Chapter Twenty
Chapter
Twenty
While the others had decided to give skydiving a shot, Naina and Tejas had done their research and decided cliff diving was the way to go—and, to make things a little more adventurous, Tejas suggested exploring Goa and picking a cliff that called out to them.
“What does that even mean?” Naina asked, laughing as she wrapped a sarong over her red two-piece swimsuit, right below her eye tattoo, and closed the cupboard door.
It took Tejas a few seconds to stop gawking at her muscular legs beneath the slit of the sarong. “A cliff that feels right in our hearts,” he said when he finally met her amused gaze. “And one that’s not too high, so we don’t break our bones with the fall.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she turned to face the mirror. “Do you always play it safe?”
He pulled her closer, his fingers toying with the straps of her bikini top. “Not always,” he breathed, tilting her chin up when she faced him. “Sometimes I’m too wild for my own good.”
“Is that so?” She ran her cold hands down his chest, under his T-shirt, until they came to rest at the waistband of his cargo shorts. “I’d like to see this wild side of yours.”
As his groin throbbed, he grazed the side of her mouth with his fingers. “Haven’t you seen enough already?”
She nibbled on the side of his thumb before sucking it between her lips, sending a jolt straight between his legs. “No,” she whispered, “not yet.”
Tejas picked her up in one swift motion and pushed her against the locked room door, which thudded loud enough for anybody outside to hear, not that he cared. “Good,” he said before capturing her mouth with his, his hand curling around her thigh.
“How about that one?” Tejas asked, one hand over his forehead as a bead of sweat rolled down his neck. The sunlight scorched above them; perhaps going cliff diving at four in the afternoon wasn’t the best idea. Hopefully, the waterproof sunscreen Naina had slathered all over his body would hold up.
Naina looked at the cliff he was pointing at and chuckled. “That’s barely even a cliff. It’s the height of the hostel swimming pool’s diving board.”
“Fine,” Tejas grumbled, and they resumed their walk by the narrow seaside trail, their hands intertwined.
Naina had already shot down the three cliffs Tejas had picked out because they didn’t “feel right” in her heart.
Tejas was pretty sure the real reason was that they weren’t dangerous enough for her.
After all, those cliffs were popular diving spots in the morning for reasonable people who feared for their lives.
At this hour, though, given the searing heat, the entire rocky stretch overlooking the sea was deserted.
They walked for another five minutes in silence until the winding path gave way to a cliff that was tall enough to get Naina’s adrenaline going.
Thirty or forty feet, Tejas guessed. His stomach twisted when he looked down, down, down at the sea below them, and he tasted bile as he backed away from the edge.
“You’re going to get us killed,” he insisted.
Naina had already undone the knot holding her sarong together. “If we die, we die together!” she exclaimed, spreading her arms wide in the humid, sticky breeze.
“Yeah, I’m convinced,” Tejas replied, though he had to pinch his lips to keep laughter at bay. This woman really was something else.
“Come on,” she said, smiling. She walked over to him and slid his T-shirt off his upper body, her fingers exploring the ridges of his chest. Tejas held back the urge to kiss her; his heart was already pounding fast enough to induce cardiac arrest. Sighing, he unbuttoned his cargo shorts so he was standing in nothing but his swimming trunks.
They set their bags aside and walked to the edge, fingers tightly intertwined. “On the count of three,” Naina said, her words determined. “Okay?”
“O-okay,” Tejas got out.
“Three…”
Could Naina feel how slick and sweaty his palm was?
“Two…”
Fuck, he was going to die without saying goodbye to his cat. His sister. His clients—
“One!”
Naina tugged on his hand, and Tejas let out a loud exhale and jumped, his mouth open wide in a scream that echoed around them. Time seemed to stop, or perhaps pass in slow motion, as they fell, fell, fell closer and closer to the sea.
When they landed, creating ripples in the water, Tejas pushed his head back up, breaking the surface.
He gasped for breath and blinked back the spots in front of his eyes.
Next to him, Naina pressed her wet hands through her hair, slick with salt water, her chest heaving. “How do you feel?’ she asked.
“I…” Tejas closed his eyes and took it all in.
Exhilaration was one word to explain his heart nearly beating its way out of his rib cage; the feeling underneath that was empowerment.
He was free, he was powerful, he was invincible.
He’d just jumped off a cliff. Everything that had bothered him up until now—his aching heart, Rahul’s broken promises, the lonely life that awaited him back in Mumbai—didn’t matter anymore.
He had conquered this jump; he would conquer everything else.
“I feel alive,” he finally said.
“Me too,” Naina said giddily. She swam forward and kissed him, and their teeth clashed because they were both grinning so wide. “Another big thing checked off the list,” she said, breaking free from his lips. “Thank you.”
And Tejas realized that even though his feet were floating solidly in the water, he was still falling. “No,” he said, kissing the top of her head, “thank you.”
Laughing, they broke apart and swam ahead to the shore.
Tejas’s heart still thumped loud enough for him to hear it, but the joy surging through his veins was all he cared about.
That, and the fluttering low in his belly, reminding him that he wouldn’t have dared to do any of this if it wasn’t for Naina.
Naina, who was beautiful, and brave, and—at least for the duration of this trip—his.
