Chapter 3
We stay like that for a long moment, until our warm, sweat-slicked skin begins to cool. When we untangle our limbs, there’s a bit of awkwardness, and I watch his lust-drunk expression fade, uncertainty taking its place as he withdraws.
He glances at the door, then back at me, and something shrivels in my chest.
“I’m going to use the restroom,” I blurt out, sliding out from under him.
“Yeah. All right. I’ll just take care of this,” he says, gesturing below, at the condom, “and then—”
But I don’t hear the rest of what he says. I take the coward’s way out and shut the bathroom door.
This is the end of the night. The end of our assignation. Once we complete our post-sex practicalities, he’ll sneak out the door. Probably while I’m still in here, so we don’t have to do the strained smiles and uncomfortable goodbyes.
I brace myself for it when I exit the bathroom, only to find him still here.
He’s propped against the headboard, his legs stretched out on top of the comforter—he must have remade the bed—and he’s put his glasses back on, and his pants.
I follow his lead, grabbing my shirt from the floor and slipping it over my head.
He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. His chest is bare, his skin glistening in the light, and a familiar warmth spreads through me. Dangerous and tempting.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, flipping a room service menu in his hands.
“Maybe,” I say, scooting across the bed to join him. I lean over his shoulder to read the menu, and he lifts an arm around me, tucking me against his side. “That jeely piece from before wasn’t exactly filling.”
He laughs, the sound husky and deep, and I feel it vibrating through him everywhere his body touches mine. “Don’t go insulting my jeely piece.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I say. “I just think I could use something a little more substantial.”
He pulls back a bit to look at me, his brown eyes sparkling. “If that wasn’t enough to satisfy you, I’d be more than happy to try again.”
A low hum of desire starts within me. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. There’s an entire menu of options.
I’m sure we can find something you like.
” He picks up a water bottle off the nightstand, drinking directly from it.
He offers it to me, his lips wet and shining, and the sight brings back images from just a little while ago.
His head in between my thighs, the way he looked up at me, hungry and determined all at once.
I shift, my legs suddenly restless, my mouth dry. I take the water from him, gulping it down.
“I am serious about ordering food if you want some,” he says as I drink. “And I am serious about…you know, going again—”
I sputter.
“If you want that,” he says quickly. “If you don’t, or if you want me to leave, that’s fine too. I wasn’t sure if that was—if you wanted me to go right, uh, after, but if you want me to, I can.”
He flushes, and it’s endearing. He’s endearing. Straightforward, but respectful, and slightly bashful, and the combination is a heady cocktail. “Do you want to stay?” I ask.
His eyes grow soft, and his voice is low and sincere when he says, “Yes.”
“I’d like that too,” I tell him.
We peruse the menu, and I quickly discover this man has a sweet tooth (which isn’t much of a surprise, considering his favorite meal is jam and bread). He orders cranachan, and I get a Caesar salad and a side of fries.
“You could order that anywhere,” he says, mock disapproval on his face.
“That’s part of the appeal,” I say. “It’s my standard room service meal. I get it at least once no matter where I go.”
He cocks his head. “I thought you were an adventurous eater. Didn’t you say you liked trying new things?”
“I do,” I say. “But there’s something about ordering the same meal in different places.
It’s like…a touchstone. Something familiar, a constant, even when everything else is new.
And it’s not like it tastes the same everywhere.
The dressing varies from place to place, the cheese sometimes changes, whether it’s crumbled or grated or sliced.
” I lift a shoulder. “My boss kind of does the same thing, except for her it’s KFC.
She insists on going to one in every country we visit, because the menu always changes, but there are some things that stay the same.
Like, it’s new, but still comforting in a way. ”
“And do you—” He hesitates a moment, something flickering in his eyes.
“What?”
He clears his throat, sitting up straighter. “Sorry. Nothing. I was going to ask about the kind of travel you do for work, but probably better to talk about something else, right?”
“Oh. Right.” I force a smile, but inwardly berate myself. I’m not sure why that reference to my job slipped out. It wasn’t purposeful. Probably just a mistake due to the travel, and jet lag, and mind-blowing sex.
