Chapter Four
Chapter
Four
Goa had looked beautiful enough in the day and a half since Naina’s plane touched down at the airport, but like the fine wine she’d taken far too long to acquire a taste for, the place aged better with time.
As she walked side by side with Tejas to a nearby outdoor pub for drinks, the sunset plunged the beach into every shade of orange and pink, the gray sea glittered as though made of diamonds, and the sand shone like powdered gold.
That, plus the sight of Tejas’s muscly arms and that little dimple in his cheek as he smiled back at her, almost made up for how uncomfortably warm the weather was.
Or maybe it was his hand accidentally brushing hers every now and then that had cranked up the temperature another notch.
Tejas must have had a similar thought. “Do they not have AC here?” he asked, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead when Naina looked back at him.
She headed over to a table on the deck facing the beach and sighed. “Get used to the heat. Very few places in Goa have air-conditioning, since everything is usually outdoors.”
He sat down across from her at the table, shoulders slumped. “You’ve been here long, then?”
“Just got here yesterday, though I’m staying for about two weeks,” she admitted.
She turned her gaze to the horizon, now fading from orange to deep blue, and exhaled as reality caught up to her.
“I’d already researched and planned a vacation here months ago, but I decided to stay at the hostel last-minute because, well, I needed a different experience. ”
She toyed with the unopened menus on their table, nearly scoffing at the words coming out of her own mouth.
Different experience didn’t begin to explain it.
Sure, she could have checked in to the honeymoon suite at the Taj Hotel as planned, but lying on a bed of rose petals by her lonesome self and chugging the complimentary bottle of champagne wouldn’t have fixed her broken heart.
Tejas shuffled his chair closer to hers and chuckled. “You’re trying to escape reality too, aren’t you?”
Naina forced herself to smile; it was better than sobbing her guts out to her new roommate, handsome as he might be. She leaned back in her chair and tied her hair into a messy bun. Then she spoke. “I was supposed to come to Goa for my honeymoon.”
Tejas’s big brown eyes zoomed in on her bare ring finger and the tan line that would probably take months to fade.
He hesitated, then set his warm hand on hers and squeezed.
“I’m sorry. Love sucks,” Tejas said, and it was the genuine hurt in his voice that made Naina squeeze his hand back. Maybe he needed the comfort too.
Shoulders straightening, she said, “Seems like you speak from experience.”
“Yeah.” He stared ahead at the sea, his chest rising and falling. He rubbed the base of his neck. “It’s a long story, but shit happened back home. I needed to leave for a bit, figure out what I want from my own life.”
“Goa’s a good place for that,” she agreed. “New places, new experiences…”
“New people,” Tejas finished, which elicited a laugh from her.
A server greeted them, and they perused the menu, looking through the list of craft beers on tap.
While Tejas flipped through the pages, Naina tried and failed to keep her eyes from raking over him again.
This man was fit. From his burly arms rippling in that sleeveless shirt to his broad chest, dusted with dark hair, he was so unbelievably…
masculine. Naina had only slept with three men her whole life, none of whom looked this strong.
Her ex had barely been able to handle one round in the bedroom without tiring himself out.
Tejas, meanwhile, could probably lift Naina with one arm and pin her to the wall with the other.
“Why do they have a gunpowder masala rye ale?” Tejas said, frowning at the menu. “Isn’t that a South Indian spice?”
Naina swallowed, blinking away her scandalous thoughts. What was wrong with her? She’d been single for a month. A month! And this man was a stranger. Maybe Anil’s stupid advice to have a hookup was clouding her judgment.
“I tried the ale here last night,” she said finally. “It’s great, and trust me when I say I have good taste.”
Tejas looked up from the menu, his lips twitching. “I bet you do.”
Blushing, Naina cleared her throat and called the waiter over. She ordered the kokum beer while Tejas asked for the gunpowder ale, giving her a quick grin.
