56. Queenie
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘THANGAMEY’ ANIRUDH RAVICHANDER
We speak at the same time.
“Are you okay?” He is gruff.
“Thank you, so much.” I am soft, melting. I shake my head. “You first.”
“Are you okay?” Noah repeats.
“I’m great.” I smile wanly. “It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. But I’m great now.”
He leans his bat against his leg. Regards me quietly. Worlds in his unfathomable eyes. Worlds I want to get lost in. Find myself in.
“Thank you,” I say finally. “For coming.”
“I thought you’d be mad,” he says. “You’d see this as another attempt at me fixing things.”
“This is different,” I whisper. I clench my fists because the longing, the craving to touch him, just touch him anywhere is tearing through me. Leaving me naked and defenseless. Undone.
“Different how?”
“Because this time I’m fixing things for me, too. And you’re right there with me.”
“That’s what I was doing all those other times too,” he reminds me brusquely.
I nod. I wipe a useless, overwhelming tear away. I don’t ever want him to be swayed by my tears, however heartfelt they are. I want to do this on equal terms. As partners. “I know. I always knew it.”
“But you said…”
“I was wrong. I was mad and hurt and I was wrong, Noah. Please, believe me.” I gasp out the words on a strangled breath.
I can’t look away from him. I don’t want to.
“The world’s ending surely.” Noah’s kissable mouth twists wryly. “Queenie Madhavan admits she’s wrong.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” I say tartly. “It doesn’t happen often.”
He takes a step toward me.
I want to lunge toward him, rush into his arms, cling to him like a vine and never let go. I move a tiny inch.
“You said…in the voicemail, you said…”
“Yeah. I said a lot of things. I had a whole speech prepared.”
“It’s your night for speeches.”
“I meant every word. Every single word.”
“Even…the last ones?” he breathes.
I swallow but hold his gaze. “Yes.” I swallow. Then, “I love you.”
The words take flight, take wings, butterfly wings. They land in the space between us. Light and floating. Fluttering. A new hope. A new beginning. No matter what happens next.
“You love me?”
I nod. “I’m in love with you. You’re it for me. I’m twenty-two years old and I’ve found the love of my life.” A wry smile twists my trembling lips. “Go figure.”
Noah takes another tiny step toward me. “How do you know I’ll be the love of your whole life?”
“I don’t.” I take a tiny step forward. “But I do know I will love you today. And I will love you tomorrow. And I’ll do that every today. And every tomorrow. For fifty years.”
He lets out a breath. It’s torn. Jagged at the edges.
“You hurt me,” Noah whispers.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I thought…I thought I was alone in what I felt. That you were just going along with it because you owed me…”
I have to touch him then. I just have to. I can’t go another second without connecting with him. Making him feel me. See me. The real, whole me.
I grab his free hand. And life starts coursing through me again. Blessed, beautiful, amazing life. Hot and free.
“I was so lost and scared and…afraid, Noah,” I admit to him. “You were making plans for our future. Our beautiful, amazing future. And I didn’t know if I could face myself in the morning.”
“So, you overreacted.”
“Big time.” I dare a tiny smile.
He doesn’t smile back. But he doesn’t tug his hand away. I take courage and move a tiny step closer to him.
Now our shoes are touching each other, toe to toe. Now I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
See his beloved PGSOFS face.
I was wrong yesterday. He’s not the same as he was. He’s changed by me too. His face is a little gaunt, the cheeks are a little sunken and he has circles under his devil black eyes. I touch the thin skin there. He lets me.
I fall in love all over again.
“I love you,” I say again. “I’m in love with you. And every time I asked you why me, it’s because I couldn’t believe you…PGSOFS you would want to be with me. It wasn’t for anything else. Honest.”
“PGSO what?” He blinks, bewildered.
“Pretty Great Specimen of Facial Structure,” I answer.
“That’s just genes, Queenie.” But he smiles, a tiny little PGSOFS smile.
“Actually, I’m changing it to Pretty Great Specimen of Future Star,” I say loftily. “The ‘Cricket’ is silent.”
Noah chuckles. “Who are you and what have you done with my prickly Hellcat?”
I shrug. “I started communicating. Talking to my parents. Getting out of my own head and believing in myself. Stood up to my bully. Something a very wise man once told me to do.”
“He sounds very wise indeed.” He puts a hand on my waist.
My heart leaps out of my chest.
“Why did you come here? Was it just to meet your dad?”
Please don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes.
He nods. “Yeah. I couldn’t wait a second more to meet him.”
I nod. And some of my euphoria fades away. But I accept his response. “That’s great then. I’m really happy for you.”
I try to step back from him when he tightens his hold on my waist. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m letting you get back to your dad.”
“But I thought you had a whole speech prepared. That you were too afraid to tell me face-to-face.” His face is wreathed in smiles. All over. Even his ears seem to be smiling.
“I thought you didn’t want to listen to it.”
“I never said that. Pay attention, desi girl.”
“Then what are you saying?” I hold onto his arms because he jerks me up. Just a little.
