by Sara Desai
“Max is an emotional support dog,” Layla explained. “Daisy needs him.”
“She didn’t need any emotional support all week. Why now?”
“Have you looked in a mirror, dude?” Daisy picked up Max and gave him a hug. “One week with you and I need all the support I can get.”
“She tried to work without him, but it was a struggle so I said she could bring him in. He’s been very well behaved,” Layla assured him. “He hasn’t peed on anything—”
“That’s a low bar.”
“You’re very cheery today,” Daisy said in a voice that suggested she thought nothing of the sort. “Did you fire lots of people this morning? Feeling good? Rocking that destroying lives feeling? I guess you’ll be going out to celebrate lining the shareholders’ pockets after work. You can order a bottle of Cristal and some caviar and toast all the poor souls who are lined up at the food bank tonight.”
Sam slid his gaze to Daisy. “I look forward to the day when your antipathy toward my business is so great that you feel you cannot in good conscience continue to work here.”
“I look forward to the day you actually have a conscience and realize that you should honor Nasir Uncle’s wishes and skedaddle,” Daisy shot back.
“Kudos on the creative vocabulary.” He sorted through his mail, strong hands deftly sorting the envelopes. Layla’s skin tingled at the thought of being touched by those hands—held, caressed, stroked until she was breathless.
“You wouldn’t believe how many languages I had to learn to get my software engineering degree.” Daisy’s voice pulled her out of the fantasy and her cheeks heated. What was wrong with her? This was Sam—Daisy’s least favorite person in the world.
Sam’s gaze drifted over Daisy’s Riot Grrrl T-shirt. “I see English wasn’t one of them.”
Daisy’s eyes hardened. “What degree did you get to crush human souls?”
“I’ll tell you when I crush yours,” Sam said, a half smile curving his lips.
“You’re sexy when you threaten me,” Daisy called out as he made his way to his desk. “Actually, you’re sexy when you’re not threatening me, but I like that little extra hint of menace.”
“Why do you keep teasing him?” Layla asked.
“I can’t help myself.” Daisy stroked Max, who had finished chewing the arm of the chair and was now looking for something tasty to eat. “There’s something about him . . . Who doesn’t take advantage of the fact that we’ve got food from The Spice Mill in the kitchen every day? Who drinks English tea when we have a pot of your mother’s homemade chai? Who doesn’t want to hear ‘Badtameez Dil’ to get pumped for the morning? Or ‘Mundian To Bach Ke’ at the end of the day? He told me that if I wanted to listen to that kind of music, I should just put on ‘Despacito.’”
“Not everyone likes curry and Bollywood.” She offered Max a pakora from the bag she’d grabbed from the restaurant, and he gave it a curious sniff.
“He’s brown. It’s in the blood.” Daisy pulled out her phone and took a picture of Max with the pakora between his paws.
Layla’s gaze flicked to Sam. He was definitely an enigma. Careful observation over the last week had revealed that he worked out most mornings, ate healthy-albeit-boring food, had a coffee addiction, and was very focused and intense when he was working. “Maybe he has allergies.”
“To Bollywood music?” Daisy held up her phone. “Let’s put on Mr. India and see if he breaks out in hives.”
“Do you like him? Is that what this is about?” Layla felt a curious pang of jealousy at the thought of Daisy and Sam together. It didn’t make sense. She was done with dating and was now committed to a marriage of companionship with no risk of love and the pain that went with it.
“Are you kidding me?” Daisy snorted. “Me and him? Five minutes alone together and one of us would be on the floor with a steak knife through his heart. I am a free bird, my friend, still trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, and a man that uptight is the ultimate cage.”
She wasn’t wrong there. Sam cleared off his entire desk every night and wiped it down with disinfectant. Each morning he pulled out his pencils and pens and arranged them in a neat row beside the perfectly stacked files that sat squarely behind his laptop. He was always impeccably dressed, his tie perfectly knotted, and his hair smoothly combed. His attention to detail was disconcerting for someone who had never stacked anything neatly in her life.
