Chapter Ten
Chapter
Ten
“Do boyfriends and girlfriends always act so stupid?”
—Michelle Tanner, Full House
The night before the anniversary party, Harsha found herself at Veer’s place again, this time sitting on the floor, their legs and feet touching as they quizzed each other about their relationship.
“Our first date was at the Japanese place three months ago, the second date was watching your uncle’s cringey movie, ow”—Veer fake-winced midsentence when Harsha kicked him—“and the third date was at your place where we Netflix-and-chilled.”
“Veer!” She resisted the urge to hit him again. “The relationship history document clearly says ‘we stayed up all night talking and bingeing our favorite sitcoms.’?”
“Nobody’s going to buy that, but point duly noted.” He laughed, his finger tracing her shoulder lazily. Harsha had mentally gotten used to the touching by now, but couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her spine. How is this not affecting him the same way? she wondered.
“Okay, next question: What’s my mother’s name?” Veer asked.
“Manisha,” she replied. “How’s she doing since your brother left?”
He sighed, his chest deflating. “I don’t think being an empty nester suits her. Every time I’ve visited her since, she’s been deep-cleaning Arjun’s room. How dusty can a room get in three days?”
Harsha turned her face toward him, catching a stronger whiff of his cologne. “She must be so lonely,” she said quietly. “Thank god you live close to each other.”
His fingers now moved down her hair, ruffling her curls. “Family is all you have in the end,” he said.
She stiffened. That certainly wasn’t the case for her—family was the last thing she had, if she even had them at all. Veer must have noticed the movement, because he squeezed her shoulder affectionately. God, he was good at this. “That reminds me,” he said, his throat bobbing, “I, uh, told my mom about this.”
Harsha’s jaw dropped, and she jerked upright to face him. “Wait. About this or about us ?”
“About us,” he clarified. “The fake ‘us.’ She was hounding me about an arranged marriage match, so I told her I’m in a relationship with you so she’d get off my case.”
She put a hand to her heart, which was still racing. “What did she say?”
Veer’s muscled arm flexed as he scratched his ear. “She wants to meet you, but I told her it was too soon for that.”
Thank goodness . Harsha knew what Indian moms were like—hers included. They started to hear wedding bells at the mention of a first date, forget the word “relationship.” If she met Manisha Auntie, the fallout of Harsha’s breakup with Veer after the contract ended would be messy.
She forced herself to smile. “I’m sure we’ll be done with this before she badgers you about it again. Anyway, back to the quiz—” Her phone buzzed with an incoming call. She squinted at the unknown number, then picked up. “Hello?”
“Is this Harsha Godbole?” the man on the other end barked. “From apartment 303?”
Harsha frowned. “Yes…?”
“You weren’t answering your door, so I got your number from the building manager. You need to fix the flooding in your bathroom, immediately. It’s seeping into my unit downstairs.”
Her forehead wrinkled. She whispered a soft apology to Veer and stood, heading to the small balcony. “What flooding?”
“How would I know?” her neighbor said testily. “You need to get over here, now .” He hung up, cursing under his breath.
Harsha shut her eyes. Fuck. She must have accidentally left the water running after her shower, or maybe the semi-functioning plumbing had finally given up on her. Her rent didn’t cover maintenance, so she would have to fix it herself.
She let out a long, shaky breath, resting a hand against the cool glass of the balcony door, allowing the sounds of the few giggling children in the park downstairs to soothe her nerves. At least this had happened tonight and not while she was away. But would a plumber be available this late in the evening?
“Is everything all right?” Veer asked, appearing beside her. He put one hand on her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “You said something on the phone about flooding?”
Harsha cringed and raked a hand through her hair, stalling for time. She opened her mouth as it dried, her chest pounding. What excuse could she give him? In his eyes, she was rich and presumably living in a gated community with plumbers that worked around the clock. That wouldn’t explain why she was freaking out like this.
“Harsha?” he probed. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Just a little problem in my apartment,” she squeaked, racing past him to grab her bag. “But it’ll be fine—I should run anyway!”
He tugged her away from the door just as she reached for her sneakers in the shoe rack, pulling her by the hand so they were face-to-face. “Like I said before, as your fake boyfriend, I can tell when something’s bothering you.” His gaze softened. “All that talk about being vulnerable and you’re not even accepting my help? Let me in.”
She blew air through her teeth. He was right; she was acting like a hypocrite. Why was he such a natural at this role? “Fine,” she said, swallowing back her dread—he would have found out sooner or later, one way or another, especially once he met her family. “You can drive me, but please don’t freak out when you see where I live.”
Veer took out their shoes from the rack and picked up his keys. “Don’t worry, I’ll mentally prepare myself for a palace or a mansion in the sky,” he joked.
Harsha resisted the urge to slap her forehead and followed him down to where his car was parked. Anxiety churned in her belly all the way through the twenty-minute drive, her knees jiggling. How was she going to admit her real financial situation to him?
