Chapter Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen
That weekend, Naina waited for Anil at their favorite bar in town, Madeira, where their usual booth was thankfully free.
Madeira was the designated watering hole for most lawyers at AKC, with its dim lighting, loud music, and fantastic beer on tap—especially on the weekdays, when the bar hosted karaoke night from five p.m. through midnight.
Since it was Saturday night, the place was packed, rock music playing on the speakers, and Naina spotted three trainee lawyers and one paralegal from AKC sitting on the other side of the establishment.
She smiled and lifted her hand in greeting, and they waved without smiling back, then returned to their conversation in lower voices, shifting their chairs closer to each other.
Naina let her arm fall limply to her side. She’d worked with them on several cases, and though she had never yelled at them like Kumble or Dhanush often did, she knew she was a tough boss with high expectations, and that was enough to make any woman unlikable, right?
Anil chuckled as he slid into the booth across from Naina. “Don’t take it personally. They don’t like any of the junior associates.”
She frowned. “Didn’t you do karaoke with them last week?”
“Correction: They don’t like any of the junior associates who are good at their job.”
Anil had only become a lawyer because his father wanted to see someone in the family get through law school and fulfill the dreams he could never achieve.
Anil now lived with his ajji—his grandma—whose culinary skills he’d inherited while his parents tended to their vegetable farm in the suburbs.
He hated working at AKC and would rather start a catering business with Ajji’s authentic South Indian recipes, but the only thing his family wanted for him was a stable career in law and, of course, a wife and two kids.
Neither Ajji nor Anil’s parents knew he was gay.
He’d never brought a girl home to his family, but most people in India didn’t do that unless they were ready to get married.
Coupled with how Anil was perceived as masculine, well-built, and “straight-passing” based on the average person’s stereotypes about queer people, nobody—not even the meddlesome matchmaking aunties he had for neighbors—had speculated about his sexuality.
At this point, Anil had made his peace with never giving his parents a daughter-in-law, but he’d told Naina once that he didn’t want to disappoint them on the career front too. Naina thought him being true to himself wasn’t disappointing anyone, but he never listened to her.
The server came over to their table, and they ordered their usual beers without even opening the menu. When the server left, Naina shook her head at her best friend. “Anil, you’re not a bad lawyer. You just don’t care for it.”
Anil opened his mouth to speak when his phone rang on the table. The caller ID said Dhanush Kumble. He bit his lip. “I should probably take this. It might be about that pro bono case we’re doing.”
“God, he won’t even leave you alone on a Saturday!” Naina tutted. “Tell Dhanush you’re not available today because you actually have a life, unlike him—or me.”
He cracked a weak smile at that, then pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hey, what’s up?” he said, rolling his eyes at what Dhanush was saying.
“Yep, I’ll send it your way first thing Monday…
no, I’m not working today.” His lips thinned.
“Because I don’t get paid to work on the weekends. Look, we’ll talk at the office.”
Naina vaguely heard sounds of protest from Dhanush before Anil ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “I hate him,” Anil seethed. “I hate all workaholics.”
“Hey!” She glared at him, still smiling.
Anil bopped her on the head, his expression softening. “All right, you’re the one exception.”
“I really think you should ditch AKC and start catering,” Naina said. “Your family loves your cooking. Hell, people at the office do too! They’d all understand if you changed career paths.”
“Ajji would die of a broken heart, and besides”—Anil quirked a brow—“I can’t risk losing my cushy paycheck to start a business.”
“Get a loan—”
“Although given my shit show of a performance at AKC, things aren’t looking good either way.”
Naina tutted. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, Nay.” Anil ran a trembling hand along his face. “I’ve missed two deadlines this month, and given how much sway Dhanush has with his dearest uncle, Kumble will let me go unless I work really hard on this pro bono project.”
He was probably right; Kumble had fired employees for far less before, but Anil didn’t need confirmation from Naina.
“I still think you should do what lights you up, and that’s cooking,” she said.
“Once you get the catering biz up and running, Ajji will come around too. She’s your grandmother; she’d want you to be happy more than anything else. ”
“Oh, she wouldn’t care what I did or where I worked as long as I found myself a wife.
” He let out a low whistle. “And since that will never, ever happen, I’m stuck hating my job and dealing with this asshole.
