26. Sona
SONA
T he backyard was chilly, but Grant seemed as familiar with this home as if it were his own. He promptly walked toward the outdoor furniture set and turned on a wall-mounted outdoor heater. Offering me a seat right underneath it, he proceeded to turn on the patio heater near the chaise set.
“I thought we were going to take a stroll,” I said, genuinely curious about his intentions.
“I wouldn’t think of subjecting you to that kind of cold.”
“Hey, I’ve been a New Yorker for a while now, so what you think is cold is lukewarm for me.”
As he laughed in response, I studied him, realizing just how warm his features were, so very similar to Mihir. Both had a gruff and crusty exterior but were soft as candle wax on the inside. Stubborn as they were, they both required fire to warm up their interiors.
“How are things with Mihir?” Grant’s strange question brought me out of my thoughts.
Privy to their close and honest friendship, I didn’t hesitate to reply, with some anger,
“Right now, I want to kill him.”
He unleashed a deep laugh. “Good,” he said. “That’s good. Hold on to that anger.”
“How’s that good?”
“Your anger means you care about him.”
I shifted in my seat. “Well, things have certainly changed since we last met, Grant.”
Positioned two seat widths away, he leaned in with a nod. “I know and that’s why I’m going to get straight to the point, Sona. Mihir likes you. A lot. He’s tough, but when he loves someone, he loves them all the way. I hope you know that.”
My face flushed with heat. It was what I had always wanted, but to hear it spelled out so clearly, so vividly from Grant’s lips, made my heart lurch.
I wrung my hands and he clutched them. “You are scared,” he said, reading my face.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“Well, you should be, because you have the power to hurt him. Be careful with him, Sona. Be gentle. If you like him, give him the love he deserves and nothing less.”
My heart thudded from fear. Fear of what, I didn’t know, but it was fear I felt.
“I respect your love for him, Grant, but have you considered that he might be the one to end up hurting me? Because he has the power to hurt me too.”
“If he does, he’ll have to contend with me.”
“Is that a promise?”
“A confirmed one,” he said as he stepped toward me to grab me in a tight hug.
“I still wish I had met you first,” Grant teased me while we switched off the heaters.
I hit his arm in jest. “Stop it,” I drawled. “Anyway, I’m not your type.”
“Oh, but you are,” he said with a teasing bump of the shoulder. “It’s just a shame I’m not your type.”
I gasped. “That’s what Mihir said!”
“That bastard.” Grant clenched his jaw in mock anger.
I laughed and patted his arm. “Thank you, Grant,” I whispered as we stepped back inside.
Back in the formal living room, we found Mike deep in conversation with Arvind uncle while Mihir sat beside his mom, both wearing serious looks. They stopped talking when they saw us.
“All good?” Sneha aunty asked Grant with a lighthearted grin upon reading my somber expression. Mihir sat on the edge of his seat, watching Grant’s face intently.
“All good,” he said, tugging at his cuffs the way Mihir did. Who had picked that up from whom, I wondered.
“I need to leave,” Grant announced, and Mike rose too.
“It was wonderful talking to you today,” Mike said to me. “Hope we can continue this discussion over dinner someday with Saavi.”
“I would love that.”
“Let us know the next time you are in town,” Mike said, and my eyes shifted to Mihir.
After they left, Mihir and I proceeded to clear up the dining table and clean the kitchen surfaces.
“Let it be, beta,” Aunty said. “The lady who helps me will be here in the morning. Don’t worry about all that.”
“We’ll just take care of the leftovers, Mom,” Mihir said and meticulously converted the food into glass containers and popped them in the fridge while I cleared up the rest of the stuff.
I decided to take my leave soon after. Aunty gave me a warm hug and kissed my forehead as the same fear began gripping my heart again.
“We should do this often,” Uncle said, patting my arm. “This was a great evening.”
As Mihir drove me back to my hotel, I found myself unable to make any meaningful conversation. Instead, I opted for small talk.
“The chicken curry was so good. Aunty is a gifted cook.”
He merely hummed in response.
“The rice was good too,” I said with a gentle laugh. “In case you thought I didn’t appreciate it.”
Just a nod this time. I sighed.
“I’ll probably leave in a day or two. I haven’t booked my tickets yet, but I’ll fly out whenever it’s the cheapest.”
“Stay.” That was the only word he said—and in a voice that shook me to my core. The need, the urgency, the command in that word made my insides quiver.
When he wordlessly walked me up to my room, per his current mode, he lingered at the doorway. “We need to talk.”
Ah, there it was! No conversation that started with this phrase ever ended well.
I nodded. “Do you want to come in?”
He stepped in and walked across the room to settle on a chair by the French doors. I walked behind him with tentative steps and lowered myself to the edge of the bed.
“You know what I’m going to say,” he began.
I nodded. I had planted my eyes on my hands resting in my lap. They had begun to shiver, and I clutched them tightly.
“We have been tangled up in this ridiculous dance for a while now. I am a man of action, Sona. I prefer certainty. I hate responding in reaction, and I’m not very good at it. You understand?”
Grant’s words rang in my ears. His conviction that Mihir loved me shook me to my core. I cared for him too, deeply, and now I was about to lose him for good. Scarred by my past, I kept distancing myself from him, though Mihir had been nothing but considerate and forgiving. And now, I’d lose all that. I’d lose the peace I felt in his presence. The comfort of being my unapologetic self and being loved for it.
No, I wasn’t giving up on him that easily. I wasn’t giving up on us.
My hands had turned to stone at what I was about to do, but I knew I needed to do it.
I stood and gazed into his powerful face. “I want you, Mihir!” I blurted before my body could tremble under the gravity of the confession.
