First Comes Like

by Alisha Rai

  His uncle cleared his throat and straightened. “Madam. It is an honor.”

  Shweta looked down her elegant nose, and Dev tensed, in case she said something cutting and rude.

  What had it been like, before he was born, when his father had brought his mother home that one and only time before they’d run away? Had his grandmother screamed at the couple, or stayed silent?

  She did neither now, and she didn’t avoid the specter of Dev’s mother, either, which surprised him. “You look like your sister.”

  “I know.”

  “You may call me Aai,” she announced. “Or Auntie.”

  Adil blinked. “Ah. Yes.”

  “You are a chef?”

  “Oh no.” His uncle shook his head so hard, his whisps of hair trembled. “I was a taxi driver.”

  “Adil Uncle is the best chef,” Luna broke in.

  Dev wondered if his niece was still trying to make up for the Bagel Bites War, but she wasn’t wrong. “Agreed. He is being modest. He is the reason we have not starved on our own.”

  His grandmother nodded decisively. “Excellent. You can teach me. I do not want to backslide in my class.”

  Adil Uncle’s eyes widened so much, the whites showed all around his pupils. “I—I would be honored to teach you, Auntie, but—”

  “Good, it is settled.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Luna said happily.

  “I couldn’t possibly not come when I heard your uncle met someone.”

  Luna’s face turned inscrutable. She gave her grandmother a squeeze and stepped back, simultaneously sidestepping the mention of Jia. “Can we see the rest of the house? Can we go on the beach? Can we get a horse and ride on the beach?”

  Shweta raised a groomed eyebrow. “You want a horse? I will buy one right—”

  “We’ve already made arrangements for horse riding,” Dev exaggerated. He had to have a talk with his niece about asking for things from her great-grandmother. It took Shweta seconds to snap her fingers and buy something extravagant.

  Thankfully, Shweta conceded. “A walk is good enough for now. Pinky, will you watch the stove? And have Arjun show Dev and Adil to their rooms.”

  Dev froze mid-step. “Arjun is here?” he demanded.

  There was probably a little too much aggression in his tone, judging by Luna’s sideways glance, but Shweta only shrugged. “Yes, I insisted he come with me. Why?”

  “No reason. Do you know where my cousin is, Pinky?”

  “Upstairs, fourth door on the left.”

  “Perfect.” Dev was probably showing too many teeth for a plain old smile. “I’ll go say hello to him.”

  “I should come with you,” his uncle said, his forehead creased in worry.

  Oh no. He didn’t want any witnesses. “Nonsense, I know you’ll want a nice cup of chai first, won’t you?”

  His grandmother straightened. “Of course, I cannot believe I did not offer you one. Pinky?”

  Adil gave Dev a subtle glare at the neat trap. His uncle wouldn’t dream of insulting his host by declining the drink now.

  Dev took the stairs two at a time. Don’t hit Arjun until you find out whether he’s guilty. Or he’ll be too bloody to talk.

  He shoved the bedroom door open. His cousin whirled around from the mirror he was primping in front of. He was a handsome man, a more refined and elegant version of Rohan, but dressed far more garishly than his brother would have ever dared, in a blindingly hideous orange and green plaid shirt and green pants. Arjun held up his hand, which was, Dev was happy to note, shaking. “Hello, Bhai.”

  “I’m not your brother,” Dev said flatly, and Arjun’s face fell.

  Still, he rallied. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Is it?” Dev shut the door.

  “I know you’re mad.”

  “You have no idea what mad is.” He stalked Rohan, until his younger cousin was cornered. “I am beyond mad. I left mad behind a long time ago. Explain yourself.”

  Arjun frowned. “I—”

  Dev grabbed him and put him in a headlock before he could get another word out. Arjun flailed as Dev dragged him over to the open window and shoved him out of it. “What are you doing?” Arjun yelled.

  “Did you catfish that poor girl with my account and then release those texts?” Dev demanded. “I want a clear yes or no.” This wasn’t what he’d intended by making sure his cousin was guilty, but it was effective. At least this room didn’t face the beach, so Luna wasn’t likely to see one of her uncles about to throw the other one out the window.

