“Right. So . . . I think we should go further.”
Rishi laughed and groaned simultaneously, rubbing a hand over his face. “Dimple, believe me, I do too. But this is not a conversation to have when we’re both . . .” He made a vague gesture between them. “We need to think this through and talk it through with more rational minds. At least, I’d like to.” He raised his eyebrows pleadingly.
Dimple sighed. “If you’re doing this because of some old-school concern for my ‘honor,’ you don’t need to.”
He came forward and took her hands. “It’s not about your honor or mine. It’s just something I feel we should think about beforehand. Instead of just doing it, I’d like to have some time to really decide if we want to take that step now.”
It made sense, what Rishi was saying. This would be her first time, and, she was pretty sure, his, too. They definitely shouldn’t do it up against a grotty wall in an abandoned alley with feral cats watching judgmentally from a trash can. And she still needed to think about that voice, about what it had said. About whether any of those things had merit. If they did, sex would only complicate things further. But still . . . a part of her squirmed, frustrated at being thwarted. Her desire was like its own person, pushy and bossy as heck.
Dimple took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said, pushing herself off the wall. “Let’s think about it and reconvene at a later date.”
Rishi laughed and reached for her, snaking a strong arm around her waist and pulling her snug against him. They walked back out toward the sidewalk together, Dimple feeling confused and frustrated and all manner of things she couldn’t even begin to untangle.
• • •
On Tuesday evening Ashish set the camera on a little tripod he’d bought and looked through the screen. He’d gotten even more serious now that (a) the performance was only four days away and (b) the conversation with Celia had not gone well that night after Rios. Not that either Celia or Ashish had discussed anything with Dimple (or Rishi). But their refusal to discuss it beyond an Everything is fine said volumes.
Dimple and Rishi posed in their final outfits, grinning as the opening strains of “Dance Pe Chance” began to play.
Dimple wasn’t even that nervous anymore. Okay, that was a lie. Every time she thought about dancing in front of an audience full of strangers in four short days, she wanted to throw up or die. Or leap from tall buildings. Anything that would require her to not perform. But she kept thinking of the end goal. The prize. The money that would enable her to build a better app, which would be so much better in the long run. It’d make her—them—that much more likely to win Insomnia Con.
“Did you know seventy-eight percent of the winners of the talent show have also gone on to win Insomnia Con?” she said, pausing the laptop to adjust her headband.
“Yes, I did know, my sweet,” Rishi said, kissing the side of her head. “You’ve told me about seventy-eight thousand times.”
Ashish snorted from behind the camera, but Dimple silenced him with a glare. “Are you still recording? Shouldn’t you pause when we’re not dancing? Aren’t you running out of space?”
Ashish looked at her quizzically. “You ask a lot of questions when you’re nervous.”
“What do you mean?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m uploading all of these to the cloud, so they’re not being stored on my phone. We have a megaton of video, so that was the best option.”
“ ‘A megaton’ is right.” They’d spent a good four hours the night before watching videos from their “training sessions,” as Ashish was calling them, or “torture sessions,” according to Rishi. He insisted Ashish had gone all Coach Taylor/Friday Night Lights on them.
But Dimple liked the amount of effort Ashish put into coaching them. He had a natural eye for choreography, and everything he said sort of clicked for her. She knew they had a much stronger routine now than they’d had at the beginning. It was funny and fun, quirky, and just cool enough to get the votes they needed.
Rishi ran a hand along her cheek. “It’s going to be okay. Even if we don’t win, we’ll have tried our hearts out. That’s all we can do.”
She put a hand over his. “I know. But I want it so much. We have to win this, you know? Not just this talent show, but Insomnia Con. We have to.”
He shook his head, a little bewildered. “But why? You’re so talented, Dimple. Even if you don’t win this one contest, you’re going to go on to do amazing things. This app is going to change lives.”
