m sorry about that. It was careless and thoughtless of me.”

  “Why don’t you make it up to me by having coffee with me?” Bharat suggested casually.

  Sophia knew what he was doing. She’d grown up with a father who was a master at negotiating, aka getting his own way but making you feel like it was your idea. Nakul used passive aggressive tactics while negotiating or straight up bulldozed you.

  Bharat was sneakier. And decent.

  And, dammit, she wanted to.

  “Sophia?” Bharat prompted gently.

  Sophia startled. She gave him a distracted smile which he didn’t return.

  “Forget it,” Bharat said. “You’ve already said no. I don’t want to push you.”

  “No.” She laid her hands on the table. “I’d love to make it up to you. Coffee it is.”

  ~~~~~

  Bharat was filled with a strange fizziness that he later identified as relief. Right then, he could only nod and stare at Sophia Ray. A most unexpected distraction.

  And very welcome, if his body’s reaction was anything to go by.

  She’d put her hair up into a ponytail and changed into a casual, cold-shoulder tee shirt that proclaimed Dekh Behen, I need sleep with a bra strap showing. Her face was scrubbed clean and free of makeup and she looked…tired.

  “Thank you, Sophia.”

  Sophia smiled, showing off that sexy overbite. “I do have a condition, though.”

  His heart actually stopped for a second. She sounded so earnest. Maybe she was going to tell him about her boyfriend, her significant other. Fuck. “Name it.”

  “No coffee, please. My bones ache.”

  The fizziness returned, along with a sense of rightness. That they’d be sitting here, talking, watching the sun come up. He didn’t know what to make of it. It freaked him out.

  “I should le
t you go. This is stupid,” he muttered.

  Sophia put a hand over his. The hand shielding his phone. A spark of heat shot up his spine. She was aware of it too, because her nostrils flared slightly.

  She was aware of him too.

  “Stop second-guessing, Bharat. I want to be here.”

  “You do?” He turned his palm over and captured her fingers lightly within his.

  “I do.”

  ~~~~~

  Sophia cursed her wayward impulse to touch him that had boomeranged on her. She felt the action right down to her toes.

  The man took a goddamn mile if he took an inch. Yet, she hadn’t lied. Through all of Nakul’s warnings and his acrid bitterness, she had always wondered, more than was wise about Bharat Shankar Shrinivasan.

  This strange, almost mythic figure who’d shadowed so much of her life, her family, without knowing. She’d thought about him as she finished the day’s debrief with Jing Tao. He’d been on her mind when she’d come down to Docker’s for a quick bite.

  Seeing Bharat here was like a quick shock to her system. One, she was still trying to process.

  His big palm hovered over his phone, the thing he had covered the minute he’d spotted her. Maybe it contained whatever it was that he was here for.

  Making a calculated play, Sophia nodded at his slim phone. “Are you working on saving the world or watching porn?”

  His lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “What if I told you I could multi-task?”

  “I’d say you’re a very good liar.”

  Bharat grinned, full-out, and her pulse skittered again.

  “You caught me. I was working actually. On my pitch deck. For this meeting I am having later in the day.”

  “Oh, are you not on holiday, then?”

  “No, I’m an entrepreneur. We are never on holiday.”

  “Right.” She paused as if to consider that. “If you’re working on a pitch deck then that means you have a new product that you’re launching here?”

  Bharat leaned in close and crooked his finger.

  She came closer too.

  “If I tell you what I’m doing,” he murmured. “I’d have to kill you.”

  She laughed. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I have ways of finding out.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he murmured, staring at her as if he could absorb her face into his bones.

  Sophia shook her head and tried to focus on the here and now. It wasn’t easy considering how she’d forgotten they were holding hands and hers were caught inside his palm. They felt warm and safe there. Nice.

  “But for now I want ginger tea. And whatever passes for pancakes here.”

  “Don’t tell me you hate pancakes?”

  Sophia sighed. “I love dosas! The crispier the better.”

  Bharat shook his head. “You’re not South Indian, are you?”

  “Delhiite by way of Mumbai and Kolkata,” she answered proudly. “My dad always said I had the best of India, the hustle, the brawns, and the brains.”

  “Your father’s very wise. Alright. Tea and pancakes it is. But, can I tell you a secret?” He leaned close so she did too. “I adore gobi parathas,” he mock-whispered.

  Sophia giggled. “Spoken like a typical South Indian.”

  Bharat grinned and motioned the waiter over. Ordering tea and pancakes, for both of them, he casually pocketed his phone.

  “Is that a new model?” Sophia asked in what she hoped was a harmless voice.

  He shrugged. “Something like that.”

  “You don’t have the hands of a coder.” She let the remark slip, just to see what he would say.

  He didn’t react in anyway at all. Just gave her a calm look. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, programmers have soft hands, no? Not like yours.” She poked at a rough callus on his palm.

  Bharat snorted. “That is super sexist and you know it. It is also classist, I think. Lots of programmers have rough hands. We do other things than sit in front of the computer and write code, you know?”

  She put her hands up in a gesture mimicking his. “I know, I know. I was just making small talk. . I suck at it, obviously. I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted. I don’t think you suck at making small talk. Everyone at that games table was so easy with you.” He sounded admiring of her.