  “I don’t know what you’re— Ah! Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes to the catfishing, but no to the texts! My phone really was hacked, along with a bazillion other celebrities! Didn’t you see the nudes of me?”

  Dev evaluated the words, paying attention to the nuances of his cousin’s voice. It sounded like he was uttering the truth. “If I saw nudes of you, I’d be blind.” He yanked Arjun back inside.

  Arjun straightened his shirt while glaring at Dev. “You rude son of— Oof.” He flinched when Dev punched him in the stomach. “Why,” he gasped. “I already told you.”

  “Because you did a tremendously hideous thing,” Dev said calmly. “And you will apologize to me, and if she wishes to see your ugly face, Jia as well. Both for the catfishing and the texts.”

  Arjun came to his full height, with some difficulty. “I told you, it was a hack.”

  “It wouldn’t have been hacked if you hadn’t had the messages in the first place.”

  Arjun licked his lips. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

  Dev flung his arms wide. “What the fuck were you thinking, doing something like this?”

  Arjun rubbed his arms and pouted. “It was Rohan’s idea,” he muttered.

  Dev pointed at the bed. “Sit down.” He was already taller than his cousin, but he’d like to really intimidate him.

  Arjun sat.

  “I require a better explanation than that.”

  “Rohan wanted to prank you, so he sent a few messages to random women.”

  Dev slapped his forehead, his hurt at his brother’s perpetual dislike of him subsumed by panic. “There are more women?”

  “No! No. The others didn’t answer.”

  “And you were in on this joke. Using my old scripts for lines to feed her.”

  “I helped him splice them up,” Arjun confessed. “Rohan said you wrote most of them. You’re not a bad writer, by the way.”

  Oh, that one hurt. Arjun liking anything wasn’t a good endorsement as far as he was concerned right now. “And after he died?”

  Arjun hung his head. “I don’t know. Rohan was my buddy. I missed him, and Luna, too. I wasn’t thinking straight, so when Jia started texting again a couple months ago . . .”

  “You thought you’d prank boring old me as well.”

  “No! I thought to help you.”

  “Help me!”

  “Yeah, because of the will. You need to find a wife, so I thought maybe . . .” He trailed off. “I didn’t think far enough about her meeting you or anything. But it seems like you did fall in love with her! So it worked.”

  Dear Lord. Adil Uncle hadn’t been that far off base with his matchmaking theory. “It . . . worked?” Dev growled. “It has turned my life upside down.”

  “In a bad way?”

  “Could there be a good way?”

  “Sure.” Arjun squinted at him. “You’re right, you were boring. Got up, went to work, always on time, hit all your marks, went home, slept. No way you would have even talked to a girl like that without someone forcing you into it.”

  “What do you mean a girl like that?”

  “I mean a talented, popular, outgoing one. And look! According to Aji, you’re marrying her soon.”

  Dev opened his mouth and closed it, wishing he could dispute anything his cousin was saying. “What you did was horrible, despite the result.”

  Arjun sobered. “I know. I realized as soon as Jia started pus
hing to meet me. I mean, you. I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Dev leaned away. He hadn’t expected a sincere apology from his selfish, foolish cousin. “I don’t know either.”

  “Have you told Aji?”

  “No.”

  Arjun looked up at him from under his lashes. “Are you going to?”

  “Worried about your own inheritance now?” Dev’s lip curled. “No, I’m not going to.”

  His cousin released a giant sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  “I literally can’t, not without exposing what happened. I won’t do that to Jia. She feels embarrassed, though I’ve assured her the embarrassment belongs to you and you only.” He narrowed his eyes at Arjun. “And you won’t tell Aji either, will you?”

  “Trust me, that’s the last thing I want. I’ll beg Jia’s forgiveness, and then we can never discuss this again.”

  “If Jia wants you to stay out of her sight, you’ll do that, too.”

  “But I’ve never been to Malibu. Plus, what will I tell Aji when I hole up in my room?” Arjun whined.