When Veer pulled onto her dark street, packed with old matchbox-sized apartment buildings and one blinking streetlight, his eyebrows knitted together. “I think I took a wrong turn,” he said, giving Google Maps another glance. “Did you put in the right address?”
Harsha sighed. Moment of truth, here we go. “No, we’re here,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt and getting out.
“What?” He froze in the front seat, one hand still clutching the phone propped up on his dashboard. “I don’t understand—”
She stomped her foot and glared at him through the open car door. “Veer, please. We have to hurry.”
He exited the car, locking it with a beep, and gave her building a confused glance, taking in the faded yellow paint, the rusted gate, and the tiny balcony-less units.
“Come on,” Harsha urged, creaking the gate open and leading the way up the cramped staircase to her place on the third floor. She gave Veer a tight, nervous smile, then unlocked the door with shaking fingers and flipped on the light switch. Here we go.
What the fuck? Veer stepped inside the strange, musty living room that was so small it seemed to end before it began, noting the sound of gushing water from somewhere inside. He wrinkled his nose at the heavy smell of mold in the air while Harsha kicked off her sneakers, threw her tote bag on the small two-seater couch, and rushed into the bathroom. “Come on!” she yelled as she ran.
He followed her with slow steps, more questions on his mind than answers. A slow but steady pool of water crept out of the bathroom, and when Harsha opened the door, more poured out. The bathroom was smaller than his balcony and lit by only one dim yellow bulb.
Harsha rolled her jean cuffs up and gingerly walked over to the tap, her feet splashing in the water. While she crouched to inspect the tap at eye level, Veer caught a glimpse of himself in the tiny circular mirror and shut his gaping mouth. “Where am I?” he said.
Harsha sighed loudly from the shower area. “Don’t poor-shame me, okay?”
He scoffed. “You’re paying me half a million. You are not—”
“Priorities,” she said testily. “Help me with the loose tap.”
He walked closer and inspected the corroded metal tap, then looked around until he found the knob that controlled the water supply, turning it until the leaking stopped. Then he returned to the loose tap, thinking. “Do you have a toolbox?” he asked.
Harsha’s lip wobbled. “No…?”
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I can’t fix this without a toolbox.”
She nodded slowly. “Then we’ll just have to clean up for now and call the plumber when we’re back from Mumbai.” She handed him a mop that had been propped up behind the door, and they got to work wringing the excess water into a bucket and draining it in the toilet.
Almost an hour later, they were done. Veer finished washing his hands as Harsha pressed her palms to her eyes. “Thank you so much. I was freaking out.”
“Probably not as much as I’m freaking out,” he said. He used the small, clean towel hanging beside the mirror and walked into her room, trying to make sense of all this. The single bed had a precarious frame, and the closet was too small for a woman he had presumed would have hundreds of designer clothes. The half-empty maroon suitcase on the floor and the multiple scenic pictures on the wall—probably all taken by her—were the only things in the room that proved he and Harsha hadn’t broken into someone else’s apartment.
He walked out and sat down on her two-seater couch with a thump. It groaned under his weight. “Why do you live… here ?”
She joined him on the couch and took his hands, staring intently at him. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
His chest rose and fell as he looked right back at her, nausea in the base of his throat. “Harsha, did you steal the money you’re paying me?”
“No.” She leaned her head against the wall behind the couch, then explained. Veer could hardly keep up with the dramatic revelation about her current financial situation, and when she was done, she threw her hands into the air. “So yeah. That’s my story.”
Veer couldn’t hold himself back. He burst out laughing.
She narrowed her gaze. “I’m sorry, is my pathetic living situation funny to you?”
He started to explain, but another fit of laughter consumed him, and he rocked back and forth on the couch, nearly kicking his legs up against the small coffee table.
“Fine, laugh at me.” Harsha stood up and turned to leave. “I have to finish packing.”
“Sorry.” Still laughing, he tugged on her arm and pulled her back onto the couch. She nearly fell into his lap, and Veer was grateful she caught herself in time. Holding her for “practice” without getting a raging hard-on had been enough of a challenge for one day.
Right now, though, the warmth slowly unfurling in his chest took precedence over the sparks shooting down his core at their split-second moment of contact. “I like you so much more now,” he said, grinning.
Her eyes widened. “You what?”
Veer smiled. It blew his mind that Harsha wasn’t living off of her dad’s money except to fund the fake relationship, but part of him wondered if he had just been missing the signs, like when she had been anxious and worried at the checkout counters at the mall. Everything made sense now. She wasn’t the spoiled, rich, bratty daddy’s girl he thought she was. Mr. and Mrs. Godbole were snobby Indian parents who needed her to look successful for the sake of keeping up appearances in front of society. She was trying to make it on her own.