“Did you send us copies of . . . ?” Layla hated to use Daisy’s shorthand, but the numbers made sense. “. . . Bachelor #2’s marriage résumé?”
Daisy nodded. “And the one for Bachelor #3. To be honest, I think you should consider giving Bachelor #2 a hard pass because Bachelor #3 is a firefighter and the picture he sent . . .” She fanned herself with one hand and held up his picture on her phone with the other. “I love a man in uniform. And he’s got a big hose. I’m getting hot just looking at it.”
“I can hear you,” Sam called out. “This in an office. Please keep the discussion to a PG level.”
“How about you keep your dirty R-rated thoughts to yourself,” Daisy retorted. “We’re looking at a picture of a firefighter holding a hose on the street to cool people off on a hot summer day. In my innocence, I can’t even imagine what you were thinking.”
“I thought you were using a metaphor,” Sam said. “But clearly I shouldn’t assume . . .”
Layla glanced down at the picture. The firefighter was bare chested save for the suspenders holding up his fireman pants, which were unzipped in a way that suggested he wasn’t on his way to a fire. “That’s . . . some hose.”
“I can still hear you.”
“He’s jealous,” Daisy whispered. “He wishes he could have a big hose that makes women wet.”
Layla walked over to Sam’s desk where he was already busy on his laptop. “Are you ready to go? I asked Dilip Sandhu where he wanted to meet and he suggested a new pop-up restaurant down the block. He said since the woman’s family traditionally pays, he wanted to go somewhere he couldn’t normally afford.”
“How delightfully crass.”
“It’s called Space.” She tried not to look at his hands as he finished typing, but with the fantasy still fresh in her mind, it was a losing battle. “It’s very exclusive. The only reason I got a table was because the head chef knows my dad. They have twenty-four one-hour sittings every day with only one table per sitting.”
Sam groaned as he closed his laptop. “I’d better grab some sandwiches on the way. It sounds like the kind of place you only get two peas and a sliver of asparagus on a piece of butter lettuce that was grown on the highest mountain peak of Nepal and watered with the tears of angels.”
“Not a fan of haute cuisine?” She followed him down the stairs and out into the bright sunshine.
“I like food. Lots of it.” He stopped at the nearest café and ordered three Reuben sandwiches, two Cobb salads, and three bottles of water.
“Would you like anything?” he asked after he placed his order.
Layla looked longingly as the server handed over his feast. “I don’t want to ruin my appetite.” She pointed to the baked-goods counter. “You forgot dessert.”
“I don’t eat sugar.”
“Then the meal is wasted.” She held open her handbag to reveal her secret stash. “I keep emergency desserts with me at all times—gummy bears, salted caramel chocolate, jelly beans, chocolate-glazed donuts—at least I think that’s what they were, and this morning I managed to grab a small container of besan laddu and some gulab jamun.”
“Are you expecting a famine?” Sam pulled out one of his sandwiches and ate as they walked.
“You never know when you’ll need a little pick-me-up.” She held up her phone and flipped to the marriage résumé of the man they were about to meet. “I’ll brief you as we walk so you can stuff your fa
ce on our way to lunch.”
“I do not ‘stuff my face,’” he said with a haughty sniff. “But I do appreciate the offer.”
“Dilip Sandhu. Age thirty-five. Five feet four and three-sevenths inches tall. No visible scars. One hundred and thirty pounds. Born in San Diego. Parents emigrated from Mumbai. Father is an accountant. Mother is a seamstress. No siblings. He works at a technology consulting firm as a weights and measures manager responsible for the delivery and implementation of services relating to the testing, calibrating, and certifying weighing and measuring devices. Enjoys dancing, cave diving, and musical theater.”
Sam finished his sandwich and pulled out another. “This guy’s perfect for you, albeit you’ll need to wear flat shoes when you’re with him. And maybe hunch a bit. You don’t want to be too tall if you’re spending your honeymoon in a cave.”
“How would you know he’s perfect? You don’t know what I’m looking for in a partner.”
