First Comes Like

by Alisha Rai

  Jia rubbed the bridge of her nose. Dev had gone ramrod straight next to her. His brain was probably breaking at the impropriety of them sharing a room.

  But this wasn’t the worst thing ever. She trusted Dev in a way she’d never trusted any other guy. He wouldn’t so much as touch her. He’d accepted her body against his on the beach while he’d been having his attack, but as soon as he’d come back to himself, he’d gently rebuffed her.

  It’s because he doesn’t want to touch you. You’re fine to pal around with, but he has no romantic interest in you. You’re too much.

  She’d tried not to take it too personally. She’d never had a panic attack herself, but between Sadia and Katrina, she’d been around for a few of them. She understood anxiety and the pressure it could place on the human brain. Or in Dev’s case, what appeared to be hugely unresolved grief.

  She’d wanted to crawl into his lap and wrap herself around him like a vine until it passed. And then after, too, when he’d looked so embarrassed. Only the fact that she knew it would horrify him had kept her touch somewhat platonic.

  “Are there two beds?” she said, taking initiative since Dev seemed to have lost his ability to speak.

  “It’s a suite. There’s a queen-size bed and a foldout couch.” The woman snapped her gum again. Her name tag said Jenny. Jenny seemed remarkably unbothered over whether they took a room or not, though Jia imagined it must be hard to get business out here. “It’s cozy,” Jenny added.

  That was code for small. Jia glanced around. That would track with the rest of this place. It was dark, from the dim lighting to the dark wood. Signed dollar bills were tacked all over the walls and ceiling.

  “Say, do I know you?” Jenny suddenly asked. She leaned closer, scrutinizing Dev.

  Oops. Jia may have been wrong. There might be some foreign film fans in this place after all. That would teach her not to stereotype.

  “I don’t think so,” Dev said politely.

  “Oh, you’re British,” Jenny said, and about twenty years seemed to melt off her as she leaned against the counter and batted her lashes. “We don’t get many British people here.”

  “I’m not—”

  There was little need for Dev to clarify, not when clarification might lead to Jenny remembering where she’d seen him. “We’ll take the room.” Jia rummaged in her purse to get her license and credit card, but Dev chose that second to launch into action.

  He gently nudged her aside, and took out two crisp fifty-dollar bills from his wallet. Smart, not to give their names. “Will this suffice?”

  “Yup.” The mystery of Dev’s nationality forgotten, Jenny snatched up the money. “Breakfast is served down here in the morning until ten. I recommend the patty melt.”

  “For breakfast?” Jia asked.

  “For anything.” Jenny reached under the counter and returned with a key. “Here you go. Upstairs, turn left.” She jerked her chin at the stairs. “There’s an ice machine and soda machine to the right. Our Wi-Fi is down, sorry.”

  Jia fiddled with her scarf, but she stopped when she noticed the other woman eyeing her. She might love the spotlight, but she also had a healthy wariness of negative attention based on how she looked. “There are phones in the rooms, right?”

  “Nah. Everyone’s got cells now, so we got rid of them.”

  Dev pulled out another twenty. “Do you by chance have a phone we can use? Neither of us has cell service.”

  Jenny didn’t look surprised. She pulled out an ancient landline phone and placed it on the bar. “You can give your people this number for any emergencies.”

  They thanked her and Dev gestured to Jia. “Please, go ahead.”

  “Thanks.” Jia quickly dialed Katrina, who picked up after the third ring. She turned her back on her roommate for the night, though he walked a few steps away to give her some privacy. “Hey, it’s me. I had a little car trouble.”

  “Oh dear. Where are you? Is everything okay?”

  “Yup.” Jia gave her a quick rundown of what had happened. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you being all alone in the middle of nowhere,” Katrina fretted. “I can send Jas to get you. He’d be happy to make the drive.”

  Katrina’s boyfriend probably would be thrilled to rescue her, even if it meant a seven-hour round trip. The former bodyguard did like to play hero. She didn’t want to put anyone through that, though. “No, that’s okay. I’m not alone, anyway.”