  Sophia shrugged, tucked more hair behind her ear. “That’s just work. I don’t think so much then. I am not aware of them.”

  She rolled her eyes because he sat up straighter. “No need to get all excited, okay?” she continued quickly. “I just meant, I am too tired right now to properly filter my thoughts.”

  Bharat should have looked incongruous in last night’s tux and the scraggly beard. He didn’t. “Is that what you do otherwise?”

  “Are you interviewing me?” she countered.

  Sophia was uncomfortable because he seemed to instinctively know so much about her. She didn’t like it.

  Bharat shook his head. “No, that was your deal. You had to interview me to see if I was worthy of your valuable time and teaching skills.”

  The amused twinkle in his black eyes swooped inside her stomach. Was this what flirting with an attractive man felt like?

  ~~~~~~

  Before Sophia could answer him, the waitress came in with their food and they made desultory small talk as set the table.

  She left, after giving Bharat an appreciative glance that Sophia did not miss.

  Bharat looked at her with utter absorption. “Go on. I am waiting. Interview me.”

  “I bet you’ve never been interviewed in your life.”

  He gave that half-quirk of a smile again. “Untrue. I was interviewed at IIT Kharagpur by the dean. They debated on whether they wanted me for like a week or something.”

  “Why?”

  “I might have said something like technology as we know it was going to become obsolete and educational institutions like IIT were going to die out in the next fifty years.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Because the human brain is dangerously adaptable to change and that change is brought about exponentially by technology.” Bharat cut into his own pancake stack. “Something that institutions won’t understand because they work on process, not progress.”

  Sophia thought about it as she sipped her tea, it was soothing and with just the right amount of honey. The strawberry pancakes were crisp and golden, although she would have killed for a masala dosa, right then.

  “This technology you’re talking about. It’s AI, right? Artificial intelligence?”

  Bharat chewed before answering, “Among other things.”

  “The dean was pissed?”

  Bharat shrugged. “Not enough to deny me admission. But I learned to talk in more nuanced terms when I started pitching for funding.” He smiled softly. “I have my mentor to thank for that.”

  Sophia knew without him saying it, he was talking about her father. It jolted through her. The connection between them, the one he wasn’t aware of.

  “How do you know so much about tech?” Bharat asked.

  “I spent the last day dealing cards with variants of you tech geeks. I picked up on stuff.”

  “That makes you smarter than half the tech geeks you met, Sophia.”

  Sophia wanted to laugh at his off-hand compliment, but she finished her tea. She was fascinated watching him eat. Fork poised in the proper manner, syrup drizzled in such a way that it didn’t drip down. Every movement was precise and controlled.

  Heat curled inside of her that had nothing to do with the hot tea.

  ~~~~~~

  “What was it about my laugh?” she asked, finally.

  He paused in the middle of cutting yet another piece. Looked quizzically at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “Before, when you said you heard my laugh. That it’s enchanting. What was it about my laugh that attracted you?”

  Bharat smiled, it bloomed from his eyes.

  Sophia blinked. Holy c
rap. He was seriously attractive and more, he was fun and interesting. And in the few hours she’d known him, he was nothing but a considerate, if cool, gentleman. Not the wild, unprincipled jerk who cared for no one’s agenda but his own that Nakul made him out to be.

  “I don’t know, I mean…,” Bharat fumbled. “I am not good with stuff like this. I heard it. I liked it. I wanted to see the person who laughed like that.”

  “Laughed like how?”

  “Open. Happy. It’s a nice laugh.”

  Open? Happy? Her?

  Sophia was seized with equal parts sadness and fury. For a long time, she’d learned to live in the shadows. Eking by, making ends meet while the bulk of whatever she earned went towards medical bills. She had to keep secrets. So many secrets….and he thought her laugh was open and happy.

  What a joke.

  She came to a decision then. Impulsive and corrosive. But she couldn’t stop herself any more than she could laugh openly and happily.

  “We haven’t been properly introduced and we should be, if I am going to teach you to play cards.”

  Bharat lifted one brow. “So you’re going to teach me how to play cards, then?”

  “That is yet to be decided.”

  Sophia opened the small purse she’d placed on the booth and extracted a small, battered LV wallet. There was a joker card with her monogrammed initials in one of the pockets. SRK. The design was simple, elegant. A swirl of a crown with the initials prominently embossed on the panel.

  “My dad gave me this for my fifteenth birthday,” she said quietly. “When he taught me how to play cards.”

  “You’re a huge Shah Rukh fan then?” He smiled as he asked the silly question.

  “No,” Sophia said. “They are my initials. SRK.”

  Bharat picked it up and brushed his thumbs over her name. “Your dad sounds like a good as well as wise man.”

  “He was. My name is Sophia Roy Kulashreshtha.”

  Chapter Seven

  Sophia Roy Kulashreshtha.

  Even three hours later, the name swam in Bharat’s brain with dizzying clarity, as he attempted to punish himself on the treadmill.

  He’d heard her say her name and something snapped inside him. His hard-won control deserted him, he’d thrown some money on the table before walking off. No questions asked.