Once they’d had a few sips of their chilled drinks and had made some small talk about the other guests at the hostel and the weather, Naina asked, “So what’s the verdict?”
Tejas lifted his glass in the air, making the beer shimmer in the light of the setting sun. “It’s delicious. You were right—you do have good taste.”
If only her taste in men were as good as her taste in beer.
Naina decided a topic change was in order. “Are you hoping to do more outdoorsy activities in Goa, or just go pub-hopping?”
He stretched his arms above his head, making his shirt rise up an inch over his abs, not that Naina was looking, of course. Although this vacation was about reclaiming the things she missed in her life. Maybe this feeling could be one of them?
Tejas sipped his beer. “Anything. Everything. I just want to live for myself for these two weeks. Not for anybody else.”
“Hmm.” Naina thought for a moment, picturing her anti-honeymoon bucket list. Some of the items on it were forcibly put there by Anil, hoping to bring out her “wild side,” as he’d called it—the side of her she’d repressed ever since the start of her relationship with Santhosh, which, in hindsight, was doomed to fail—but something about the gorgeous man sitting in front of her, straight out of a beer commercial, made her want to do everything on the list anyway.
As Tejas set his mug down to wipe sweat from his brow, Naina tugged on the side of her ear. “Hey, I need your help with something, if you’re up for it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What exactly do you need help with?”
She took a piece of paper out of her handbag and smoothed it out on the table before them. “I need a partner with whom I can do everything on this list.”
Tejas bent forward to read the big, bold letters at the top of the page. “Um…‘Naina’s Anti-Honeymoon Checklist’?”
Naina swept a strand of hair from her face, eager to tell him about her master plan. “Yes. Every single thing I couldn’t have done if my horrible ex was still in my life. It’s the perfect way to get over him—by reminding myself just how much he was limiting my experiences.”
Tejas’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Oh my God, are you serious?”
Naina held back a sigh and jabbed a finger at the list again. “Just read it and tell me your thoughts.”
Naina’s Anti-Honeymoon Checklist
Stay anywhere but a hotel.
Kiss a stranger.
Try any kind of drug.
Go to a rave.
Eat way too much seafood in one sitting.
Get shit-faced drunk.
Go on a real adventure.
Go skinny-dipping.
Have sex…outside of a bedroom.
Blow money on something extravagant.
“So you want my help doing everything on this list?” Tejas asked, biting his lip like he was trying not to keep laughing.
Naina’s cheeks flamed. He was obviously referring to the two items on the list that Anil had begged her to include. “Not everything. And besides, my friends from the hostel are helping me with the drugs and the rave. But…” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I have a feeling you’re good company.”
“I am.” He chuckled, flicking his eyes back to the list. “What’s with the seafood thing? You can do that anywhere.”
“Goa is known for its seafood. Besides, Santh—I mean, my ex—is a vegetarian. And he always made me feel bad for not being one too.”
Tejas chuckled. “Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
“Look.” Naina leaned closer to him determinedly, catching a whiff of his woodsy cologne. “I’m on a solo trip, trying to reclaim joy. You’re on a solo trip, hoping to find yourself. And we’re roommates, so we need to have each other’s back. What do you say?”
Tejas folded his arms and stared at her like he was considering it.
Naina hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
All said and done, he was still an unknown person she would be doing this experience with.
And not just an unknown person—a witty, intriguing, dangerously attractive man who also happened to be her roommate.
Which was exactly why she would have to set boundaries, and fast. Something that would ensure her head and heart remained intact well after this vacation ended.
“I’m in,” Tejas said finally. “What’s first?”
“Ground rules,” Naina answered. “I’m not here to make lifelong friends or fall in love. I don’t want to exchange any personal information. No last names, no social media, nothing that could help us find each other after this trip.”
“Nothing?” he asked weakly. “What if a personal topic comes up?”