“I know. That’s why I want it to get the best possible chance it can.” She looked deep into his eyes, trying to get him to see what she saw. “This app can help people like Papa—I have no doubt in my mind. That’s not me being arrogant; that’s just what living with someone with diabetes has taught me. I’ve seen it encroach on his life. I’ve seen what it did to him. He tries to hide it, but the anxiety is real. And winning Insomnia Con is going to help me get to Jenny Lindt, the one person I know can help me get it out to a wider audience. She’s amazing, Rishi. You guys are probably tired of hearing me say it, but she is. I feel like just being in her presence will help me make my app better, let alone if she decides to help us build and market it.” Dimple laughed, realizing how intense she’d gotten, like she always did when she talked about coding or Jenny Lindt. She was even clutching Rishi’s arm in a death grip. “Sorry,” she said, loosening her stiff fingers.
“That’s okay, it’s my left arm,” he deadpanned. “Don’t need it anyway.” He began to dance around to the steps of “Dance Pe Chance,” his left arm stiff against his body. “See? It works either way.”
Dimple laughed and threw a pillow at him. “Stop it.” She took a breath. “Let’s practice.”
“Finally,” Ashish said from behind the camera, “I thought you two were never going to get serious.”
CHAPTER 46
About an hour and a half later they’d been through the dance once, watched the video once, and then done the dance again. Dimple stretched out her sore muscles. There was a light coating of sweat all over her. “I’m going take a shower. I think we’re well rehearsed, don’t you?” she asked Ashish.
“Yes,” he said confidently. “You don’t want to overdo it. I think now you guys just need to relax.”
“Thank gods,” Rishi groaned, falling backward on the bed.
Dimple laughed and poked him on the knee with a toe. “Gross. You’re all sweaty and now your sheets are going to smell like sweat.”
He sat up and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down on top of him. “You know you love it,” he said, nuzzling her neck. Goose bumps sprouted all over her body as the conversation they’d had last weekend after Rios floated into memory.
“All right, I’m out,” Ashish said, behind them. “You guys need to get a room.”
Dimple looked over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised. Rishi laughed in her ear, his breath tickling.
“Oh, right,” Ashish said, looking around, running a hand through his rumpled hair. “This is your room. Whatever. I’m hungry. I’m going to get lunch at that taco food truck. You guys want anything?”
They shook their heads at him, and he left, shutting the door behind him.
Dimple turned back to Rishi in the silence. She was still lying on top of him, her soft lines molded to his hard ones. She could smell him, warm and soapy, with just a hint of musk. She shifted a little, and he made a noise in the back of his throat. Dimple was acutely aware that she could feel . . . something. Against her thigh. The realization made her joints feel warm and loose, liquid. She leaned up and kissed Rishi, her tongue falling against his with a fervor that surprised her.
After a minute of his hands on her back and bottom, and hers wherever she could find space—on his face, in his hair, on his amazing shoulders—Rishi pulled her back a little. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said, breathing hard. His eyes were deep and dark, nearly all pupil.
She put her mouth on his again. “Why?” she said
against it.
He turned his head and groaned. “We haven’t finished our discussion from Rios. And you’re driving me insane. It’s going to be hard to stop if we keep going. I mean, it’s already hard.” Rishi turned to her suddenly, studying her smile. “That’s not what I meant.”
She laughed and stroked his jaw with a finger, reveling in how his eyelids fluttered close. “We don’t need to talk. I’ve thought about what you said that night.”
He looked at her again, serious. “And?”
“And . . . I want you, Rishi. Now.” Dimple couldn’t believe the words had actually left her mouth. Was this what lust was? Did it turn you into this brazen, dauntless person who asked for what she wanted in spite of usually being racked with social anxiety? Maybe Dimple ought to spend more time in a state of frenzied desire.
Rishi stared at her. “You want . . . so are you saying you want to have sex?”
She put her mouth on his earlobe, feeling it with her lips. “I mean, why not? We’re consenting adults. We’ve thought about it. We have a room to ourselves. We like each other. . . .” Dimple pulled back and looked at him sternly. “Right? You like me? This isn’t just an elaborate ploy to get into my pants?”