  “Tell her whatever you want.”

  “But there’s a surfboard in the garage.” A pout started to form on his cousin’s annoyingly symmetrical face, but it dissolved like sugar in the rain when Dev took a step toward him. “Fine, fine.”

  “I’m going to go settle my uncle into his room. I mean it, Arjun, no more shenanigans.”

  Arjun was silent until Dev reached the door. “I was trying to help.”

  Dev rubbed his eyes. The sad, plaintive note in Arjun’s voice made him sound much younger than his thirty years.

  He’s acting.

  Only, Dev didn’t think he was. He was, in fact, pretty sure Arjun had just been more honest in the last few minutes than he had in a while.

  He turned around and looked his cousin up and down with new eyes. “Do me a favor and never try to help me again.” He tried not to feel bad when Arjun visibly deflated. The man had done something awful and cruel, and it was only by pure luck that Jia and Dev might actually have a chance together, and that she hadn’t been irreparably traumatized, her ability to trust demolished.

  And yet . . .

  Dev was tired of being wary of family members. It was a slap in the face to know his little brother had disliked him enough to play such a cruel joke on him. Arjun’s earnest desire to help, however misguided that help had been, well, it didn’t make up for his strained relationship with his brother, but it wasn’t the worst consolation prize. Rohan’s part in this may have been motivated by cruelty, but Arjun hadn’t seemed to come from a place of malice.

  People change. “At the very least, don’t help me again without asking first,” he clarified, and Arjun brightened.

  “Will do. Want to go surfing with me? I brought new swim trunks. Shorter inseams are very in right now.”

  Dev held up his hand, palm out. “We’re not there yet, brother.”

  Arjun nodded amicably, his grin slow, but real. “Fair enough, Bhai.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “THE FLIGHT was exhausting. Jia, you could not move to New York City? You had to come to Los Angeles? It would have been a closer trip for us.”

  Jia glanced in the rearview mirror. “What would I be doing in New York City?”

  “You work from home. You could be doing the same things you do here.”

  Jia didn’t bother to explain to her mother that the connections she was making in entertainment were quite different in L.A. Her mom knew that already. Farzana liked to complain about things she knew no one could possibly change. Had Jia moved to New York, her mom would have complained about the noise and weather. “Not quite.”

  Despite her mother’s crankiness, and the fact that her family was here under bizarre circumstances, joy had filled Jia when they’d walked out of LAX. That happiness had been reflected in their faces, and when her parents and twin had hugged her, they’d given her a little piece of her old home, enough to ground her in her new home.

  It was almost enough to make her forget that they were now driving straight from the airport to Dev’s grandmother’s Malibu home for their weekend trip. Where his cousin also was. His terrible, no-good cousin.

  She’d kind of moved on, she’d thought, from being catfished, but seeing Arjun’s name had slammed all that mortification back at her, knocking her out of the careful plans she’d made. But then she’d recalibrated. She’d declined an apology, mostly because she preferred to never see Arjun’s face if she could help it. Dev had promised to keep him out of view.

  It was probably unrealistic to assume that was an actual possibility when he was in the same house and Dev’s only cousin, but she’d keep her fingers crossed.

  “If you couldn’t live closer, at least you found a boy who seems nice. Mo, InshAllah, soon we’ll only have one daughter left to get married off. Remember when your mother said five girls would be a burden and a headache? I wish she was here to see this.”

  Jia’s grandmother was in Pakistan, not dead, but her mom rarely made a distinction between the two when it came to her mother-in-law. Her father only grunted, too busy taking in the scenery to listen to his wife.

  Ayesha cleared her throat. Her sister sat in the passenger seat. Jia hadn’t been able to hug her hard enough. Her sister raised her eyebrow a millimeter, and as womb mates, Jia got the message immediately.

  This is a bad idea. Jia shifted. “Engaged is different than married, Mom.”

  “Yes, of course. But you are on the right track.”

