When she pulled back, looking predictably mortified, he began his inquisition.
“Jasmine,” he said calmly—because if he showed any emotion, if he seemed too worried, she’d clam right up. “Why are you crying?”
She sniffed loudly, clearing her throat, avoiding his gaze. “I’m not.”
“While I hate to contradict Her Royal Highness—”
She let out a choked little burble that might’ve been a laugh.
“—You definitely are crying. I’d like to know why.”
She sniffed loudly, then wiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Rahul pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it over.
She snorted as she dabbed her eyes. “You’re such a fucking nerd.”
“Careful. I’ll take the hankie back.”
This time, she definitely laughed. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. It’s just me.”
She gave her cheeks a final pat with the handkerchief and pulled down the visor mirror. If she’d asked, he would’ve told her she looked beautiful. But she wouldn’t ask, because she didn’t care what anyone else thought.
“My room has been, ah… damaged.”
He raised a brow. “Damaged?”
“Extensively. Plumbing issue.”
“You mean—”
“I mean unless I sleep on Tilly’s sofa while her dad gets around to fixing things, I… well, I don’t have anywhere to go.” She fluffed her hair in the mirror, then flipped it shut. “I was going to ask—” She broke off, hesitating. “I was going to ask if I could stay at yours tonight.”
“Tonight?” He frowned. “How long will it take to fix?”
She looked away. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure—a while, probably, but—”
“So where are you going to stay while you wait?”
She shrugged jerkily. “I hadn’t figured that out yet.”
Rahul swallowed his sigh of exasperation. He wanted to shake her sometimes. “Okay, well, I’ve figured it out. Stay with me.”
The look she gave him was so fucking sad, he felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “That’s sweet of you. But I can’t, um… I can’t impose on you for that long.”
“You’ve never minded imposing on me before.”
“Not the same,” she said tightly.
Right. And he realised all at once why it wasn’t.
When she crashed at his flat after a night out because it was closer than hers, or came over to drag him along on some scheme, she didn’t need him. She didn’t need his space.
But now she did. And Jasmine did not like to need.
Rahul tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and searched for a strategy. Found one pretty quickly, actually.
“Your dad’s still on his cruise, right?”
“Yep,” she said.
“You don’t think he’d be pissed at me if I let you run off and stay with someone he doesn’t know?”
She gave him a dark look. “Goodness, you’re right. My dearest father, masculine protector of my person, has officially appointed you his second-in-command, until such a time as I might gain a husband to contain me.” The words dripped with derision.
Rahul gave her a cheerful smile. “Glad you understand.” He started the car again.
“You’re a fuckface,” she mumbled. Which sounded like an agreement to him.
Two hours later, Jasmine was sitting on the plush bed in Rahul’s spare room, trying her best not to scream.
She had to do something to get rid of all this… this nervous energy crawling around inside her, and screaming felt like a solid option. But if she screamed, Rahul would come barrelling in, demanding to know what was wrong. And then she’d have to say something like, Oh, well, I know you’re the best friend a girl could have, and it’s totally amazing of you to put me up, but relying on your charity makes me feel like I’m coming apart at the seams. Like, this is physically painful for me. Not to sound ungrateful, or anything.
Yes, she had issues. Blah blah blah, move on.
Jasmine got off the bed and wandered the room, her eyes running over the familiar decor as she paced. Cool blues and chrome, spotlessly clean like everything Rahul owned. She remembered visiting his accommodation back in their uni days. His shared house had been the typical student pigsty—except for the bathroom he used, his part of the fridge, and his bedroom. Those had been fucking spotless.
Ah, Rahul. If she had to rely on someone, she was glad it was him.
Jasmine returned to the bed and rifled through Tilly’s awful holdall. The things she’d been able to rescue from her room were an… eclectic mix, that was for sure. But she pushed past the mini skirts and granny knickers and worn-out Converse to find the stuff she’d been especially happy to find. Brand new stationery, fancy shit she’d been saving in its plastic bag, until some arbitrary point in her life when she might feel fresh and earnest enough to open a new notebook.
Now seemed like a good time. Jasmine unwrapped the stationary from the plastic that had saved it. The notebook was thick and pink, a soft moleskin decorated with gold lettering that read, Fuck It.
She was definitely in a Fuck It sort of mood.
For one treacherous moment, her mind flew to Rahul. Rahul, whose room was just across the hall, who’d made this bed up with fresh sheets for her, who claimed to be making them dinner. Rahul, her best friend since forever.
She put the notebook down on the bed and pulled out the pens she’d bought with it. Ridiculous, glittery things with fluffy feathers at their tip. She had a vague idea that she’d rub those feathers against her chin or nose like Cher from Clueless. Why? No fucking clue.
Was it too pathetic to laugh at her own jokes? Jasmine decided she’d had a trying day and allowed herself a snicker.
She was saved from further internal ramblings by the chime of her phone. She had a text. A text that made her unreasonably happy.
Asmita: Talked to Pinal. We are officially totally together, LOL. Only feel mildly terrified. Aren’t you proud of me?
Jasmine grinned as she typed out her reply.
Beyond proud, love. You don’t even know.