Rishi looked actually offended. “What? Of course not! You know I would never—”
Dimple laughed. “Relax, I’m just kidding.” She put her head on his chest, listening to the thump-thump of his heart. It was solid, strong, trustworthy. She traced a finger from the hollow of his throat to his breastbone. “I’m ready if you are.”
His hand moved to her hair, gently cupping the back of her head. “What about your parents?”
She made a face that she was sure he would be able to see in her tone. “Um, I’d rather we left them out of this.”
He laughed, the sound rumbling in his chest. “No, I mean, won’t they be disappointed? My parents would be. They’re huge on not having sex until you’re married. Once a cousin of mine was visiting with his fiancée, and they asked to sleep in the same room. I thought Pappa would die of an apoplectic fit. He gave them this huge lecture on how they were letting down their parents, him and Ma, and all of the gods and goddesses.”
Dimple snorted. “That was probably an interesting conversation to overhear. How old were you?”
“Like eleven or twelve. I was just disappointed I wouldn’t get the chance to press my ear up to their wall to hear something good later.”
“Ew.” Dimple slapped him lightly on the chest, and he laughed. “Well,” she said, “Mamma has always talked to me about the evils of boys. I don’t think she was ever too worried though. I never had a legion of guys coming around. If anything, I think she’s always been worried that I’ll end up alone with a herd of cats.” She leaned up on one elbow and looked Rishi in the eye. “But it doesn’t matter to me anyway. This is between you and me. This is our decision. Why should we think about our parents?”
Rishi kissed her forehead. “Because it’s what we do.”
Dimple opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it because she realized he was right. Whether she liked it or not, she did think of her parents when she wanted to make big decisions. They mattered to her, however much she wished it weren’t true.
Rishi pulled back and looked at her. “In this case, in this very specific case, though, I agree with you. I think we should make the decision for ourselves.”
Dimple grinned and leaned in for a kiss. “Good. Then my decision is that you should take off your shirt.”
This moment felt both hard to believe and completely inevitable, if such a thing were possible.
They were each kneeling and facing the other now. Dimple’s eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. “Do you have . . . ?”
Rishi looked at her, waiting. “Have?” And then realization dawned. She meant a condom. Rishi felt his face flush to match hers. “Yeah, I do.”
When she nodded, Rishi unbuttoned his shirt, his fingers trembling slightly. It wasn’t that he was nervous for Dimple to see him unclothed. It was that this felt like a solid, intractable line they were crossing. There were no take-backs after sex; there was no way to undo how much deeper they were falling into it.
As he let his shirt fall, as he watched Dimple’s eyes rove over his chest and stomach, with her small hands following haltingly close after, Rishi wondered if he should be hesitating more. Should there be more doubt? Should he have argued with Dimple more, to see if this was something she really, really wanted, and something she wouldn’t regret later?
She looked up at him. “You’re unbelievably beautiful,” she whispered, her eyes shining like twin stars.
And all his doubts vanished into the ether.
Rishi took off her glasses with a gentleness that made her want to cry; his fingers barely grazed the sides of her face. Folding them, he set them neatly on the nightstand before turning back to her.
Reaching behind her, he gathered her close and unzipped her kurta top. He paused, hands on her shoulders, and looked at her, a question in his eyes. Dimple nodded, biting her lower lip, her heart thundering so hard she was sure her chest was jumping with each beat.
When her bra lay beside Rishi’s bed, her jeans and underwear on top of them, all in a tangled, warm heap, she looked up at his slightly blurry form, trying to read his expression.
It was . . . reverential. There was no other word for it. He was looking at her like she’d stepped out of the pages of his comics, a living, breathing soul mate to Aditya, that wild, curly haired girl come to life.
