Dil or No Dil

by Suleikha Snyder

  “Ready for what? Come on, Saroj, it’s barely been a few hours,” Adam said. “Give me a chance here. Give yourself a chance. Let us have a good day.”

  That wasn’t possible. Not if she wanted to walk away from this with even a shred of sanity. “No. Because the longer I let myself be happy, the longer it’s going to take to get over you. Again.” He winced, and she stroked his cheek—as if to soothe the sting of the imagined slap. “I can’t do this. Don’t you get that?”

  “No,” he admitted. And equal parts hurt and confusion filled his voice. “Was last night a one-time thing? Is that it? Curiosity satisfied? You’re done?”

  She’d asked herself those very same questions about him, and she knew full well that her curiosity was far from satisfied. She could spend days, weeks, years learning to make love to this man. “I loved last night. I loved it too much,” she said. “And, right now, in the broad light of day…no matter how much I want to do it again…I can’t stop thinking that it’s a disaster waiting to happen. A mistake. For both of us. I think it’s too late to turn this into anything.”

  “You’re wrong.” He brushed his lips against her fingers, kissed her palm. It was too intimate for public. This conversation was too intimate for public. But she couldn’t pull away just yet. “You don’t get to make that call for me,” he told her. “You don’t get to decide if it’s my mistake.”

  “Why not?” she asked. Better her than him, right? Before she turned into a “nonissue,” too. “I pushed you into this. And I lived out my fantasy…when your reality is that you’re not in love with me, and you would never have looked at me twice if Johnny hadn’t made you. But it’s okay. Last night was perfect. I can take that with me. Just don’t make this more than it is.”

  “Saroj.” She heard his sharp intake of breath like it was her own. His mouth tightened, and his entire body went stiff. Like his white shirt and khakis were his suit of armor. “Are you kidding me? After all this, that’s your line? I don’t buy it. You’re just trying to talk yourself out of this,” he accused. “You’re the one who keeps saying it. Over and over. You’ve been trying to get over me. For years. And, hey, now that you know what it’s like to be with me, you can.” She’d never heard him be so cruel, so flippant. “Congratulations, you banged the bass player you’ve liked since freshman year. Now you can go back to a guy like Harry fucking Patel.”

  She flinched. He was the one lashing out now. She was the one taking the hit. And it hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. “Adam—”

  “No.” Her cut her off. “Don’t put this on me. I wanted you here this morning. And I wanted you last night. And now you’re running away? Acting like it’s already over? You can’t be serious.”

  “N-no. I think we can’t.” The problem was bigger than that, though. Deeper. Made of prolonged silences and drunken confessions that went nowhere and Johnny Ray’s scheming. And she only knew one way to solve it. “I think we can’t be real. This whole thing was a dream.” Conscious of all the eyes on them, she used her words as an exit line, jerking her arms from his grip and walking back out the restaurant’s front door. Her chest hurt. Everything hurt. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. She barely heard the bell chime over the sound of her first ugly sob.

  Making love and being in love were two different things…and as much as she wanted to forget that, she couldn’t. She didn’t dare.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Adam lasted a grand total of nine hours before he went looking for her. He’d followed her to the door intending to chase her down the goddamn sidewalk if he had to. But as he’d watched her double over and cover her face—Jesus Christ, like he’d snapped her in half—old man McAllister had walked up behind him. “You best leave her be, lad,” he’d advised in that soft Irish brogue. “Unless you want to put work into it. Full-time. That there’s not a part-time job.”

  Full-time? How could he make that decision in an instant? His life had barely even gotten started. He still had money to earn, years of school to get through. Probably decades until he was good enough for Saroj’s family. Until he was good enough for her.

  You’re not in love with me. Don’t make this more than it is.

  Maybe she was the one who didn’t want to make it more. And he couldn’t even blame her for that. So he’d just stood there while she walked away. Completely helpless. Unable to move. A complete and total asshole.