“What are you looking for in a man? I’m curious.” He bit into his sandwich, and Layla’s stomach rumbled.
She’d never really thought about her ideal man, but she knew what she didn’t want—anyone like Jonas or the string of men who preceded him. She pulled a donut from her purse and peeled off the paper napkins. “He needs to respect me and treat me as an equal. He has to support my desire to run my own business and not expect me to take on traditional roles.”
Sam twisted his lips to the side as if deep in thought. “So, no missionary.”
“Were you born like this or did you take courses on how to be a dick?”
A tiny grin hitched his mouth. “Missionary is the traditional position.”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously . . .”
His gaze fell to her mouth. “I’m taking it as seriously as you are licking that donut. I don’t think there is even a speck of icing left. We should let Dilip know you are wicked talented with your tongue.”
Such a waste of a breathtaking man.
“Don’t you dare say anything about my tongue.” She stopped in front of a bright blue door set into a concrete building on the street corner. “I have a sweet tooth and I am not ashamed. That’s all there is to it. No need to mention donuts at all.”
“How about buns?”
She looked back over her shoulder and caught him staring at her ass. She was wearing a tight black skirt for no other reason than she’d had a strange urge to feel sexy after Hassan shredded her the other day.
She gave a little wiggle before she walked into the restaurant and was rewarded with the sound of his sharp intake of breath.
“Layla?”
“Yes?” She turned in the doorway, caught a cheeky smile.
“I like sweet things, too.”
* * *
• • •
“THIS isn’t what I expected.” Dilip carefully sliced his half-inch piece of deconstructed pommes dauphines served with a penny-size drip of fava bean foam reduction. His gaze flicked from Sam to Layla and back to Sam from the other side of the rough-hewn log table.
Space consisted of a giant concrete room with a naked bulb hanging overhead. With no windows, paintings, or decor of any kind, and even less food than Sam had predicted, it was the perfect venue for an interrogation, but a blind date with a potential spouse, not so much.
“I thought I’d be meeting with Mr. Patel and Miss Layla.”
“It’s just Layla.” Sam interjected quickly to prevent the lunch from coming to a premature end. Five minutes into the interview, and he knew he was going to have to work hard to make this guy stick.
“Just Miss Layla.” Dilip smiled. One of his oversize front teeth was chipped and crooked, and with his round face, overabundance of straight dark hair, and portly frame, he reminded Sam of a demented beaver.
“He means you can just call me Layla.” With a sigh, Layla stared at her empty plate. She’d ordered the curated wild Alaskan sea cucumbers, sprinkled with artisanal milk thistle foraged at dusk from Springdale Farms and served in a sea of pureed stinging nettles. At least Sam thought that’s what it was. She’d eaten the entire cucumber slice in one bite.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something, sir?” The waiter, dressed in a grain sack with cutouts for his head and arms, hovered at Sam’s shoulder.
“No, thank you.” Sam rubbed his belly and let out a small burp. “I shouldn’t have had that second Rueben on my way over. Or maybe it was the Cobb salad. I’m so full I couldn’t even handle an amuse-bouche of fermented sardine foam or dihydrogen-monoxide consommé.”
Layla kicked him under the table. Hard. But the bruise he’d get from the pointed toe of her shoe was so worth it.
“Mr. Patel would have liked to be here, but because he’s ill, I’m taking his place,” Sam explained.
Unfortunately, Dilip, manager of weights and measures, didn’t think his answer measured up.
“You’re her cousin?”
“No.”
“Uncle?”
“No.”
“Nephew?”
“No.”
“Grandfather?”
“Are you kidding me?” Sam spluttered. “I don’t have a single gray hair.”
“Brother?”
“My brother passed away five years ago,” Layla interjected.
“Sister?” Dilip wouldn’t give it up.
Sam gave an affronted sniff. “Do I look like someone’s sister?”
“These are modern times,” Dilip said. “You could have gone through a change.”
“I’m all man.” Sam leaned back in his chair and spread his legs. “Every goddamned bit.”
