by Sonali Dev
“Actually, I’m your only niece.”
“And therefore even more special.” Uma switched to her native Marathi, like she always did when she wanted to be especially affectionate.
“You do realize that makes no sense at all, right?” Ria switched to Marathi too. A giggle escaped her, the sound taking her completely by surprise.
Uma’s eyes glowed, her smile one part pride, one part protectiveness, three parts pure joy at having Ria in her life. “I’m so glad you’re home, beta.” That smile had lit up the love-starved corners of Ria’s childhood. Now its warmth melted the sharp edges of hopelessness inside her and despite the horrors that lay ahead, for one precious moment, she was glad to be home.
6
The house was dead silent when Ria awoke. When she had slipped upstairs last night it had still been buzzing with activity. It would be a while before anyone else woke up. She threw on a silk kimono over her white-eyelet pajamas and knotted the corded sash at her waist. The huge turquoise flowers on the kimono made her feel like she was in a commercial for bathroom fixtures.
Turquoise was her designer’s color this season. He’d picked up an obsession for it on his Mediterranean vacation that summer. And he’d virtually drowned Ria in it ever since, insisting it was perfect for “that particular beer-bottle brown” of her eyes. It makes that silent sensuous thing you do scream out, darling! A few years ago red had done the same thing. That had been the year he’d visited China.
Ria slipped her feet into silk thong slippers, also turquoise, and padded down the stairs, determined that today would be different from yesterday. Was it really just a few hours since the last time she’d come down the stairs terrified about seeing Vikram again? After ten years of living a life that felt as much like suspended animation on the inside as how fast and eventful it appeared on the outside, in the past day she had traveled years through time. The lines between her memories and reality turned fuzzy, like the wind messing up the edges of a rangoli painting drawn with colored dust.
With or without jet lag, sleep had been impossible. Images of Vikram and Mira climbing all over each other had haunted Ria all night. She gave her head a violent shake. Some of the positions she’d imagined them in technically weren’t even possible, unless you were a particularly skilled acrobat.
She tightened the cord around her waist and ran her fingers up and down the twisted silk in her hands, focusing on the texture, and consciously anchored herself in the present. Admittedly, yesterday’s encounter with him had been a disaster. But then, how could it not have been? If she was anything she was a realist. She never lied to herself. It would have been nice to have handled it better and to not have let herself turn into such a colossal mess afterward. But it was over now. The drama and the shock of seeing him again—even though she would give anything to have changed the specifics of the meeting—was behind her.
Uma Atya, Vijay Kaka, Nikhil, and Jen needed her. She had so much she’d missed with the aunties that she needed to catch up on. Those were the things she needed to focus on, and with all that remained to be done for the wedding, two weeks would be gone in a heartbeat.
“It’s two weeks. Just two measly weeks,” she chanted it under her breath as she entered the kitchen. Starlight streamed through the windows and mingled with the fluorescence of the appliances to cast a fuzzy glow over the room. Not that she needed mood lighting to make it magical. One step in and it was like her fairy godmother had tapped her with a wand and sprinkled stardust all over her. She would have spun around, Disney-princess style, if she were given to doing that sort of thing.
She didn’t bother to turn on a light. She knew exactly where everything was. Reaching into a cabinet, she pulled out a glass, and then turned on the faucet. A lullaby Uma had sung to her played in her head as she let the water turn warm before filling the glass, humming softly. Bubbles danced in the water and she watched them fizzle before downing the entire glass.
Her trainer insisted three glasses of warm water with lemon first thing in the morning washed away all the toxins in your body. She had already sent Ria a text last night reminding her to “stay on top of her program,” and Ria couldn’t bring herself to let her down. It was bad enough that she wasn’t bothering to squeeze half a lemon in each glass.