  Katrina paused. “Dev?”

  “Yup.”

  “Hmm.” There was a beat of silence. “Are you . . . happy about that?”

  “Yes.”

  A hint of humor entered her roommate’s voice. “Interesting.”

  Jia pressed the phone tighter to her ear. She glanced over her shoulder, but Dev was all the way across the room, seemingly fascinated with some of the dollar bills on the wall. He wouldn’t be able to hear what Katrina was saying, surely. “Hush.”

  “Okay, well. Let me know if you need anything. See you tomorrow.”

  “Cool, thanks. Talk soon.” Jia hung up. Dev made a call as well, speaking in such rapid Hindi that Jia wouldn’t have been able to follow even if she did speak the language.

  When he hung up, Dev turned to her. “Jia.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said breezily, having anticipated this conversation. “A suite is basically a luxurious L.A. apartment. We’ll have plenty of space.” Your virtue is safe.

  “I merely wanted to ask if you wanted to take any photos here.” Dev cocked his head, as if to encompass the room. “It’s very interesting, in that deserted way.”

  It was so strange to have someone so supportive of her career that they actually came up with ideas for her to photograph. Even her friends or Ayesha got tired of taking hundreds of pictures of her.

  That he’d bounced back so quickly from a panic attack to pivot to focusing on her made it even more amazing. “Maybe tomorrow. Let’s get settled first.”

  They went outside and walked around the back of the building and then trudged upstairs. Jia was painfully aware of Dev behind her on the stairs. When she opened their motel room door, Jia released the breath she was holding. This wasn’t . . . the worst.

  Oh, it was no luxury hotel room, but the decor was country chic and the foldout sofa looked clean and comfortable. She peeked into the room. The bed was heaped with pristine white pillows and a purple quilt. It was technically one room, yes, but they’d have privacy. “It’s not so bad,” Jia enthused. She pointed at the red rose printed wallpaper. “Now that would make a good background.”

  Dev nodded. “Why don’t you settle in? I need to get something from downstairs. I’ll be back.”

  Jia stared at the door for a moment after he left. Was he running away? Was he so freaked out by the thought of sharing a small room with her? She envisioned him sprinting all the way back to the water and yanking his car out of the sand with his own brute strength.

  Don’t worry about it.

  She fumbled for her phone and scrolled through her voice notes, but sadly, she hadn’t thought to record anything for herself in the event of a sleepover with the man she had a crush on.

  Oh no.

  Oh no. No. No. No. She did not have a crush on him, she was not developing feelings for him. She’d fallen for Dev Dixit quickly once before; she was not doing it again.

  Are you getting confused because you talked to someone with his face for a couple months?

  She shoved Rhiannon’s voice out of her head. No. This was different. Wasn’t it?

  Jia’s lips firmed. Yes, it was. This was real. Deep down, she’d known her text infatuation wasn’t.

  Her prayer alarm went off on her phone, and she gave a sigh of relief. Good, she needed some peace. She rummaged in her camera bag for a scarf.

  Praying didn’t take her mind completely off Dev, but it did feel good to do something as opposed to twiddling her thumbs and
worrying. He knocked and entered the room just after she finished. His arms were full, which meant his biceps were prominent.

  No, girl.

  “Sorry, did I disturb you?”

  She folded her scarf. “No, not at all.”

  He placed a food-laden tray on the coffee table. “I figured you might be hungry. It’s getting late, and we had no lunch.”

  Of course he’d gone to get them sustenance. The man was annoyingly perfect, anticipating her needs. “I am hungry.” Until that minute, she hadn’t realized how hungry, actually. She placed her hand on her belly to still the growl.

  “I stuck to the vegetarian stuff, because I wasn’t sure what dietary restrictions you might have. Salads, grilled cheese, and I got extra fries. Plus I managed to hit the general store and got sodas and Twinkies. I’ve always wanted to try Twinkies.”

  She smiled, distracted by his unexpected interest in packaged desserts. “That sounds like a feast.”