  Somehow, he got through the rest of his shift. Thinking about her the whole time. Her face. Her back to him through the glass door as she wiped at her tears and walked off. How she’d worn him out in bed. How she’d loved him for half their lives, and he’d just let all his own crap get in the way of even trying to feel the same way. How he’d said some really terrible things to her just because she was trying to protect herself.

  He was supposed to protect her. And he’d failed.

  What was he supposed to do with that? How was he supposed to feel?

  “Like a shithead,” Johnny Ray told him when Adam voiced the questions over a dinner of takeout Chinese and a lapful of sheet music.

  Pretty lame as far as peace offerings went, but JR had accepted it. His black eye would last way longer than any ill will over the punch Adam had landed. He slouched against the side of the couch, long legs sprawled out in front of him. “Some women can separate love and sex,” he said. “Saroj ain’t one of ‘em. I’m sorry, man, but I reckon you fucked it up royally when you…fucked.”

  Johnny Ray Morris, a true poet of their times.

  “Nice. Really nice.” Adam made a face, reaching across the floor to swipe the container of fried wontons. “You kissed Saroj, and you two are fine.” As much as he hated to bring up the subject, it was a piece of evidence that didn’t fit. “That didn’t mess anything up. Not between you two, at least,” he added, when the eyebrow over JR’s purpled eye arched in an expressive “oh, really?”

  “Because she doesn’t take me seriously.” JR shrugged. “No one takes me seriously. Except you. And I still haven’t figured that one out, because the only queer bone in your body would be mine.” Adam flinched and kicked his ankle, but the action was ignored as Johnny kept rambling, waving his chopsticks in the air for emphasis. “You know I asked her once why she picked you out of all the guys in the band to have a big raging thing for? Why not me? Right?”

  “And?” Adam almost dreaded hearing the answer.

  “And she put her head on my shoulder, held my hand, and told me, ‘I’m not a total masochist, Johnny. I’d take anybody but you.’ ” He said it without one trace of bitterness. “That’s the story of my goddamn life right there, Adam: anybody but you. But it doesn’t have to be yours.”

  “Yeah, but with her? You really think we have a story, man?” He set down his General Tso’s, thunking his head on the seat of the chair behind him. “You know how Saroj is. Where she comes from. She doesn’t even think about it, but her dad drove up in a BMW to drop her off every fall term. Even if she loses a job, she won’t ever be broke, because her family will help her out. I don’t even know what that’s like. I bartend at the kind of parties they go to. I don’t get invited to them. And I’m white. She’s never even been with a white guy before me.”

  “Hell, son. You think she cares about any of that?” JR gave him a look that plainly laid out what an idiot he was. “All she’s ever cared about is you. And you wouldn’t have slept with her if you didn’t care about her. We both know that. So quit dragging out this Lifetime movie, grow a pair of balls, and go get her.”

  That was how Adam found himself standing outside her apartment building, fists clenched in the pockets of his jacket, turning innocent fortune cookies to powder inside their plastic wrappers.

  That was how he found himself finally making a choice.

  ***

  I’m downstairs. I really need to see you.

  Saroj’s good sense only extended so far. It had forced her out of his apartment in the wee hours of the morning. It had made her turn around and walk out of McAllister’s. But
when it came to ignoring that he was right outside her door, she was powerless. She rolled off the couch, shoved her feet into flip-flops, and buzzed him into the building. A few minutes later, he was at her threshold, out of his manager’s clothes and in a dude-bro’s uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and ball cap. He still made her knees weak. She gripped the doorjamb to keep her balance as she forced out a weak “Hi,” and then backed up to let him in.

  “Hi.” Adam flashed an awkward smile, and she wanted to taste it. To lick his jaw and tattoo the imprints of his stubble into her palms. But that was no longer on the table. She’d done it once and, so help her, she’d never make the mistake of doing it again.

  “Can I get you something?” She went into hostess mode, sweeping papers off the coffee table and then flitting to the safety of the kitchenette. “Soda? Water? A beer?” Her living room felt smaller with him in it, like his shoulders stretched from wall to wall and the top of his head grazed the ceiling.