“Jas.” Rahul’s voice came with a gentle knock at the door. It was open, but he was Rahul. She turned to find him carefully not looking through the gap.
So she took the opportunity to look at him.
He’d showered and washed that gel crap out of his hair. Now it sprung around his face in soft curls—though nowhere near as curly as hers—all glossy and shit. Sickening, really. Caramel highlights shone through the dark brown strands as if strategically placed, but that was just how his hair grew.
Yes; sickening.
His simple, wire-rimmed glasses were perched on what she liked to call a heroic nose. It was the evening, so he had his version of a 5 o’clock shadow, which was more like an ebony bloody carpet covering his sharp jaw. He stood there, all lean muscle and broad shoulders and cinnamon brown skin, and she thought what she always thought when she saw him.
Fuck, yes.
Then she cleared her throat and said, “What’s up?”
He finally looked at her, meeting her eyes with a smile. “Dinner.”
She snorted. “Are you sure it’s dinner? You sure it’s not braised carrot sticks and chopped cucumber?”
His face blank, he deadpanned, “That’s not dinner?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “There better be some fucking carbs on my plate, cupcake.” But she followed him out with a smile on her face.
Rahul was all about clean eating. Jasmine was all about eating in general—but so many healthy foods tasted like absolute crap. And they didn’t have nearly enough calories to make cooking worth her while. Why waste seven minutes of her life slicing and chewing celery when it would hit her stomach and break down into thin fucking air?
There were more enjoyable ways to waste her own time.
Rahul knew all about her culinary attitudes, so she wasn’t
surprised to find that he’d made what could only be described as a fuck-ton of pasta. He plated up at the kitchen counter while she hovered on its other side, where the open-plan space became a living room.
“Pasta looks funny,” she sniffed, just to piss him off.
He gave her a look. “It’s whole wheat.”
“Gross.”
His movements slow and patient, his hands big and steady, he picked up a second plate. “It’s good for you.”
“Are there vegetables in there?” She demanded, catching a flash of green amongst the sauce.
“Yep. And you will eat every last one, brat.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and accepted the plate.
He had a narrow kitchen table, but they headed to the sofa to eat. It was a habit he scolded her for yet continued to participate in. Rahul couldn’t do anything even vaguely naughty unless, A: she forced him to, and, B: he got to complain the whole time. She was okay with that.
They settled down and her eyes bypassed the turned-off TV, focusing on the window behind it. Outside, the sun hung low over the cityscape. Traffic passed in a snatch of engine revs and blaring radio stations. Rahul lived in one of those fancy high-rise blocks in the good part of town, and the view was a city sort of beautiful.
She scooped up some pasta and murmured, “Thanks, love.”
He didn’t ask what for, exactly, and she was glad. The answer was a bit too long and complicated, and uncomfortably emotional besides.
His hand came to rest on her shoulder, just for a second, and she felt a spark of electricity surge between his skin and hers. He gave no indication that he’d felt Jack-shit. Just said in that deep, smoky voice, “You know I’ve got you.”
The words wrapped around her like goose down. She should probably doubt him, like she would anyone else.
Dangerously, she didn’t.
4
Now
He was not avoiding Jasmine.
That’s what Rahul told himself, every night that week.
He always left early in the mornings to go to the gym—so it wasn’t his fault that he was out of the house before Jasmine even opened her bedroom door.
And if he’d stayed at the office later than usual, combing over spreadsheets and reports with a fine tooth comb—well, what could he say? He loved his job. He loved the soothing satisfaction of it all. He wasn’t necessarily staying out of the house to minimise time spent with Jas.
Of course, the fact that he’d called Mitch every night after work and insisted they go for a beer—even though Rahul didn’t drink beer, and hated pubs—might seem suspicious. Maybe. Perhaps.
Mitch clearly thought so. When Rahul had left work this evening and stepped into the warm evening air, the first thing he’d done was call his friend. And the little ginger fuck had answered with a bored, “I’m not going out again.”
Rahul had been perplexed. “Why?”
“It’s Friday night, mate. Whatever you’re running from, find someone else to do it with. I’ve got a standing date with my lady in leather.”
So here Rahul was, on a Friday night, working out his frustration at the same gym he’d been to just that fucking morning.
No, he wasn’t avoiding Jasmine. Why on earth would anyone think that?
Since he’d finished leg day earlier, and he’d rather die than fuck with his carefully curated routine, Rahul attacked the gym’s punching bags. For a while, he managed to lose himself in the rhythm of pounding fists, the ache at his shoulders, the bite of his laboured breaths and the sting of sweat dripping into unseeing eyes.
But it didn’t take long for him to think of her. It never did.
He hadn’t intended to start avoiding his own bloody flat like the plague. He hadn’t intended to avoid his best friend, either. But here he was.
It had started on the second night. The second night, when he’d bumped into her while she was leaving the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.
He’d seen her in a towel before. Plenty of times. He’d seen her in less, for fuck’s sake, in the barely-there bikinis she loved so damned much.