“Well, then”—Naina clinked her beer mug with his—“we reply with wrong answers only. Like if you ask me where I’m from, I’ll say…” She thought for a moment, then finished, “Westeros.”
“Sounds fun.” Tejas mulled over her ground rules and held a hand out. “Then I’m Prince Charming, from your wildest dreams.”
She tried to muffle her laughter, but it came out as a squeak. Beaming, she shook his hand. “I already know your first name, but sure. I’m Naina Stark.”
“So what now, Naina Stark?” Tejas returned his gaze to the anti-honeymoon list. “Which item do you want to check off the list first? My cabdriver from the bus stop gave me this.” He opened the Gallery app on his phone and showed her a handwritten list of parties.
“There’s a rave happening every night this week. ”
She pursed her lips as her eyes darted to the phone number at the bottom of the photo. “I didn’t realize you knew a…drug dealer in Goa. That’s what this number is for, right?”
“I don’t know him,” he clarified. He took a big gulp of his ale, his face flushing. “I’m guessing the cabdriver gets a commission on the sales the, uh, dealer makes.”
Naina opened her mouth, unsure what to say. The idea of going to a rave with a handsome stranger who had a drug dealer’s phone number, while thrilling, wasn’t quite that appealing to her. Besides, the others at the hostel already said they’d go with her.
“Hey, hey, come to think of it,” Tejas said, lifting his hands like a faux surrender. “It might help us both to start with something easier off the list, at least until we get to know each other better.”
“Yes,” Naina said quickly, relief sinking into her bones that she didn’t have to suggest it herself and look like a scaredy-cat. “Are you hungry?”
Twenty minutes later, they clutched their plates as they stood in front of the slowly moving conveyor belt that carried more seafood than Naina had seen in a lifetime.
This authentic Goan restaurant promised an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet with over seventy delicacies, and thankfully a handful of tables were empty.
Naina tried not to visibly drool as she peered at the small labels on the different dishes passing them by: truffle-butter pomfret, recheado mackerel, bacon-wrapped grilled shrimp…
“Well, shall we?” Tejas asked.
She nodded. Naina stacked up her plate with fish, prawns, crabmeat, shrimp, squid—not a vegetable in sight.
A grin spread along her lips at the thought of Santhosh and how he’d react if he saw her plate right now.
He’d have been scandalized. She snickered to herself and took another piece of prawn tempura for good measure.
They settled in to their table, clinked their beer bottles, and toasted to “new beginnings,” then ate in silence, breaking it only occasionally to praise the food.
“This is the best prawn I’ve had in my life,” Tejas said, wiping his mouth with the edge of his napkin.
“And that’s saying something, considering I live in—”
“Nope,” Naina said, swiftly pressing a finger to his lips. “We don’t talk about where we’re from, remember?”
Tejas exhaled sharply. “Right, of course. Did you like the tempura?”
She withdrew her finger, warm from his breath, and sucked on her final piece of prawn. “It’s delicious. I’m kicking myself for never having tried prawn before.”
“Because of the ex?” He shook his head. “The list is looking more and more necessary now.”
“Exactly,” she answered, finishing her second beer of the night, then calling for the check.
They walked back to the hostel, pausing every so often to look at the stretch of sea that flanked them on the right side, or marveling at the two or three stars in the sky.
Minutes away from their destination, the darkness of the night gave way to fireworks, red and blue and green, from a loud party in the distance.
Naina stopped in place, gasping. “Beautiful,” she said.
“Very,” Tejas said, and she noticed from the corner of her eye that he wasn’t looking up at the sky. Her cheeks flamed.
As they resumed their walk, Tejas’s hand brushed Naina’s, and despite all logic and rational thinking, she let herself enjoy the heat of his skin and the sparks flying that had nothing to do with the fireworks.
There were two items on the list, put there by Anil, that required someone’s company in a not-so-platonic way. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have to search too far and wide for that someone.
After all, the night was still young.