  “I don’t need anything.” He shrugged off his jacket, tipped his hat off his head, and ran both hands through his hair. The universal sign for “Adam Harper is in distress.”

  “I just…I just need you to come over here and listen to me for a minute.”

  “Why? Hasn’t it all been said?” She left the safety net of the kitchen island behind and drifted back toward him.

  “By you? Maybe. But not by me.” Adam didn’t move, like he knew she was poised to flee—not that there was any place to go. “I need to say I’m sorry. For earlier. What I said to you about sleeping with me…it was totally uncalled for.”

  “Was it? If that’s what you really believe, that I was slumming or something, then it was called for, no?” She could hear the lilt in her voice. Ahmedabad calling her home, begging her to get out of this exchange, this room, this country. But she forced herself to stay rooted to one spot. “I’ve got résumés out. I’m looking at New York or Chicago. If something bites, maybe I should just go. Maybe the best thing we can do is move on from this. Away.”

  “That’s not the best thing we can do. And it’s not the only thing.” Adam’s hands fisted at his sides. “For starters, you can quit running every time things get tough. Because you do it every single time,” he accused quietly. “You have walked out on me more times in the last month than you’ve let me get close. And that’s not gonna solve shit. Hiding is not gonna solve anything.”

  “Oh? Really?” She hated that he was right. Because, even now, she wanted to bolt. Out of the room. Out of the building. Out of the country. But she wasn’t about to admit it aloud. “Then how do we solve shit?”

  His eyes were so kind. Too kind. Too understanding. Too damn blue. “You can keep talking to me,” he said. “You can help me figure this out. You can teach me how to be with you, because I honestly have no idea how badly I’m screwing this up. I don’t want to believe you were slumming. I want to believe that you’d be happy with a blue-collar guy from the middle of nowhere. Can’t you give me that? Why is that so scary for you?”

  “Because we’ll probably mess up the relationship we already have. Because I’d rather remember you fondly, as a friend, than as someone who broke my heart. And because I’m selfish.” Apparently she had a bit more to say after all. She wrapped her arms around her midsection, wondering where the strength to speak was even coming from. “Now that I’ve had a little of you, I want all of you,” she said. “And I know it’s unfair. I know I can’t have that. And every time I say ‘I love you,’ all I’m doing is passive-aggressively pressuring you to love me, too.”

  “Why can’t you have all of me? Who made that rule?” He exhaled in a frustrated huff, shaking his head. “Do I look pressured by anything? You’re right. I can’t say it back to you right now—not in the way you want me to. But that doesn’t mean I never will, and it doesn’t mean you can’t trust me. I care about you, and I would rather die than hurt you on purpose. You’ve got to believe that. You’ve got to believe in me.”

  “I do,” she said. But, even to herself, she didn’t sound remotely convinced. As if she was already cataloging the scars she’d incurred at his hand. And, now, he knew her just well enough to see through the lies.

  “Who are you trying to fool?” Now he did cross to her, each step like an unspoken promise. She wanted to bolt into her bedroom and hide almost as much as she wanted to fly into his arms and let him hold her. “Last night, you rushed me through some of the most fantastic sex of my life because you were so scared we wouldn’t get another chance. We had plenty of time.” He reached for her, cupping her face in his big, beautiful, bassist’s hands. “We still have time. We can make this real.”

  She wanted to believe that. She wanted to hold onto it. To snuggle into his palms and stay there. But… “I had time, Adam. I had six years to fall for you. To pine for you like somebody in a stupid Nicholas Sparks movie…except, you know what? Those characters are all white and pure and crying all the time. And they don’t start dating desi investment bankers who ride horses to their weddings, or have mediocre sex because they can’t have the real thing.”

  His eyebrows rose. “With the horses?”

  Of all the times to make jokes… “Shut up.” She shoved at his chest, but it would’ve been easier to move a mountain. “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m not going to shut up, babe.” He laughed. She didn’t know how he could laugh at a time like this. “Not this time. Because you’ve got me now. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care if you’re not white. I definitely don’t need you to be pure. And if we are lucky enough to get to that point, I’ll ride a horse to our wedding. Hell, I’ll ride an elephant. Okay?”