He sprang up from his seat with a relieved smile, raking a hand through his perfectly styled hair and successfully mussing it up.
Stalking over to where I stood, he yanked me into his arms and took my mouth in a frenzied kiss like I had wanted him to. My lips felt swollen and sore when he finally lifted his mouth from mine, but I wasn’t ready to part from his warmth. I pulled him back down and devoured his mouth like there was no tomorrow.
When we both were breathless, I released his mouth and his shirt that I was clutching in my fists.
As I looked up at him through my long lashes, he said, “You weren’t expecting this?”
I shook my head. “You said can we talk ? And it scared me. I didn’t want you to end it,” I confessed. “I need you.”
“I was never letting you go, Sona.”
I put my hands on my hips and frowned. “But you waited for me to say it.”
He kissed my forehead. “I had to know you felt the same way. I needed to see the desperation.”
A shiver finally struck my body. I shuddered and sat back down as I finally felt my cold hands. Mihir stepped over and sat beside me, wrapping his strong arm around my shoulders. A quick warmth engulfed me, as if this was exactly what I had been waiting for all my life. As I snuggled closer, he hugged me and kissed my temple.
“There can be no one else for me, Sona. My parents love you, my friends admire you, and I… Well, I like the shit out of you. There was no way I was ending it, sweetheart.”
“Mihir…”
“Yes?”
“You know what I’ve been doing since that night at the lake house when I walked over to your room? Telling myself that I cannot, under any circumstances, fall for you. I wanted you so badly, but I knew I was a temporary distraction for you. How could I let myself walk into the fire with my eyes wide open? I kept convincing myself that being with you meant nothing because, in my heart, I knew it meant everything.”
He let out a gentle laugh. “Can I confess something too? I was terrified of falling for you the day I met you, and the more I got to know you, the more I was convinced I wanted nothing else, nothing less than you in my arms and in my life.”
I gathered his big hands in mine and clutched them. “I know I’ve been unfair to you. You have been trying to get closer, and I’ve been pushing you away. You are right. I did run away the moment it got real, but that’s because I didn’t want to end up hurt again.”
A reassuring smile from him. “Then here’s something that might convince you I’m sincere about you. Are you ready?”
I removed my boots and climbed on the bed to face him.
“I’ve been looking into expanding the company to New York,” he continued. “So we can be together in the same place. I’m talking to a few people now, exploring possibilities.”
I dropped my jaw in surprise and slapped my hands over my gaping mouth.
He shrugged. “This is the reality of modern love. Logistics. Resolving the two-body problem. I just started the legwork early.”
I shook my head. “That’s not the reason for my gasp.”
“No?”
“When I returned home in October, I saw an announcement for an Assistant Professor position in Houston that was perfect for me, and I applied for it.”
His body perked up, and he held my arms as his eyes glazed for a moment. “Your trip to Houston last week?”
I nodded. “My first campus interview. I’ll be invited again for a public talk and the final round of interviews if I make it to that stage.”
“Why wouldn’t you? You are smart and well-published,” he said with a smile.
“I’m sure the other candidates are similarly placed, some better qualified, even.”
“Well, after they read your latest article, they would be foolish not to roll out a red carpet for you.”
“You’ve read it?” my voice inflected.
“I did. It was very insightful. A lot of academic jargon, but I got through it.”
“Academic jargon! And here I thought I was a good writer.”
“You are fantastic, but some terms are unavoidable, I guess? I had to pause to do my own research.”
I laughed and took his hand to kiss his palm. “That’s actually true.”
“Sona, does this mean?—”
I promptly brought my finger to his lips. “Don’t say it. You’ll jinx it.”
A quiet descended on the room, the good kind. The kind that suggested contentment and peace.
“Will you stay the night?” I asked, still jittery from our changed status quo.
“I wish I could, babe, but I have an early morning meeting with someone in New York,” he said, flashing me a knowing smile. I nodded as we both got off the bed. “But why don’t you check out and come stay with me for the remainder of your time here?”
That took our relationship to a whole new level, and astonishingly, I didn’t flinch this time.
On the ride over, Mihir held my hand, threading his fingers through mine, drawing gentle circles with his thumb.
“Are you going to tell your parents about us?” I asked into the soft silence.
He glanced at me. “I know I share too much with them, but I won’t unless you are comfortable with it.”
“I don’t mind. I was just curious. You know what happened with Ajay. Since then, I’ve had this rather silly idea that if I ever have a relationship again or, god forbid, marry, I wanted my partner’s mother to be proud of me, of who I am. I never thought it was possible. Then I saw Tara and Amrit aunty, and it pinched me a little. I wondered if I would ever find that kind of bond, that love and respect. Is it shameful to yearn for something like that? To seek that kind of shallow validation?”
“There’s nothing shallow about the need to feel loved and wanted. It is a real, primal, human emotion.”
“But something specific like this? Some of us will never have that. When Payal and Jaya got married, no one from their families came to the wedding. It was only friends and well-wishers. Over the years, Jaya’s mother has embraced them, but Payal’s family hasn’t spoken to her since. In such a world, then, is it shallow to expect your partner’s parents to show you love like you’re their own?”
“To be loved, to be wanted, is a real need. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, babe. You know that better than me, and you explained it in your own words at the party. The spaces where women can connect and foster true bonds are priceless, whether they be public or private. I’m sure you gave that space to Payal and her wife. I suppose your perspective becomes myopic when the lens is turned on your own life.”
I looked at him in complete awe. Did I really almost let him go? I was never going to make that mistake again.
“And like you said, your relationship with Mom is your own. It has nothing to do with me, and I hope it stays that way. Your friendship predates our relationship, and that in itself is brilliant.”
That night, I slept wrapped up in his arms like I had dreamed of.