Chapter 12
12
Nikhil lays me down on the bed, and our clothes come off in smooth, effortless movements. Nothing’s hurried. Nothing’s rushed. We take our time, slowly undoing buttons, shimmying out of pants, raising our shirts over our heads. We watch each other all the while, as if we both need the connection. As if we’re each reassuring the other. You’re still here . This is real. We’re actually doing this.
I toss everything on the floor and lean back, stretching along the bed, sinking into the mattress. Nikhil’s eyes flare with desire and longing, and I reach for him. “You can touch me, Nikhil. Touch me.” I take his hands, lacing his fingers in mine, and tug him toward me.
He settles over me, the dips and hollows of his body slightly different than I remember. The same hard muscles press firmly against me, but more. There’s more of him now. The contours of his body have changed, just as mine have, and I grieve for a moment, sad that I wasn’t here to feel the gradual change of him. That I didn’t get to witness the day-to-day transformation that took him from the Nikhil I once knew to the man he is today.
The man whose lips are traveling over my neck, his mouth open. He tastes me, and the blunt edges of his teeth bite down on the same sensitive place he always managed to find. The spot he always marked me. He presses harder, and I cry out, my hands rising to his head, holding him fast against me.
But he doesn’t stay in one place. He moves, his mouth skating down and down and down. He parts my legs, and proves that even though it’s been years, he hasn’t forgotten anything. He knows exactly what to do, exactly what I need.
But I want to see him. I want his eyes meeting mine. I want to know he’s with me. I clutch at his shoulders, wordlessly asking him to come back, and he listens.
His mouth returns to mine, and his hands cradle my jaw. Kissing him is lightning, a shock of electricity that crackles through me, but the weight of him, the pressure of his body on top of mine, soothes the singe. In this moment, we’re fire and rain and it’s everything I’ve been missing, everything I’ve been craving for all these years.
His hips move, the hard length of him brushing the most sensitive part of me, and I hiss. “Meena, are we—” Nikhil pulls back, the gold in his eyes incandescent. Every part of him burning and alive. “Are you—”
“We’re good,” I say, arching toward him, desperate for contact again. Desperate for his hot skin against mine. “I’m sure. I want this.”
He exhales harshly, and then his palm presses into the mattress beside my head. His other hand reaches for my leg, wrapping it around his waist. We’re so close like this. So close to what we both need, but for some reason, Nikhil’s holding back.
“Do I…Do I need to get a—”
I shake my head, finally understanding the reason for his restraint. “I’m on the pill and I…I’ve been tested since my last time.”
“Okay,” he says. “Right…that’s…” He swallows roughly, the muscles in his throat flexing. “That’s good. I have too, but it’s just…It’s been a long time for me.”
“That’s okay.” I reach for him, kissing him slow, and tender, and sure. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want—”
His fingers tighten around my thigh. “I want,” he says, his voice like gravel, as he brings his mouth back to mine. “I want everything.”
What starts as a slow, languid exploration, turns fast. His hips roll against me, our bodies sliding in a familiar rhythm, and his hands find mine, anchoring me, keeping me in place.
And it would be good like this. I know it would be good. But I want something else right now, and I’m not afraid to show him.
I encircle his wrists and flip us around so I’m on top, my legs straddling his waist. Raw heat and want emanates from him, and when I move, when I take him inside me, all the air escapes my lungs. Mine, I think. Mine .
“God, Meena,” he breathes, his face transformed by pleasure so intense it resembles pain. And when he opens his eyes, when he whispers again, he begs me to move. I set the pace, rocking against him in slow, even movements. His hips buck, and his hands fight my grip on him. He’s stronger than me. I know he could break this hold if he wanted to, but he’s letting me take the wheel right now and it’s intoxicating. Exhilarating.
“Please,” he says, after a few minutes, the word coming out strangled. “I need to touch you. Please.” And I release him, knowing that neither of us is truly in control. We’re both here, and present, and reduced to our barest selves. Each of us desperately needing the give-and-take of the other.
His hands come to my waist, his grip tight, the imprint of his fingers sinking into my skin. He moves my hips, moving me faster against him, and as good as it feels, as much as I need this friction and rhythm, for a moment I want to slow down. I want this to last. I want to remember everything. Because I’m not sure if this is our last time. I’m not sure if I’ll ever have him like this again.
He must feel the resistance in my body because he starts to loosen his grip, but I don’t let him. I meet him where he’s at, our bodies in sync, both of us climbing higher and higher, in tune with each other.