Feeling quite the rebel, she sucked in her breath, pulling her stomach all the way back to her spine, and did a quick set of breathing exercises—a separate text had been sent for this. Quick in-and-out breaths pumping through her stomach, like someone was punching her. Oof. Oof. Oof. She chugged the second glass. Then another set of breaths. Oof. Oof. Oof. Then another glass and she was done.
She put the glass in the sink, which was piled high with dishes. The party must’ve ended really late last night if Uma and the aunties had left the dishes unwashed. She turned around to survey the rest of the kitchen.
“Hi.”
She jumped and slammed into the counter behind her. Her hand flew to her mouth, muffling the yelp that escaped nonetheless.
Vikram sat at the dining table, leaning over a huge bowl of cereal, his face a mask of indifference. He popped a spoonful in his mouth and started chewing as if Ria routinely walked in on him eating cereal in the middle of the night and subjected him to absurd breathing routines.
Sparkles of pain danced across her back and her heart hammered as though she were having a heart attack. She dragged her hand from her mouth to her chest and waited for the beat to slow. “I—what—I didn’t see you.”
He lifted his shoulders in the slightest shrug. “Obviously,” his eyes said.
“I was waiting for you to put the glass down before I said anything. Don’t want to demolish all of Uma’s glassware.” He didn’t smile, just disinterestedly pushed another spoonful in his mouth and looked away.
An awkward silence settled between them. All that terrifying anticipation and it had led to this?
At least his hands were holding a spoon, not squeezing someone’s butt.
Great, that visual again. She felt like the reel of film she was on was jammed. Across from her, Vikram continued to eat as though she wasn’t even in the room. His jaw moved in a strong, steady rhythm. The subtle ridges along his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Despite the rumpled hair, despite the shadowy stubble and that cold, hard set of his jaw, he looked like you could put him on a billboard and the public would buy whatever you were selling. He looked perfect. There was just no other word for it. Warm and vital and perfect.
She gripped the cold granite behind her.
Of course he chose that precise moment to look up and catch her staring.
“Your back okay?” he asked, his tone sharp. He might as well have snapped his fingers in her face to snap her out of her trance.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
Another shrug. Another long silence.
“It’s a mess in here.” Saying something inane and obvious was possibly the only way to make things more awkward. So, naturally that’s what she did.
Before he could present her with another shrug she turned away and started to unload the dishwasher, pulling out a plate, and then completely blanking out on where it went. She hugged it to her chest and studied the cabinets, waiting for it to come back to her, willing her brain to start functioning again.
“The cabinet next to the microwave,” he said.
She turned around to thank him, but no words came out, instead, she just stood there like a buffoon. He pointed to the cabinet with his spoon and started studying the cereal box, shifting it so it stood between them like a shield. He had loved to read cereal boxes aloud, cracking up at the silly jokes on them the way only he could.
What do ghosts put in their cereal? Boo-berries.
There wasn’t a trace of humor in him now. The furrow between his brows was almost as deep as the wrinkles in his shirt. Her eyes traced the creases draped around the bulges on his arms and shoulders—which had widened to twice their size. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d noticed yest
erday that he had filled out. But how had she missed this? He hadn’t just filled out. He had expanded and burst out of all his youthful leanness into some sort of ridiculous athletic buffness. His arms looked like they lifted lumber for a living, not a scalpel.
A groan escaped her. She tried to turn it into a cough, but just ended up making it louder. Vikram’s hand paused for a second on its way to his mouth. Other than that, he gave no indication of having noticed. Heat rose up her cheeks. She forced herself to move before she embarrassed herself even more, and put the dishes away, stacking them perfectly, adjusting them until they were just so. It wasn’t easy with fingers that turned suddenly into rubber bands and eyes that wouldn’t stop seeking him out, punishing her for starving them so long.