We turn on the TV as we wait for the food to arrive, a UK baking show that isn’t my particular brand of reality television but that I enjoy nonetheless.
“Do you bake?” I ask, thinking about his penchant for desserts.
“No,” he says. “I’ve tried, but everything has to be so precise, so perfect, or it doesn’t come out right. It’s not the way I was taught to cook.”
“But you cook?”
He smiles. “Yes, that I can do. My parents insisted that all of their children have the basic life skills to be able to feed themselves, so every Saturday they’d teach us something new.
My younger sisters and I would crowd around our parents in the kitchen as they taught us how to make appam and ishtu, chicken curry, and parotta.
And though I can’t bake any desserts, I know how to make payasam.
I used to make it for my sisters once a week. ”
“I like payasam,” I say. “I never learned how to make it, though. Or anything, really. My mom worked a lot, so she’d make a big batch of food once in a while and freeze it, and we’d pull stuff out whenever we needed it.
I started pitching in when I got older, but I’d just make something easy, like pasta with premade sauce.
” I laugh, thinking about those undercooked noodles with a tinny tomato taste.
“It was never particularly good, but she never made me feel bad about it. I don’t think we ever even tried to make dessert.
I’ve only had payasam at restaurants, though most of the ones near us were North Indian, so they called it kheer. ”
“It’s the same here. It tastes almost identical to me, but I only hear it called payasam when I’m at a South Indian restaurant.” He pauses. “Do you know what ‘payasam’ means?”
I shake my head.
“It comes from the Malayalam word for ambrosia. Or nectar.” His expression softens, growing slightly distant.
“Those were part of the cooking lessons, these little fun facts about what we were making. I didn’t realize it until later, but I think…
my parents worried about us. Money was tight and we only were able to go back and visit family in India every few years or so, but they wanted us to still feel connected.
They wanted us to know where we came from.
That even though we were living here, even though we’d made our home here, our roots were elsewhere.
I think they just…wanted us to understand who they were. And who we are.”
A string tugs at my chest, his words wrapping around me, forming a cord between us.
“I get that,” I say. “My mom’s never said it like that exactly, but I’m pretty sure she felt that way too.
” A piece of hair falls in my face, and I tuck it behind my ear.
“We didn’t have any family close by, any family in the U.S.
at all, really, so it was just the two of us.
And she’d talk about that sometimes, how it was different for her growing up.
How she’d always had cousins and aunts and uncles around, and how she was sometimes sad she couldn’t give that to me.
Though she shouldn’t have been. She was amazing and present, and still is, but I always felt bad that moving meant she had to give that up. That we both had to miss out on it.”
He hums in acknowledgment, his arm tightening around my shoulders, his fingers playing with the ends of my hair.
I settle against him, and we quietly watch the baking competition on-screen.
A contestant accidentally knocks over a rival’s tray, and I laugh when the rival responds kindly with a cheerful “accidents happen,” and the incident’s over before it’s barely begun.
“I’ve seen this show before,” I say. “It’s popular in the U.S. too, but it’s always so funny to me how nice everyone is.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Are people in the U.S. not nice?”
“No, they are, but not in our reality shows. Competition shows like this are built around…well, competition. If something like that happened on one of our networks, the music would swell, there’d be some kind of ominous sound, and the contestants would yell.
Maybe call each other names. Stuff that would have to be bleeped out. ”
“Who’d want to watch that?” he says, his nose wrinkling.
“Plenty of people,” I say, a bit defensive.
Those kinds of shows may not be my particular favorite, but any judgment about viewer preferences tends to raise my alarm.
“Sometimes the drama’s a little manufactured, heightened, but that doesn’t mean real things aren’t happening underneath.
Other shows are more subtle about it, and some have it at the forefront, but really, it’s just a stylistic difference. ”
He listens, his expression thoughtful, and adjusts the frames of his glasses over the bridge of his nose. “But a difference in style can sometimes mean a difference in substance,” he says.
“I…I’m not sure I follow.”