“Oh . . .” The sound had escaped without Rishi seeming to notice. He leaned down and swept her hair aside with just his fingertips, gently kissing the side of her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone. “Lajawab,” he murmured against her skin.
Dimple breathed out, her body turning to liquid gold under the slow fire of his lips. She closed her eyes, letting him guide them both downward onto the bed.
CHAPTER 47
When Dimple let herself into her dorm room around dinnertime, she was still smiling. Her bones felt warm and flexible; her joints were held together with laughing gas. Everything felt brighter, shinier. And she didn’t even care if that was a cliché.
She was humming “Dance Pe Chance” to herself when the lump of covers on Celia’s bed moved. Dimple jumped. “I didn’t know you were napping in here! Sorry. Was I too loud?”
The face that poked out had a goatee. Dimple shrieked.
“Chill, dude,” Evan said, rubbing his face grumpily as he sat up. The covers pooled around his waist; he wasn’t wearing a shirt. In spite of his six-pack, Dimple couldn’t help but think that she much preferred Rishi’s solid body to his. It just felt more . . . honest somehow.
“Where’s Celia?” she asked, but the door opened and Celia walked in dressed in a lime green bathrobe that barely covered her butt.
“Um.” She looked from Dimple to Evan and back again, her cheeks flushing. Water dripped from her curls to the carpet. “I thought you were going to be with Rishi till late.”
“Yeah, I came to get my wallet.” Dimple picked it up from her dresser and waved it around like proof. She looked at Evan. “So.”
To Evan, Celia said, “You should probably go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Aight.” Aight? Dimple didn’t know anyone in real life who said it like that, unironically. He seemed to be pulling on his boxers under the covers, for which Dimple was grateful. He slid out, pulled on his pants and a shirt, and ran a hand through his hair. The silence was deafening. Dimple stood there, fiddling with the zipper on her wallet. Celia stared blankly at Evan. Finally, he nodded at them and left, without saying a word.
They both exhaled at the same time when the door closed. Dimple looked at Celia, trying to keep her expression as nonjudgmental as possible. Celia’s mouth was hard, defensive, and her hazel eyes flashed. “What?” she asked.
Dimple held up her hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking it.” Celia walked
in and opened her closet door, then let her robe slip off. Dimple looked away. “Just say it.”
Dimple sighed and walked over to her bed. She sat, holding her wallet between her knees. “I don’t want to say anything judgy, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m just . . . he’s made you so unhappy. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I won’t be,” Celia said, her voice muffled as she pulled some article of clothing over her head. “I’m a big girl; I can handle it.” She shut the closet door and leaned against it, dressed in skinny jeans and a dolman sleeved indigo blue top that showed her belly button. “Which brings me to another thing—I decided I’m going to do the dance thing. With Isabelle and the rest of them.”
She looked at Dimple from under her eyelashes, like she was waiting for an outburst. Which Dimple was determined not to give her. “Right,” she said carefully. “With the . . . with the dancing in bikinis and stuff?”
Celia rolled her eyes and walked to the dresser, where she opened up various pots of makeup and began putting them on. “Yeah. It’s really not a big deal, okay?”
Dimple chewed the inside of her lip, wondering if she should just let it go. Probably. But that had never stopped her before. “It seemed like a big deal when he first told you about it that day in class. Remember? You left the lecture hall crying.”
“Yeah, but I was just overreacting. Look, you have a conflict of interest in this thing.”
Dimple stared at the back of her head, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Celia looked at her in the mirror as she pressed on her eyelashes using what must be a curler, but looked more like a medieval torture device. “You obviously want me to get together with Ashish.”
“I don’t! I mean, that’s not why I . . . I admit I think Ashish and you make a better couple than you and Evan.” She tried to say his name without gagging and mostly succeeded. “But that’s not why I’m saying this. You genuinely seemed upset—which you had every right to be. This isn’t you, Celia. I know you want to fit in with the cool kids like you couldn’t in high school and everything—”
When Dimple Met Rishi Page 23