“I think he feels threatened,” Layla gave Dilip an apologetic smile. “He usually only swears before ten A.M.”
“I’ll have you know, I am very secure in my masculinity.” Sam puffed out his chest. “I have a yellow shirt in my wardrobe, and once I even wore it outside. Although to be fair it was two A.M. and I’d forgotten to take out the trash.”
“Sam is a family friend,” Layla offered.
“A married friend?”
“No,” Sam said.
“Engaged?”
“No.”
“In a serious relationship?”
“How about we give Layla a chance to ask her twenty questions?” Sam suggested. The dude was like a dog with a bone.
“How do you fantasize your relationship with your partner?” Layla asked.
Dilip choked on his fava bean foam reduction and fixed Sam with a panicked stare.
“I think she’s wondering what you’re looking for in a wife.” Sam turned to Layla, making no effort to hide his smirk. “Or did I misunderstand?”
“No. You understood correctly.”
“Too bad,” he murmured under his breath. “I was hoping you had a secret kinky side. If you ever want to know what I fantasize about, I’ll be more than happy to share.”
Layla groaned. “I’m not interested in hearing about your aspirations to be a dancer in the Broadway production of A Chorus Line.”
“I want someone to cook and clean, look after my parents, and manage the house,” Dilip interjected. “She should also be willing to perform wifely duties and bear children.”
“Wifely duties?” Layla hissed in a breath. “There is so much wrong with those words, I don’t know where to start.”
Sam sighed. This wasn’t going well at all. If he was going to get her married and out of the office, he would have to move things along.
“He was kidding.” He nodded at Dilip to play along. “It’s a guy thing. We like euphemisms. He could just as easily have said doing the nasty, shagging, banging, screwing, humping, baking the potato, boning, boom-boom, four-legged foxtrot, glazing the donut, hitting a home run, launching the meat missile, makin’ bacon, opening the gates of Mordor, pelvic pinochl
e, planting the parsnip, releasing the kraken, rolling in the hay, stuffin’ the muffin, or two-ball in the middle pocket . . .” He trailed off when he noticed their shocked expressions. “Or sex,” he added. “He could have just said that.”
“No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.” Layla gave him a withering look. “I can’t imagine a woman who would stick around after you took her for a nice dinner and then said, Hey babe, let’s go launch the meat missile, or my personal favorite, release the kraken.”
“I didn’t say I used them.” Sam loosened his collar. Why was the restaurant so damn hot?
“You know them. That’s bad enough.”
Dilip tipped his head to the side. “What’s a kraken?”
“That’s what I’m going to do to Sam’s head in about three seconds,” Layla said.
Sam smirked. “A kraken is an enormous mythical sea monster.”
“Are we in middle school?” Layla looked around the bare room in mock confusion. “Because I could swear you were just talking about the size of your—”
“How about sports?” Sam asked Dilip. Time to get things back on track before Layla made good on her threat. From the angry looks she was throwing his way, Sam didn’t doubt she was fully capable of cracking his head. “I think everyone in this room has the same question. Where is the nearest cave, and can we have a demonstration?”
“Ignore him,” Layla said. “He’s just jealous because he doesn’t do anything exciting. But my family is into sports. My mom and I love baseball. We’re huge Giants fans. We never miss a home game.”
“The San Francisco Giants?” Sam snorted a laugh. “They aren’t a real team. That rich-kid pipeline has been running dry for years.”
Layla dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Don’t tell me you support the poor A’s from the wrong side of the tracks with the stadium that smells of sewage.”
“It’s about the game, sweetheart. It’s about skill. We don’t need a fancy ballpark on the cove to kick the Giants’ collective ass. We’ve won sixty-three games in the Bay Bridge Series to your pitiful fifty-seven.”
“Who cares about Bay Bridge?” she retorted. “The Giants won the World Series in 2010 against the Texas Rangers, 2012 against the Detroit Tigers, and 2014 against the Kansas City Royals. If you count their wins when they started out in New York, they have a total of eight World Series titles.”