But he still didn’t think she was poor; she had a safety net she could rely on whenever she wanted to. If Harsha was ever in real financial trouble and couldn’t use that secondary account, millions of rupees would be one bank transaction away. She would never have to fake date someone to safeguard the future of her loved ones.
Unlike Veer.
Regardless, he shouldn’t have judged her, not when she was in the same place as him, living a humble life and working toward a brighter future, like every middle-class person in Bangalore.
“Come on.” He finally got up with a smile, his hand still wound around her elbow. “Let’s make some coffee and finish packing your suitcase.”
Harsha nodded and followed him into the kitchen.
He looked around the cramped kitchen, from her tiny fridge in one corner to the basic microwave and crumb-riddled toaster on the other side. “Where’s your coffee machine?”
“There’s some decaf instant coffee powder in the cabinet up there.”
Veer whirled around to glare at her; she might as well have slapped him in the face. “Instant coffee powder?” he exclaimed. “How could you, Harsha?”
She giggled and sat up on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs. “Now you know why I come to Sunstag every day.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Okay, coffee’s ruled out. Do you have anything else that’ll calm you down but won’t feel like a knife in the back to me?”
“Ice cream?” she suggested, opening the fridge door.
“Sure.”
Veer pursed his lips and took a deep breath as he looked at their options in the freezer: one large tub of vanilla ice cream, or three smaller pints of vanilla ice cream. This woman would never cease to amaze him. “Seriously? You only have one flavor of ice cream in your freezer, and it’s the worst one?”
“Shut your mouth.” She pointed a spoon at him accusatorially. “Vanilla is the best flavor. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. It’s simple. It’s authentic. It’s—”
“Boring?” Veer suggested, and she scowled at him. “At least tell me you have chocolate sauce, or caramel syrup, or something .”
Harsha grinned and took something out of the fridge, her body brushing against his. “Ta-da!” She slammed the bottle of Hershey’s strawberry syrup down and folded her arms.
“You love strawberries more than I thought,” he said, chuckling as he looked around for bowls.
“What do you mean?”
Before he could stop himself, he said, “You smell like strawberries, all the damn time.” Then he turned around to grab two bowls from the cabinet, hoping it would hide the blush on his face.
“You noticed,” Harsha said. She scooped ice cream into their bowls, generously drizzling it with strawberry syrup. A drop of syrup fell on her index finger, and she absentmindedly licked it off. Veer swallowed back a groan. He did not need that visual in his head.
She led the way to the couch, tapping her spoon to his. “Cheers,” she said with that trademark Harsha Godbole smile. “You deserve all the strawberry syrup in the world for helping me tonight.”
“Of course,” he said, grinning back. “What are fake boyfriends for?”
Harsha frowned, and Veer couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “Let’s eat,” she said simply, and dug into her ice cream. They finished their bowls and got to work packing Harsha’s suitcase, chatting about the Mumbai trip and the big family lunch with the Godboles tomorrow before the anniversary party.
“Make sure to bring all your new shirts,” Harsha reminded him, making room for her shoe bags in between her clothes, “and the suit you picked up from the tailor last week.”
“Roger that.” He saluted as he handed her another pair of heels from the closet.
Harsha packed the heels and let out a shaky breath. “Veer, I’m honestly so anxious. What if we mess this up? What if my family sees through me?”
Veer hesitated, then pivoted the topic. “Do you think your cousin Neha would know how to fix a leaky tap?”
Harsha giggled. “She stays in the kind of gated community you thought I lived in, with around-the-clock maintenance. She doesn’t need to know what a tap is, forget having to fix one.”
He studied her, wondering what the real backstory was between the cousins’ rivalry. “How do you feel about seeing her tomorrow?”
Harsha let out a shaky breath and tightened her fist around the sock she was holding. “Terrified. She’s always been able to get under my skin and bring out my worst side. If she ever found out the truth about us, she’d destroy me.”
“I won’t let that happen.” He uncurled her fingers from the sock and interlaced them with his own. She smiled, squeezing his hand in return, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Usually painted red, the color had faded after the long events of the night, revealing her natural pink lips that he now knew were softer on his cheek than he’d first imagined. What if he just reached out and pressed his—
Harsha dropped his hand and fidgeted with her hair tie. “It’s late. You should go home. See you at the airport in the morning?”
“Right, yeah,” he said, his stomach squirming. He said good night at the front door and returned Harsha’s hug, pulling away at the faintest whiff of her strawberry scent.
“Night.” The door shut behind him.
He walked down the flight of stairs, his footsteps heavy, and got into his car wondering what went wrong. Maybe nothing—to Harsha, this was a business relationship, and he needed to respect that.
Cursing under his breath, he started the engine, pulling back onto the main road. Tomorrow was the first test of their contract, but as much as he had to convince Harsha’s family that he was madly in love with her, there was another thing on the to-do list: remind himself that this relationship was fake and only for show, and nothing—not even the fluttering in his chest—could change the reality of this situation.