As they clambered out of the sea onto the beach, their swimwear wet and heavy on their skin, Naina squeezed water from her hair. “I wish Santhosh could see me now,” she said, chuckling.
Tejas led the way back up the stairs to the viewpoint, his eyebrows raised. “Oh, he wasn’t much of an adrenaline junkie, then?”
Naina shook her head from beside him. “Nope, which meant I couldn’t be one either, even though my mom and I tried zip-lining and bungee jumping years ago, and we loved it.”
“That must have been fun.” He whistled. “Is your dad the same?”
“Not a chance.” She laughed; Tejas’s heart swelled at how musical the sound was, and he hoped he could sear it into his memory. “He doesn’t even like roller coasters,” she added. “Can you imagine?”
They reached the top of the cliff, and Tejas scrambled forward to grab their towels from the bags. “I’m with your dad. Roller coasters suck,” he said as he wrung the dampness out from his curls. “At least cliff diving is only one leap. Roller coaster rides go on forever.”
“They’re, like, five minutes long.” Naina rolled her eyes in good humor and pressed her lips to his. Tejas kissed her back, tasting salt water against her smile.
She wrapped the towel around her swimsuit and looked at the sea they’d just jumped into.
“Let’s stay here for a bit,” she said. They sat at the edge of the cliff in silence, their legs dangling and their fingers entwined.
When Naina shuffled closer to lean her head against Tejas’s, he wrapped one arm around her waist, over the towel, his heart content.
If only he could hold on to this moment forever.
“Hey.” Naina spoke up, breaking the quietness in the air. “Permission to put a hold on the ‘wrong answers only’ policy?”
“Again?” Tejas made a big show of looking shocked. “Fine, granted, but just this once.”
She snorted, like what she was about to say was almost comical in hindsight. “I know I told you a little bit about my breakup, but did I tell you Santhosh was cheating on me for months after he got down on one knee and proposed?”
“You didn’t.” Tejas tilted her face up and kissed her forehead, his heart breaking at the thought of someone cheating on this perfect being of a woman. “I’m sorry.”
Naina gave a half shrug, as if it didn’t matter, then flipped their hands so her cold, damp fingers were on his palm.
“The cheating went on for the last seven or eight months of our relationship, around the time we’d started planning our wedding.
I didn’t know until I caught them together two months before the big day, and that finally gave me the courage to end things.
In hindsight, he was toxic from the start. ”
“That must have been so hard,” Tejas said. Then he paused, remembering what she’d said the night they met. “You said you were planning to visit Goa for your honeymoon. So if you hadn’t found out about the cheating…”
“I would have still been in Goa right now, but not with you. I’d have been in a honeymoon suite with my husband, clueless about the fact that he was sleeping with his neighbor behind my back.
” Naina ran her free hand along the crevices of the rocky, dusty cliff.
“My flight tickets were booked, my work had approved the time off, so I figured: Why not come here anyway and do all the things Santhosh would have never let me do if we were still together?”
“Well, we only have one item left on the list now.” Tejas pressed a kiss to her wrist. “I can’t believe how brave you are, Naina. I could have never celebrated my honeymoon solo.”
She laughed sadly. “Brave? I’m terrified of so much.
Of never feeling this free or powerful again.
Of going back home and having to fend off questions from my colleagues, acquaintances, and extended family who RSVP’d yes to the wedding that never happened.
Of getting sick and tired of being alone, then reluctantly agreeing to be set up with some guy, only to realize I don’t have the capacity to fall in love ever again.
” She let out a huff. “You get the picture.”
Tejas’s head thudded. “Do you really think you’ll never fall in love again?” he asked, his voice small.
Naina blinked up at him, her lips parting, like she hadn’t expected him to address that part of her rant.
Slowly, she loosened her hand from his grip and stood up.
“I hope I never fall in love again,” she said, massaging the side of her neck as she avoided his gaze.
“I’m not built for heartbreak, and I’d rather only go through it once in my lifetime. ”
“Fair enough,” Tejas said.
They wore some fresh clothes over their swimwear and walked back down the hill toward the hostel. When they passed a scooter rental shop, Naina excitedly gestured at a purple scooter on display. “Look, it’s so cute! Want to drive around for fun?”
Tejas thought for a moment as he kicked a pebble with his shoe; it fell into the sewer ahead, disappearing from view. “I think I’d rather return to the hostel,” he said finally. “It’s been a while since I called my sister. She’s cat-sitting Astrid, so I should check in.”
A frown creased Naina’s forehead, though she only nodded. “Okay.”
“But you should still rent the scooter and explore the neighborhood anyway,” he added. “See you later?”
“That works,” she said.
Once Tejas had walked back to the hostel and was safely sitting on the bottom bunk, wearing his favorite pajamas and scrolling through cute cat photographs, he hesitated before dialing his sister’s number, knowing she’d chide him for letting things go this far.
As far as Latika knew from his last update to her, Tejas and Naina were enjoying a summer fling with no emotions involved and no facts exchanged. She’d already warned Tejas that he couldn’t handle a casual relationship without developing a crush, and as it turned out, she was right.
More than right, in fact. Because no matter how hard Tejas wanted to deny it, the truth bounced back and forth in his head, mimicking the somersault of his heart in his chest: He was unfortunately and undeniably in love with Naina Stark.