  “It’s no five-star meal, and my nutritionist might be crying somewhere, but I tried.” Dev held out a package in a brown paper bag. “Here. There wasn’t much of a selection, sadly.”

  Mystified, Jia reached into the bag, then nearly laughed. “Oh my gosh. Thank you.” It was a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a hoodie emblazoned with the words Bombay Beach on them, all about three sizes too large for her.

  She clutched the hoodie to her chest, touched. It was so thoughtful. But it also reminded her that nighttime was coming, and they’d have to figure out sleeping arrangements.

  She wanted to stay with him. Even if two rooms had been available, she would have wanted to stay with him. Not so she could jump him, but so she could spend more time in his sweet company. Also so he could protect her from ghosts, this place was definitely haunted.

  “Do you like games?”

  Jia paused in stroking the sweatshirt. “Um, what kind of games?”

  Dev pointed to the bookshelf. “Board games?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh no, that’s not a good idea.” Not if she actually wanted him to like her back in any way.

  And she did. Another kind of peace settled over her, at that admission to herself.

  “Why not?”

  “Dev . . .” Jia sighed and placed the bag on the couch. “I’m the youngest of five overachieving kids. How competitive do you want to think my family made me, when it came to board games?”

  His eyes smiled, even if his lips didn’t. “I can handle it.”

  “That’s what you think. And then when you’re crying and I flip the table and accuse you of cheating and someone’s holding another person’s clump of hair, then you’ll be sorry.”

  “Is that what life with sisters is like?”

  “Oh yes.” She crossed over to the table and picked up a french fry. “It actually made it really hard for me to learn how to interact with other people, having sisters. Because you can’t really go from I’m going to kill you to Want some ice cream? with anyone else in your life.”

  His low chuckle filled the room, strumming the hairs on her arms. “I’ll take your word for it. I suppose I shouldn’t ask if you want to put stakes on it?”

  Her competitive side clapped its hands in glee. “What kind of stakes are we talking about?”

  He glanced at her from under his eyelashes. “If I win, I’d like to see the rest of your texts with my brother and cousin.”

  Oof. Those were high stakes. Which gave her more incentive to win. “And if I win . . .” You take off your shirt. “I get to go leave a dozen bad reviews on your doofus cousin’s latest movie.”

  His lips twitched. “I’m surprised you haven’t already. Is there a game that you don’t take too seriously?”

  She perused the shelf skeptically. “We can try Scrabble. Monopoly and Life turn me into a capitalistic fiend.”

  “I SWEAR, I can make this into a word.” Jia perused the board carefully. She had two letters left, and she was only ten points away from beating Dev.

  Turns out, she wasn’t less competitive at Scrabble. Which was why she’d been staring at the game board for over fifteen minutes on her last turn. She would get those ten points, damn it. She leaned forward, dangerously close to toppling off the couch, where she sat cross-legged.

  “I’m sure you can,” Dev said patiently.

  She placed the two letters around another. “Is that a word?”

  Dev raised a thick eyebrow at her. He sat on the floor facing her, leaning back on his hands. “Is it?”

  She shot him a narrow glance, trying to gauge how close he was to calling her on the word. Damn it. If he challenged her and consulted the dictionary on the shelf and she lost, she’d lose the game. She’d already lost three turns in this game by making up words. She was still pretty sore xop wasn’t in the Scrabble dictionary. “This is my first language, and your second, damn it. How are you beating me?”

  “English is one of our national languages. Besides, I went to British schools. You went to American ones.” He shrugged, like that should explain things.

  “Please don’t assert the colonizer’s supremacy here,” she grumbled. “I’ll make this into a word, darn it.”

  After another fifteen minutes of silence, Dev stirred. “You know, if you’d made this word stick, instead of sticks, you could have used the s over here. With what you have, that’s fifteen points.”

  “It is,” she muttered, frustrated with herself for not seeing that. She’d gone for short-term satisfaction over long-term gain! Story of her life, her sisters would chide her.