But seeing Jasmine in a towel was one thing; seeing Jasmine in one of his towels, in his flat, knowing that she’d be changing just across the hall every fucking night for God knew how long… all at once, the reality of what he’d done sucked him under like a typhoon. Even the sight of Jasmine’s smile hadn’t lightened his mood. She was living with him.
There’d be so many opportunities for him to fuck up. To show her somehow, through word or deed, that all this fucking time he’d wanted her. And if she ever found out…
Okay, yeah; he’d been avoiding Jasmine.
As soon as he admitted that to himself, guilt became as suffocating as the anxiety. He stilled the swinging punching bag, his chest heaving, and thought about going back to the seated leg press he’d worked on that morning. A treacherous voice in his head whispered that tearing himself apart would help; that he’d meet his goals faster, feel the knife-sharp satisfaction of his numbers improving, the weight he could bear increasing, and he’d feel better.
He nipped that idea in the bud because avoidance was cowardice. He’d fucked around long enough. He was going home.
Thirty minutes later, Rahul kicked off his shoes in the hallway and called, “Jas. I’m back.”
Silence.
It was a little past eight—much earlier than he’d been coming home, true, but Jasmine should definitely be back from work. She was one of the in-house solicitors for a local housing charity. Pay was shit; job satisfaction and hours were good. It was basically shift work, and she always got the best shifts.
How? He’d never asked. The answer was almost certainly sheer charm.
Rahul wandered through the flat. She might not be home now, but she had been at some point. The shower glass was still wet, and the bathroom counter was littered with tubes of makeup he vaguely recognised. Tubes like mascara and lipstick, and foundation, or something like that.
Jasmine had what he privately called her every day makeup. It was the kind of makeup that had taken him two years to even notice, and she wore it… well, every day.
And then there was the makeup she wore at night. He held up a scarlet tube of lipstick and sighed.
She’d gone out.
Of course she had. It was Friday night. She was Jasmine.
He took a long, hot shower and tried not to think of her as he scrubbed the last of the pomade from his hair. Then he got out, threw on a pair of pyjama bottoms, and made himself something to eat. The stream of action was intended to scour unwelcome thoughts from his mind. Unwelcome thoughts like what Jasmine was doing right now and who she was with.
He hoped she was with Asmita and the rest of her platonic girlfriends, but he knew Jas well. She hadn’t really been out all week. Which meant she hadn’t slept with anyone.
Maybe if you’d spent some time with her instead of being a dick, she’d be home with you instead of out shagging her latest admirer.
Maybe. Probably not.
Reeling in his thoughts, which were becoming pointlessly possessive, Rahul decided to make use of his wasted Netflix subscription. When in doubt, find something shitty to watch.
Only, the first show he stumbled upon turned out to be kind of… great. And then all of a sudden he was five episodes in and his eyes were burning.
And then he heard the tell-tale sound of Jasmine’s key scratching at the door.
A slight frown on his face, Rahul paused the TV and strode into the hall. He unlocked the door, opened it, and found Jasmine on the doorstep, key in hand.
She was wearing that fucking red lipstick, and a little black dress that he hoped she hadn’t paid too much for, because there was barely a metre of fabric involved. Rahul dragged his gaze firmly away from her mostly-exposed lower half and said, “You’re back early.”
She smiled, and it gutted him. She was so fucking beautiful, effortlessly. Sometimes he wondered how it was possible.
She stepped th
rough the door, her body brushing close to his, her gaze flicking over his bare chest. Rahul shut the door and turned to face her.
She cocked her head and said, “Hello, buttercup. Don’t you look delicious?”
He frowned. “I do?”
She leaned in and put her hands on his shoulders, her eyes boring into his. “Rahul,” she whispered. “Your eyebrows are very intimidating.”
Ah. She was drunk. Sometimes it was hard to tell.
“Come here,” he said. He grabbed her forearm and steered her towards the living room.
“Get off,” she snorted, batting uselessly at him. He ignored her.
When he pushed her onto the sofa, she collapsed as if he’d shoved her off a cliff.
“I’m going to the kitchen,” he said slowly. “Don’t stand up.” He didn’t trust her in those shoes.
While she arranged herself comfortably, resting her heels against the cushions—the little brat—Rahul busied himself pouring two glasses of water.
He returned, sat at the very end of the sofa—nudging her feet out of the way—and held out a glass. “Drink.”
She took it and gulped down the lot. Then she put her feet in his lap and said, “More.”
He gave her the second glass and thanked his lucky stars that neither of her stiletto heels had stabbed him in the dick.
“Ta.” She downed the second pint and put both glasses on the floor. He winced as they clinked hard against the wood.
Then he looked down at her shoes. They were black, like her dress, with high heels and pointed toes and straps that made his eyes feel slightly blurry. They criss-crossed over each other again and again, wrapping around her ankles and then her calves, ending just below her dimpled knees in little bows.
He was grateful that they didn’t go higher. Looking at Jasmine’s thighs was always a struggle.
He took the end of one bow between finger and thumb and tugged. It didn’t budge. A double knot. There was no way she’d get them off.
“So,” he said, as he began to work the bow. “You’re very drunk.”
“And you’re highly observant,” she drawled. Or slurred. One of those.
Wanna Bet?: An Interracial Romance Page 4