“I’m saying, we have to work on your overreactions. They are entirely disproportionate to the situation. Even when some of it is warranted.”
“Yes, we can work on them.” I promise him recklessly.
I lick my lips. Because his eyes are beginning to heat up. And his chin is dipping down toward mine. And his heart’s speeding up too, under the letterman jacket. Because I can read his eyes, and I see things in them…they give me hope. Joy. Fulfilment.
“What is it about you?” he murmurs. “Why can’t I stay away from you?”
“I don’t know. I hope you never do,” I reply honestly. I hold him a little tighter. Not wanting to let go. Not able to.
“And if I say, okay, then?” he murmurs.
“Are you saying okay?”
“You’re going to make me say the words after making me suffer the torments of hell?” he demands.
I sniffle and grin. “I am your Hellcat, you know.”
“I love you,” he says simply. “Most ardently.” Noah quotes Pride and Prejudice for me. “But one word from you will silence my affections forever?—”
My lips tremble. I crash them against his before he’s finished speaking. My fists grip him tight. Tighter. So tight I leave grooves on his skin. But he’s grabbing me back. My waist. My skirt. Higher up.
“I’m twenty-four years old and I met the love of my life six months ago. Thank God.”
I laugh against his lips, at the heartfelt words. “I better be for the next fifty years, mate.”
“So bossy,” he whispers. Then he bites my lip.
I moan. “We wasted six months, Noah. Six whole months.”
“We have the rest of our lives to make up for it. And by we, I mean you. On your hands and knees. Maybe on your back. Maybe...”
I shove ineffectually at his chest when he continues talking dirty while kissing me. I kiss him back. His jaw. His chin. His cheeks. His perfect nose. Wet, sloppy, messy kisses. Tiny, reckless, perfect kisses.
“I love you,” he says between kisses. “I love you so damn much I’m scared…”
I place my palm on his mouth. “It’s okay.” I vow softly. “I know. I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
He takes my hand off and kisses the cove. “Promise?”
“Well, I’m going to finish my degree at Thorndon and Oxford has an amazing neuroscience master’s program. So, I might be going to Britain.” I wait anxiously for his response.
It is predictable. And pleasing. “We can shag in the courts then. I don’t mind. We can show those prudish Oxford dons a thing or two.”
I laugh and he swings me around. I clutch at his neck and let him hold my weight up. Secure in the knowledge he’ll never let me fall. Or even if he does, he’ll pick me up again too. We both will.
When he slides me down, to cheers and whistles, I blush and hide my face in his chest. He holds me close, sliding his hand over my back. Soothing me. So, he notices finds the design on my back.
“Are you wearing…?” He spins out and checks out my outfit.
I’m in my Ma’s Pantry denim skirt with the white lacy uniform shirt. I pull the shirt over my head. For the last time.
His eyes widen. To comical proportions. “What…”
I have on his pink and black Barrons Bay jersey under it. Then I slowly turn around.
And he breathes my name. Queenie . Like his heart is being squeezed out of his lips.
Because this jersey is sequined and bedazzled too.
This one too has Dumaine with an apostrophe S done up in India colors. And it has his jersey number 22. But, below the 22 is one more word.
Girl . And Girl is sequined in the blue, red, and white of the Australian flag.
Noah raises bludgeoned eyes to me.
“What…?”
“I can’t betray my country for you, Aussie boy. But I can’t betray my heart too,” I say softly. Cupping his cheeks. “And my heart’s yours. I’m yours. Your girl. And I’ll tell the whole world every single time if you let me.”
He dips his forehead to mine and heaves out a shaken breath. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you,” I answer. “You’re everything to me, Noah.”
“Can I do that for you too? Anything?” He sounds so worried. “You won’t think it’s me trying to control you or…”
I stop his words with my kiss. “Stop talking and kiss me, idiot. You get the girl. This is your big hero moment.”
“But—”
“I don’t know if we’ll never fight or be always in sync with each other. What I do know is…I want this. I want you. I want to fight with you and for you. I hope you want the same.”
“I just want you, Devika Madhavan.” He cups my cheek in one hand and looks deep into my eyes.
My random stranger. My irrevocable fate. My man.
It’s not even the first time we’re kissing with each other. Or the hundredth. Clearly, my knees haven’t got the memo. I hold tight to his waist, his shoulders.
“Then kiss me.”
He dips his head close and brushes his lips against mine. “Hey, desi girl.”
“Hey, Aussie boy.”
“It’s very nice to meet you. And.” He leans in and whispers the magic words in my ear. “For the record, I give you post-kiss consent to kiss me anytime. Okay?”
I laugh. And he laughs with me. My foot pops up, like it does in the movies. And my spine melts into him. And I kiss him. Like he said I could.
And I vow to exercise my right to consent every single day for the rest of my life. No, our lives , I correct myself mentally.
Our happy ever after, messy, sweet, perfectly imperfect lives.
And you know what? It’s pretty damn easy to do when I set my mind to it.