” He gestured to his phone, which buzzed with another text from Dhanush about a financial report, judging by the short preview text.
“Here you go.” The server appeared, setting their mugs of frothy beer in front of them before heading to the next booth.
“Ugh, give me a minute.” Anil texted rapidly on his phone, grumbling under his breath about “goddamn workaholics.”
Naina sipped her beer and looked around the room at the rest of the patrons, then stifled a laugh.
A group of attractive young women sat at the bar, stealing glances at Anil in between whispers and giggles.
Thank goodness his grandmother wasn’t here or she would have shoved him in their direction before he could so much as take a sip of his drink.
Movement at the AKC lawyers’ table caught her eye as a familiar voice rang through the pub.
Naina’s shoulders stiffened. Tejas, dressed in a bright yellow shirt and dark blue jeans, had just joined their co-workers, all of whom grinned and gestured for him to sit down.
One trainee lawyer even thumped him on the back in greeting.
Anil, who’d noticed where she was looking, let out a low whistle. “Well, he’s certainly not unapproachable.”
Naina shot eye daggers at her best friend as she dug her nails into the table. “He’s been at AKC for barely two weeks! How do they already like him?”
“Took you less time than that, from what I remember,” Anil said nonchalantly, sipping his beer. When Naina scoffed, he added, “Oh, don’t deny it. He’s hot and funny and smart, and you raved about him every time we talked.”
“Is that what happened the morning of my flight back?” Naina snapped.
Anil ran a hand through his short hair, at a loss for words. Then he smiled. “Nay, just because things ended badly in Goa doesn’t mean they have to now. He’s trying to make amends.”
“Yes, but—” Her words were cut short when a warm hand squeezed her shoulder. Tejas bent down, his lips near her ear, the scent of his aftershave consuming her senses.
“Do you mind if we join your booth?” he said. “That table is a little cramped for all of us.”
Naina turned to him; his lips were barely inches away. She blinked and faced Anil again, who was looking from her to Tejas in amusement. “Uh, but those guys never sit with us,” she said, hiding her flushed face behind her beer mug.
Tejas straightened, his hands in his pockets. “And today, they will,” he said. “Come on, scooch over.”
She glanced toward their colleagues, who were whispering among themselves, no smiles in sight, but at least they weren’t pointing pitchforks at her. “You could do with more friends,” Anil reminded her when she looked his way.
“Okay,” Naina said. She shifted to the far end of the eight-seater booth, and of course Tejas sat beside her.
His thigh touching hers nearly burned a hole through her jeans, but she remained straight-faced as the others joined them.
Awkward silence hung in the air while Tejas got himself a Budweiser, and Naina was grateful when Anil finally spoke up.
“Jennifer, I bet that, as Dhanush’s paralegal, you know all his secrets,” Anil said cheekily. “Care to share a few?”
Jennifer’s wary eyes went to Naina, and she pursed her lips like she wasn’t sure if Naina was trustworthy.
“I hate Dhanush as much as you all do; maybe even more,” Naina offered weakly, and the whole table cracked a grin, including Jennifer.
Tejas lifted his hands in surrender. “Hey, speak for yourself. I don’t hate him.”
“Well, we don’t hate him,” one of the lawyers said, “but we’re all scared of him. Working with him is like trying and failing to conquer Everest.”
“Dhanush is just burned out and frustrated by work,” Tejas replied, an eyebrow cocked. “He needs a long vacation, is all.”
“What he needs,” Jennifer said, lowering her voice, “is to get laid.”
Naina drank more beer, sighing, and mumbled under her breath, “Who doesn’t?”
She must not have been quiet enough, because her co-workers burst out laughing.
Tejas, meanwhile, caught her eye and raised his beer bottle in cheers before lifting it to his mouth, his gaze not leaving hers.
Naina licked her lips and tugged on the neckline of her top. Wow, it was getting hot in here.
The group moved on to ranting about their bosses, and Naina chimed in occasionally, encouraged by her colleagues’ nods and smiles whenever she spoke. She sensed Tejas’s eyes on her the entire time, his smile directed at her, and she felt the thick skin around her heart melting the slightest bit.
Maybe “friendly” wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.