He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. A midnight-blue shirt, the cotton embossed with a bold paisley batik print. Something she could never have imagined him in. He had always been such a conventional dresser—T-shirts and jeans alternating with jeans and T-shirts. Come to think of it, there was nothing conventional about the way he looked anymore. His hair was long, curling at his neck and falling over his forehead, completely different from the closely cropped haircut he had sported with the neatly spiked front. It wasn’t just his body that was different, it was everything. Every feature had weathered into manhood. His jaw was wider, his neck thicker, everything had a rougher, wilder edge to it, every evidence of the clean-cut boyishness of her Viky wiped away.
Except for his mouth. Time hadn’t touched his mouth. It was as lush and wide as ever, with that pronounced gap right in the center—a tantalizing little notch where his lips didn’t quite fit together. She had loved his mouth, loved tracing that vulnerable dip with her fingers, loved to watch it when he talked, sketched it over and over again in her sketchbook the way other girls wrote boy’s names. But most of all she had loved how it felt against her lips.
He looked up and caught her watching him again. His eyebrows drew together over angry eyes. She looked away and stared at the empty dishwasher, her arms dangling uselessly at her sides, longing pooling in her belly like warm, thick honey.
His body was none of her business. His mouth was certainly none of her business, especially since it had been all over someone else not too long ago. And now he was apparently only just getting home. Which meant he and that mouth of his had been out all night. With Mira. All night. What time was it anyway?
“It’s five o’clock,” he said.
Her gaze flew up and met his. She hadn’t said the words out loud. The moment stretched out, pulsing between them like a raw, exposed nerve.
They had never needed words.
Vikram came to the exact same conclusion at the exact same moment. Panic flashed in his eyes, throwing him wide open for one beat of a second. With a deliberate gulp he regained his composure and pushed away from the table, rising up to his full height. The oversized kitchen shrank around Ria.
He picked up the empty bowl and looked at the sink behind her. She was leaning so far back into it, she was halfway inside it. He set the bowl back on the table.
“See you around. It’s been a long night.” His voice came out even and in control and completely at odds with what had flashed in his eyes moments ago. He turned and started walking away from her. Good. He was leaving. Perfect.
“So, you’re staying in the house?” She heard her own voice, but she couldn’t possibly have been stupid enough to speak.
He stopped mid-step, veering forward as if she had yanked him back by his belt. He stood like that for a moment, suspended by his struggle to walk away without answering, but then he turned around. Impatience and anger darkened his eyes and colored the crests of his cheeks over all that thick stubble. He couldn’t have made it more obvious how little he wanted to be here talking to her.
“You think Uma would let me stay anywhere else?” Despite his anger his tone softened on Uma’s name.
He always called everyone by their first name. Uma, Vijay—no auntie, uncle, atya, or kaka. For anyone else it would’ve been unthinkably rude and disrespectful. For Vikram it was just plain natural.
Ria shook her head. No, Uma Atya would never let him stay anywhere else.
“Why? Where else did you want me to stay?” The faintest hint of a challenge simmered in his voice and she knew stopping him had been a huge mistake.
Why had she spoken? Why?
“No, that’s not what I meant. I was just—Did you just get home?”
His eyebrows shot up. Ria wanted to tape her mouth shut. She had never had trouble speaking around Vikram. Words that hid from everyone else had bubbled up around him unbidden. It’s what had set him apart, pulled her to him with such force. But she wasn’t eight anymore and this was ridiculous.
His eyes hardened. “All right, I’ll play,” they said. “I drove Mira home. She lives in the city.”
Mira.
The name dropped between them like a ton of rubble. Ria knew she shouldn’t react, but she couldn’t stop her arms from wrapping around herself.
He took a step closer. “You remember Mira—you met her yesterday.” His eyes were so cold, a chill prickled up and down Ria’s arms. “She’s my—We’re together.”
He studied her, intense as a hawk in a hunt, registering every reaction, and zeroing in on the pain his words caused. The way he savored it grated against something deep inside her.
She stopped rubbing her arms and forced her voice to sound as cool as his. “Yes, I noticed. Congratulations. She seems really nice.”
