Chapter 5 #2
He was doing it again. Making me feel normal by telling me that he isn’t any better than me.
The surgeon in the OR was a jerk, but the man having dinner with me is…well, wonderful.
Be still, my heart, this one isn’t interested in someone like you.
“How about this?” He sets the menu down. “We can order together. I’ll explain anything you want—or nothing at all. And if you hate it, we’ll get tacos afterward…or find an Indian place?”
That makes me smile.
“I’m curious about mussels,” I tell him.
“Excellent food to be curious about.”
I lean in, lowering my voice like it’s a secret. “But you’ll have to pick the wine.”
He chuckles. “I’ll try my best. It’s not like I’m a wine expert. I usually just ask the sommelier to tell me what to get based on the food being ordered.”
I furrow my brows. “Really?”
He lets out a soft laugh. “Now my closest friend, Massimo, knows wine because he works in the business.”
I don’t tell him then that I know his family also owns vineyards because that would mean I Googled a lot more than French menu items.
“Well then, I’ll leave the ordering of the liquor to you.” I close my menu.
“I’m honored.” He dramatically bows his head.
I laugh, loosening the tension in my chest.
“And for the record,” he adds, eyes steady on mine, “there’s nothing wrong with unfamiliar. It just means you’re somewhere new.”
Okay, if this man isn’t careful, I’m going to have a bigger crush on him than I have on Mr. Darcy.
The champagne comes first: it is not just a random sparkling wine; to be called champagne, it’s grown and made in a specific region of France, Evan explains. And he does it in a way that doesn’t make me feel small—just informed.
The wine is pale gold and quietly expensive.
I sneaked in a look at the price per glass.
Fifty dollars for one glass? And four hundred dollars for a bottle?
Can people really tell the difference between a ten-dollar glass of wine and a fifty-dollar one?
It’s wasted on me because my palate isn’t wine-trained.
Still, I don’t get to drink fancy-sounding wine called Ruinart every day, so I make the best of it.
“To apologies,” he toasts and clinks his glass with mine.
“To surviving the OR,” I add.
The first sip is crisp and cold, with a little decadence. I immediately feel underqualified for it.
The food comes in stages—thoughtful, unhurried.
I try his steak tartare. Not something I’d imagine ever eating. I can do sushi, but raw beef? It’s delicious. He feeds it to me with his fork.
“You’re curious,” he says appreciatively. “I like that.”
I give him a taste of my scallops, which he says are the best he’s ever had.
It’s almost like we’re a couple.
Don’t go there, Navya.
The mussels stump me. How to eat this without it being messy?
He teaches me. “Here, you take an empty shell and use it like claws to grab the others.”
“So…we eat with our hands?”
He laughs. “Si. Just like you’d do in India.”
The conversation is remarkably easy. It starts with work—obviously, since we are colleagues.
“I wanted to go to medical school,” I tell him eventually, my voice casual even though the words never are.
His eyes sharpen. “You did?”
“I got into UCLA.” I’m proud of that achievement. I may not have gone, but I was admitted—my MCAT scores and GPA were good enough. Take that, universe.
He picks up his wine. “But you didn’t go?”
“My mother fell sick and…I went to nursing school.” I shrug, not wanting it to sound like I made some big sacrifice. I didn’t. I just took care of my family like loads of other people. “My brother is studying there now, so one of us gets to live the dream.”
“Do you regret giving it up?” he asks quietly.
“Sometimes,” I murmur hesitantly. “But I still help people. So, any disappointment is diminished.”
He tells me about his family.
His parents are alive and live in Napa with his grandfather, who moved there after his wife passed away. He tells me about his Nonno and Nonna, which sounds just like Nana* and Nani* as we’d call them in Hindi.
“They raised me and my brother, Leo. He’s two years younger than me. He lives in Florence.” He seems sad suddenly. “He was there when my grandma…. I was…late. Got there…after.”
I put my hand on his. “But you saw her before she passed, didn’t you?”
He turns his hand so our palms join. “Yes, a week before, thankfully.
I squeeze his hand. “My brother wasn’t there when my mother passed, and he feels the same way you do.
I tell him that he has to say goodbye to her in his own way—to remember her when she was healthy, conscious, whole.
That’s what matters. Not whether he was there at the end.
By then, she didn’t even know what was going on around her. She was pretty out of it.”
He lets out a long breath. “How old are you, Navya?”
I release his hand and take a sip of water. “I’m twenty-six.”
“You’re wise for someone so young.” He swirls his wine for a moment, then lifts his gaze to mine, holds it. “I’m nearly a decade older than you.”
The way he says it is almost a challenge. It makes my heart go dun, dun, dun, almost like Hindi movie background music, soaring during a tense scene.
“Older doesn’t always mean wiser,” I quip, not looking away from his intense scrutiny.
“True,” he agrees—and then, deliberately, lowers his eyes and redirects us into a discussion about desserts.
He does it subtly, but we both notice. We both felt the charge in the air and chose not to name it.
So even as we debate the merits of crème br?lée versus tiramisu, the electricity between us doesn’t disappear—it remains, its presence unmistakable.
* Country bumpkin (Hindi slang, not a direct translation)
* A traditional Indian greeting, made by bringing the palms together before the face or chest (Hindi)
* Good evening (French)
* Deal done (Italian)
* Maternal grandfather (Hindi)
* Maternal grandmother (Hindi)