  Her dad readjusted his legs in the cramped back seat. She’d borrowed Jas’s car to transport everyone, but her dad was tall. Tall and skinny, and no matter how well he got his clothes tailored, they always hung off his lanky frame. Today’s athletic shirt and pants were no different. “Don’t pressure her, Farzana.”

  The way he said it made Jia believe he’d had to repeat those words a lot over the five-and-a-half-hour flight.

  “I’m not pressuring her.”

  “And don’t pressure the boy when we meet him, either,” Mohammad warned.

  “I will not,” Farzana huffed. “You act like I am new to marrying my daughters off. I know how to trap a good man.”

  Jia turned her signal on. “That sounds ethical.”

  “I hope we have time to freshen up before we meet his grandmother,” her mom fretted. “You packed appropriate things to wear for the weekend, didn’t you, Jia? It wouldn’t do to meet Shweta Dixit looking cheap.”

  She had two closets and a storage unit full of really nice clothes. What did her mom think she did online? “Oops, I packed crop tops and miniskirts.”

  Her mom pretended not to hear her, which was standard. “Traditional wear, of course. Modest, light colors, and you must not put on any flashy makeup or jewelry. I do not want her to get the wrong idea about us.”

  That was the antithesis of Jia’s whole aesthetic, but she agreed this one time. She’d opted to pack more conservative outfits, unsure of where Shweta Dixit fell on style. “Yes, Mom. No flashy stuff, got it.”

  “I mean modest in the traditional sense, not the modern sense,” Farzana insisted.

  Jia was well aware that the things she wore and considered modest would have been haram when her mother was her age. Times changed. “Got it. I have packed a light pink potato sack.”

  “I’m wearing a light pink sack, pick another color, please,” Ayesha said primly, laughter dancing in her eyes.

  Farzana’s cascade of sniffs caught her and her sister off guard. “You okay, Mom?” Ayesha twisted in her seat.

  Mohammad turned to his wife. “What’s wrong?”

  Jia caught her mother wiping her tears in the rearview mirror. “It’s nice to hear you two together again. I’ve missed this banter between my baby girls.”

  Jia softened into a pile of goo. Her mother drove her crazy sometimes, but she also loved her daughters. “You can join my and Ayesha’s video chats whenever you want. Moving across th
e country just means the banter happens in different mediums,” Jia said.

  “Exactly right,” Ayesha agreed. “Distance doesn’t make any difference whatsoever.” She faced forward, head high, but she also snaked her hand over the console to touch her fingertips to Jia’s leg. Jia released the wheel to grasp her twin’s hand.

  “Do you know what the population of Malibu is, Jia?” Mohammad asked.

  Jia squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I don’t. Why don’t you look it up, Dad?”

  “Hmm. I shall. Farzana, look at those boats out there . . .”

  “It’s gorgeous.” Farzana tapped her window. “See the red one?”

  Her father dutifully leaned over his wife. “Can’t wait to catch up with you properly,” Ayesha murmured to Jia.

  Jia wished she could talk to her sister about what was going to go down, but she couldn’t. Her mother had the ears of a bat. Ayesha had lodged her complaint against the ruse via text, and that would have to do until they were alone. “Can’t wait to catch up either,” she responded, also sotto voce.

  “What are you two whispering about up there?” their mother asked.

  “Nothing.” Jia came to a stop in front of the beach house they were spending a couple of nights at. Nerves started to tremble in her belly, too many to appreciate the beautiful home.

  “Are you okay?” Ayesha whispered.

  Jia nodded without looking at her sister and circled the car to help her dad get their bags. Her parents pulled ahead, leaving her and Ayesha to walk slowly behind them toward the imposing home. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” She smiled at her sister. It was probably a tight smile.

  “Um, I don’t think you need me to list all the reasons you ought to be freaking out right now.”

  Ayesha was right. She didn’t need the list.

  They came to a stop outside the door, and Farzana turned to face them. She fixed her collar. “Do I look okay?” Her whisper was fierce. “I don’t want to risk meeting Shweta looking too rumpled.”

  Jia raised an eyebrow. If she didn’t know better, she’d think her unflappable mother was a little starstruck. “You look pretty, MashAllah.”