Anger sparkled in the arctic depths of his eyes. “Yes. She is. She’s great.”
Their gazes locked. “And pretty. She’s really pretty too.”
“And she’s not just looks either.” Ria flinched and a satisfied glimmer lit his eyes. “She’s fun. Things are never boring when she’s around.”
“No. You didn’t look bored last night.”
He started. The anger he’d been controlling popped in his eyes and filled them, turning the crystal gray almost opaque. “You’re right, I was far from bored. Although you did walk in before the best part.”
The punch landed hard in the center of her chest and she almost gasped.
He smiled, ready to walk away. But those bloody words were out of her control now. “Good thing you had no trouble starting where you’d left off. You didn’t even wait for me to leave.”
His smile disappeared. “Oh, we had no trouble at all.” His jaw clenched. “What can I say, it’s a gift.” He took another step closer. He was a few feet away now, and Ria felt like someone standing at the foot of a tidal wave as it rose and rose, waiting for it to fold over and take her down. “But you know how that goes. It didn’t take me much to heat you up either, or don’t you remember?”
Ria sucked in her breath and watched helplessly as the last of his control snapped. The wave crashed over and pulled them under. “No, wait,” he said. “That wasn’t just me. That was any man. Any man you needed something from.” It wasn’t just anger in his eyes anymore, but disgust, and it turned him into someone she didn’t recognize. Shame fell like ice water on the adrenaline that had been pumping through her veins.
“How is he, by the way? Your—” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, if he’s old enough to be your father, do you still call him your boyfriend?”
A horrible ache filled Ria.
“Tell me, does he need his goons to do all his work for him? Or just beating the crap out of the poor fucks you’re done with?”
Ria closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Memories of his bleeding face, his battered, limping body, swam in her head. Ved’s bodyguards had tried to send him away when he came to see her after he returned from Brazil and found her gone. But he’d refused to back down until they let him talk to her, attacking them, over and over, like a desperate bird flying into glass. Finally, she had feared for his life and agreed to see him. She had let Ved hold her, pretended to want Ved’s arms around her even as her skin crawled and her st
omach churned. Vikram had taken a beating without wincing, but the sight of her in Ved’s arms had broken him, as she’d known it would. He had walked away without a backward glance.
Ria opened her eyes. He watched her, his eyes fixed on her face. For one fleeting second, she saw the pain tearing through her heart mirrored in his eyes.
He took a quick step back, his jaw working furiously. “Damn it.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his fingers through his hair, clutching the jet-black strands until his knuckles turned white. For the longest moment he stood utterly still.
When he opened his eyes a curtain had fallen over them again. “You’re good.” He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. “You’re really good. I didn’t stand a chance, did I? Hell, your sugar-fuckin’-daddy didn’t stand a chance, did he?” A short, mirthless laugh whooshed out of him. “But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I can see right through you now. Right fucking through you.”
Her knees buckled. She sagged against the unyielding granite digging into her back. Deep dark exhaustion closed around her. This time the silence in the room was impregnable. Vikram gave her one last look, challenging her to say more, then walked to the table and picked up his bowl and brought it to the sink. She was still in his way, but it didn’t seem to bother him anymore. He leaned across her and dumped the bowl on the pile of dishes.
Through the deadening hurt, his fresh musky scent washed over her. Another achingly familiar piece broke from the tangle of memories and clicked into place. She felt the thick steel of armor he’d drawn around himself and moved to get away from it. But he moved too, rushing to get away from her, and his arm brushed hers. All on its own, her body leaned into his touch.
He jerked away.
Mortified, she withdrew into herself. Breath gushed from him—short, heavy bursts as he backed away. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. But she heard the haste in his steps, heard him yank open the basement door and run down the stairs.
For a long while she slumped there like a rag doll, hair spilling around her face, his footsteps ringing in her ears, his scent filling her senses, his touch gouging out memories that were thorns lodged too deep.