We’re both close, and maybe it’s been so long I’ve forgotten, but I’m not sure if it’s ever felt like this. I hold out for as long as I can, but one of his hands slides down, his thumb finding the very center of me, and lightning flashes behind my closed eyes. I come apart as Nikhil’s pace increases, his strokes quick and true, until he makes a ragged, wonderful sound I usually hear only in my dreams.
I hold him tight, my legs around his waist, my head tucked in his neck, as we both catch our breath.
Neither of us says anything. For a long while, neither of us moves, but then Nikhil’s hand comes to my hair. His fingers run through the mess of it before traveling down my back and repeating their path all over again. I close my eyes, settling deeper against him, content to stay just like this. We’ll have to break apart eventually. I know that. We can’t live in this moment forever, but right now, it almost feels possible.
It almost feels like all of this could actually be mine.
We find each other again in the middle of the night. And again before the sun rises. Our last time is hurried and rushed, as if we’re trying to beat the dawn. As if we both know everything will change once the daylight returns, but refuse to acknowledge it. We barely talk to each other, only saying words like “more,” and “please,” and “faster.” Communicating with only our hands, our mouths, our bodies.
After, Nikhil places his ear to the center of my chest, listening to my heartbeat, and I’m thankful he can’t see the tear that escapes from the corner of my eye. His lips brush my breast, and he murmurs something, the words vibrating against my skin. I’m tempted to ask him what he said, but his breaths grow even and slow and I’m sure he’s fallen asleep. I hold him to me, trying to commit every little part of this to memory, but sleep takes me too.
—
In the morning, I wake to Nikhil sitting up in bed, a large book openon his lap. There’s a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand beside him, and when he notices that my eyes are open, he passes it to me.
“Good morning,” he says warmly, and I take a sip. It has the exact amount of oat milk and sugar I’ve always preferred. He remembers, and I’m no longer surprised by that. I’ve discovered I’m not the only one who’s been holding on to memories of the past. I’m just not sure what that means for us going forward.
“Good morning,” I respond. The comfort and ease from last night has faded. It’s not awkward exactly, but there’s a note of caution, of uncertainty, in the air that wasn’t there before. “What are you reading?”
He answers wordlessly, flipping the cover in my direction.
Foundations of Business.
That’s not what I was expecting.
He places the book back on his lap and opens it to where he had it. “Did you sleep okay?” he asks, and my cheeks warm, memories of last night flooding back.
I scan his face, looking for traces of regret or hope or concern. Anything that would give me a hint of what he’s feeling, but his expression is careful, blank in a determined, purposeful sort of way.
I have no idea what he’s thinking. And I’m not sure what I’m thinking either.
I want to do this again. I want to never leave this bed. I want to stay.
Stay? An alarm sounds in my mind, faint and distant, and I ignore it, hitting snooze. It’ll come back eventually, but I can’t deal with it right now. I don’t want to.
“I slept fine,” I say. I put the coffee down and stretch, my skin heating even more as I register how delightfully sore I am.
Nikhil watches me for a long moment, his gaze conflicted, as if he’s deliberating something, then he lifts an arm toward me, pulling me closer.
My body nestles against his, and his face turns toward mine, his movements slow and measured. He’s giving me time to retreat, to say no, but I don’t pull back. I meet him halfway, and this kiss, it’s different. Soft and sweet and light.
When we separate, his lips spread into a smile, and I can’t help but give him one in return.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
I settle against him, enjoying the way my head fits in the curve of his neck, the way his hand plays with the ends of my hair.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “After…Do you want to talk about it or—”
That same alarm blares, and I mentally slam the snooze button again. “Not right now,” I say. “Soon, but not right now.”
I look down at the book still on his lap, watching as he turns the page.
“Why business?” I ask.
His shoulders tense. He stays quiet for a little while, his jaw so stiff I think he’s clenching his teeth. But then he forces out an exhale, and I can feel the muscles in his body relax.
“I’m studying,” he says. “I went back to school to study business.”
“Oh.” From the shiny, slick cover I’d thought this was a textbook. Maybe I should have assumed this, but from the way Nikhil had always talked about school…I never thought he’d go back. He’d made it sound like school wasn’t for him. That he preferred working with his hands, being active, instead of sitting in one place reading a book. He’d never said it in a mean way. Like he was judging me for studying all the time. He just made it clear that he couldn’t imagine ever doing the same.
“You’re finishing your degree?”
“No. Well, kind of. I’m getting my associate’s. Not a bachelor’s. I’m just at a community college. Not a four-year or anything.”
“Why?” I ask, still a little confused.
His shoulder tenses again, and I pull away to look at him.
“There’s nothing wrong with going to community college,” he says, the words flat.