  “Not okay.” Tears flooded her eyes. Stupid, weak tears. Hadn’t she cried enough over him? “Wh-why do you even want me now when you didn’t before?” Surely she couldn’t be that phenomenal in bed.

  “You have to ask?” His hands slipped from her face, stroking down her shoulders and her arms before linking around her hips. “Because you’re crazy neurotic. And adorable. And beautiful. And sexy. And, yeah, we had a great time together last night. But it’s more than that. I think we really have something here.”

  Oh. She sucked in a painful breath, closed her eyes against the earnest light of his eyes. Just looking at him hurt her in the most exquisite way. So did feeling him. So solid and real and safe. Maybe it was because of his words, maybe it was because of how he held her, so still and secure, but the big question that had been eating at her finally forced its way forward. In the world’s most pathetic whisper. “If I’m so great, why did it take you so long to notice me? Why didn’t you ever see me that way in college?”

  “Because I didn’t think I was allowed to.” He shrugged, leaning forward just enough to rest his chin on the top of her head. To let her breathe him in. “I didn’t think a girl like you was supposed to be with a guy like me. So I put you up in this box, on some weird pedestal. Like ‘Do Not Touch.’ I didn’t even know I was doing it,” he confessed, as his lips brushed across her hair. “But that’s not an excuse. It’s totally my fault for cluing in so late, and I want to make up for it. I want to get past all that bullshit. That’s worth it to me. You’re worth it to me.”

  “How can you be sure? H-how do you know you’re still going to want me a week from now?” And how was she going to survive two weeks from now if he stomped all over her heart?

  “Because I want to see where this goes. Because, like you said, I’ve got years of catching up to do.” Adam’s mouth brushed across her cheek in the barest of kisses. A whisper, really…and he whispered across her eyebrow, down her temple, until the hot warmth of his words found the shell of her ear. “Because this is just the opening act.”

  She absorbed it all with a gasp, with her fingers sliding through his belt loops and holding on for dear life. And then she turned her face just a few inches and kissed him. The kind of hungry, yearning kiss that would never make it into the earnest write-ups in the Gazette’s marriage announcements, that
didn’t need a “forever” so much as a “right now, goddammit.” Heat and desperation and promises. Breath-stealing frenzy.

  “Babe,” he murmured when they broke for air. “Are you with me? Are you in? Am I worth it to you?”

  Yes. Of course. Always. Those were words she couldn’t keep inside. So she said them out loud. And then she showed him what they meant. That he’d been worth it from the beginning. That she’d never quit wanting this. That she didn’t care what color his collar was, she just wanted his shirt off.

  Their lips dueled and danced and got deliriously drunk. He kissed her until she was dizzy, and she kissed him until she believed him. Until it sank in that this ridiculous hunk of a man was hers—not because she’d forced him or guilted him to be here, but because he truly wanted to be. The evidence was incontrovertible. The way he held her. How he tasted. How hard he was for her. That wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a delusion. She could feel it. The ridge in the taut denim. The hot, wet stroke of his tongue. The possessive band of his arms.

  And she made sure he could feel her, too. “Yes,” in how she slid her hands beneath his T-shirt and pushed it upward. “Of course” in how she kissed his jaw, his throat, his pulse. “Always” in how she gave herself totally over to him and to this.

  Adam, Adam, Adam. She thought his name like an exclamation point ending each kiss, and somewhere in the middle of it all, he maneuvered her to the sofa. They fell against the cushions in an artless tangle of limbs and laughs. Her head only narrowly missed connecting with the wide arm of the couch.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, as she dug the TV remote control out from beneath her spine and he pulled the straps of her tank top down over her arms.

  This was just an ordinary night, like the several hundred that had come before it. There were no stars to wish on, no mystical portents, and no fashion fairy godmothers to save the day.