  Dev sighed. Then he placed his finger on the s and slid it over to her. She glanced at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s say that’s what you did.”

  “But that’s cheating!”

  “It’s your own letter. Please, I insist.”

  Jia’s desire to win at all costs outweighed her reticence. “Okay.” Triumphantly, she placed the letters and raised her arms in victory. “I win!”

  Dev gave her an indulgent look. “Not bad.”

  She lowered her arms and snatched up a cold fry from the remnants of their dinner. “You knew I’d be here all night looking for a word, didn’t you?”

  “Very much so. I couldn’t take sitting on the floor any longer. I’m too old to not have back support.”

  She grabbed her phone and pulled up her texts with the Liar Formerly Known as Dev and handed it to him. “Fair’s fair.”

  He took the phone automatically, but didn’t look at it. “But you won.”

  “We both know I didn’t.” She fiddled with a thread coming loose on her hem.

  He gave her a long look, then stared at the phone. After a pregnant pause, he offered it back to her. “I changed my mind. I’d rather learn about you like this, in person. Delete those texts, keep them for yourself, I don’t care.”

  Her lips parted, and she accepted his offering. How did he have this uncanny knack to always know what to say? She stuffed another fry into her mouth, so she could have something to do.

  He came to his feet and stretched.

  She nearly choked on the fry, almost reliving the unfortunate roti choking of days past. She’d changed into the sweats, and she’d cinched the hoodie he’d brought her around her face. That meant she probably looked about as attractive as a child in footie pajamas.

  Dev, though, still looked annoyingly good. He’d bought the same gray sweatpants for himself that he’d bought for her, and they looked different on him. When he stretched his arms up, his shirt rode up to display a one-inch slice of belly.

  Jia swallowed the fry. “Is it warm in here?”

  He lowered his arms. “I’m fine. I can open a window.”

  “No, never mind.” Because then she’d be cold when she got into bed alone. Speaking of . . . “We should sleep. Our car’ll be ready to go early in the morning.”

  “Right.” Neither of them moved.

  “Do you want to use the . . . ?” She gestured to the bathroom.

  “Su
re.”

  While he was gone, she pulled out the sofa bed and made it up. He stopped when he came out. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  She fluffed the pillow and placed it on the bed. “I didn’t know how many beds you’ve made in your life, Mr. Actor,” she tried to tease, but she was mildly out of breath, because he’d turned slightly, and the curve of his butt was . . . noice.

  Sexual attraction wasn’t something she felt a lot of—she’d determined long ago that she needed to have a strong bond to someone first before she got all torn up about wanting to sleep with them, and her schedule hadn’t lent itself to strong emotional bonds. So she figured she must be getting really bonded to Dev, because those gray sweatpants were getting sexier by the second.

  It was the Scrabble, damn it.

  Jia averted her eyes. She needed to stop thinking about his sweatpants because then she’d think about his shirt and then she’d think about his arms and then she’d think about the torso those arms were attached to and then his stomach and then back to his legs . . .

  Jianna, control yourself.

  His smile was faint. “I’ve made a bed or two.”

  Oh gosh, why did the word bed sound so sexy? She took a giant step away from the sofa. “Thought I’d help you out.”

  “I appreciate it.” He walked closer. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You seem nervous.”

  “Me? Thhppt.” She fiddled with the cord of her sweatshirt. She had so many cute pj’s at home. Even her unicorn onesie was better than this.

  “I wanted to thank you for how good-natured you’ve been about this. I feel bad about getting us stranded here.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Um, I’m the reason we got into this mess, ’cause I wanted to take some silly pictures.”

  “Silly pictures? They were for your work.”

  Gratitude rose up in her throat. So few understood that there was a serious, disciplined side to what she did. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For, like, taking me seriously. Taking photos of me without getting impatient or thinking I’m vain. I don’t know. Stuff like that.” She was so used to having to prove herself. She hadn’t had to do anything to earn this man’s respect. He freely gave it to her. How weird.