I blink. “No. Of course there’s not. That’s not what I meant. You just…you never seemed that interested in going back to school before so—”
He’s quiet for a beat. “I didn’t choose to drop out, Meena. I had to. I had to leave when I learned…” He traces the corner of his textbook, his thumbnail flicking the edge of the page. “I only got into college because of my mother. Because she worked there. I should have figured it out sooner. I mean, I barely made it through high school. I came so close to failing senior year.” He swallows roughly. “I’m not like you. I’m not…School doesn’t come easily to me. It never has.
“I was always behind,” he continues. “Moving from place to place, uprooting every school year, it took a toll on me. I couldn’t keep up, and my mom didn’t get it. She’d sit with me at night, trying to help me with homework, but nothing clicked for me.” He looks down, not meeting my gaze. “Some of my classmates gave me a hard time about it. Joking that I should be doing better. That I must be the only Indian kid who struggled with math. Or that it was because I was only half, that I must have gotten too many of my father’s genes and not enough of my mom’s.”
Anger streaks up my spine, and my hands curl into fists. “They were wrong,” I tell Nikhil. “On top of being horrible and racist, they were just plain wrong. You know that, right?”
Finally, he looks at me, and the doubt, the insecurity on his face, makes me want to find every one of those bullies and tell them Nikhil is ten times the man they’ll ever be. It makes me want to avenge him. It makes me want to fight.
“You’re smart, Nikhil. And it has nothing to do with school.”
He flinches, but I push forward, forcing him to hear me. “You know one of the things I first noticed about you, the thing that made you different from so many of the people I was surrounded by in law school, was that you’re comfortable not knowing something. Whenever we’d talk about things, you actually listened, and if there was something you didn’t know, you’d admit it. You’d learn more about it, and wait until then to form a conclusion and that…that’s such a gift. It’s a strength .
“And the way you see things. The connections your mind draws. The way you can look at slabs of wood and see the future, see the bookshelf or coffee table they can be. The way you look at a room and see exactly how to make it come alive, to bring in the right pieces and change it from a space with four walls into a home. The way you find a run-down property and can picture it as this flourishing inn. The way you look at me and see…”
I break off. I hadn’t meant to say that, but sometimes…it had felt like Nikhil was the only one who’d seen past the front I’d presented to the world. Who’d seen past the stressed-out, terrified girl who was afraid of failing and seen…someone else. The kind of person I hoped I was underneath. The kind of person I wanted to be.
I turn away, but his hand comes up to cup my face. His eyes are bright, and they draw me in, just like they always have.
“I see the woman who listened to me like everything I had to say mattered. Like what I thought meant something. Like it was valuable. This woman whose mind was…is…ridiculous.” He laughs lightly. “Brilliant and sharp. Driven and ambitious and sure of the future in a way I never have been. And the idea that she thought my words were important, that she thought I could be a part of that future, that she could feel just as sure about me…” His thumb strokes against my cheek, and I close my eyes.
I’ve missed this. I’ve missed being with someone who sees me this way, who knows me this way.
But the future . The alarm from before blares, loud and brash.
All the things he’s talking about, the person he saw, the way he felt, that was all back then.
I pull away from him, catching how his face falls before his guard goes back up.
“I think it’s great you’ve gone back to school,” I tell him.
He clears his throat. “Thanks. I’m hoping it’ll help with running the business, you know? With running the inn.”
I nod, the reminder helping. His business is here, his home is here. And mine is not. I have plans back in D.C. Even if I were to run for the seat in Texas, I don’t know if that would change anything. I’d probably still try to be based out of D.C. I’d probably still try to do all of this with Shake.
I think.
I scoot toward my side of the bed and push my hair back from my face. From the second I got here, nothing has gone according to plan. I need a second to regroup. Some space to figure out what all of this means. “While you’re studying, would it be okay if I borrowed your phone? And your computer? I haven’t checked in with work in a few days, and since we have power back…”
“Yeah,” Nikhil says. “Of course.” He reaches toward his nightstand, not quite meeting my eyes as he passes the phone to me. “I left yours plugged in too over there. I know it wasn’t working before, but I swear I saw it light up for a second, so you may want to check it. And the laptop’s downstairs on the coffee table. No password.” He gets up, looking around the room. “I’ll just change and then I’ll do some work in the garage, so feel free to use this room, or the living room, or wherever.” He ducks into the bathroom quickly, then leaves, and I’m not sure exactly what it is I feel.
Relief, I tell myself, as I reach for my phone. I’m sure this strange, jittery sensation traveling over my skin is relief.