Chapter 2
Rohit Patel couldn’t help tapping a jaunty, rhythmless beat on his steering wheel as he grinned at his phone perched against the dashboard of his rental car.
Nothing could get him down—not the lingering smell of marijuana wafting from the upholstered seats nor the fact that springing for a rental would set him back a student loan payment.
“I know you’re excited that you landed a new job,” his sister, Maisa, teased from the video call on his phone, “but could you tone down the goofy smile a notch? Your teeth are practically glowing in the dark.”
Rohit slid a glance at his watch. “Give me a break. It gets dark early here.”
“Hashtag expat struggles.”
“Expat?” Rohit raised his eyebrows. “That’s a fancy word for a sixteen-year-old.”
Maisa ducked her head. “My tutor and I are working through Ernest Hemingway.”
Fluorescent teeth be damned, Rohit couldn’t hide his proud smile or the burst of warmth in his chest when Maisa’s answering grin matched his.
She’d been diagnosed with a learning disability last year, and it was more than a point of pride that Rohit—living almost twelve thousand miles away in Canada—could pay for the tutors his sister needed to keep up in school.
It was the least his expat ass could do, living so far away in a country whose social services were a dream come true compared to the ones offered in India.
Especially when, at the start of his second year pursuing an MBA, his mother had slipped and fallen at work, badly injuring her wrist.
Her broken radius bone had been a wake-up call for Rohit, a persistent ringing between his ears that had only intensified when he’d been unable to physically care for his mother during her twelve-week recovery in a cast. He’d been forced to look after her—of all of them—from afar, and so he did it the only way he knew how. Financially.
Maisa now went to a private school with international teachers and smaller class sizes; his mother had quit her backbreaking job in a garment factory permanently; and while his father still worked at a bank, the deep worry lines bracketing his mouth had faded considerably.
Working multiple jobs to foot their bills hadn’t been easy over the last year, but things were finally, finally looking up. The universe had just gifted him with a great job with a hefty salary and benefits included.
His sister would have to deal with his glow-in-the-dark teeth.
“So, you’ll be moving to Kal-hona?” Maisa asked.
“Ke- low -na,” Rohit corrected her even though the name of the new city seemed strange to him, too.
When he’d left the MBA program, giving up his convenient but bare-bones student housing in Toronto to move to a cheaper—and draftier—living situation hadn’t been easy, but an on-campus apartment was a luxury, not a necessity.
It would be no hardship leaving his shady apartment on an even shadier street in Hamilton, Ontario.
Checking his bank account balance was dicier than playing roulette at a Vegas casino.
Maisa’s educational needs and the little extra he sent home to make up for his mother’s unemployment were one thing, but along the way he’d also taken on his grandmother’s medical care after she’d suffered a stroke, somewhere between his mother requiring physiotherapy for her wrist and a distant cousin coming out of the woodwork looking for help to finance his daughter’s wedding.
But it was Rohit’s duty to give; he’d always been taught that family came first. It was then that he’d decided to look to the west, seeking what so many eastern Canadians did when money was tight: a job that paid and a lease that wouldn’t land him in collections.
The universe had cut him a break because he’d found an employer he liked who seemed to like him back.
And didn’t seem too bothered with fact-checking his sparse résumé.
Desperate times , Rohit reminded himself.
There was no room for guilt, not with so many people relying on him, and anything was worth the new brightness in Maisa’s eyes after years of shifting uncomfortably whenever someone asked her about school.
Besides, his new employer hadn’t seemed too interested in discussing his MBA at the interview and Rohit planned to prove himself, twice over.
This job had the power to solve so many of his problems—he wasn’t going to take the opportunity for granted.
“Sorry.” Maisa rolled her dark eyes. “ Kelowna. ”
“Kelowna,” Rohit repeated, the word rolling more easily off his tongue. The more he said it—and thought about the influx of much-needed cash this new job would bring him—the sweeter it tasted.
His sister cocked her head to the side. “It’s a great opportunity, but are you freaking out at all? You don’t know anyone there and it’s a big move.”
“I’m feeling really good about this, actually. I…I can’t describe it.” Rohit closed his eyes, trying to find the right word to describe the determination, hope, and excitement zinging through his chest like Diwali fireworks ricocheting into the sky.
Maisa clucked her tongue. “?‘I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?’?”
Rohit’s eyes popped open as his sister laughed at her own wit. “I can’t believe 10 Things I Hate About You is your favorite movie,” he said.
“Oh, stop pretending it’s not yours, too. You introduced me to it, after all.”
“Well, regardless, it was the perfect line at the perfect time.”
As his sister sketched an overdramatic bow, Rohit’s chest clutched and for a nanosecond, it was hard to breathe.
With each passing year since he’d left India to study abroad, he missed less and less about his country of birth.
Some things, like celebrations that shut down the entire city in a blaze of color and noise and happiness, still pricked at his heart, but nothing reached in and hollowed out his chest cavity like thinking about his family.
Especially Maisa. Rohit’s acceptance to the University of Toronto for his undergraduate degree had been the ultimate gift for a young guy with big dreams and a desire to see the world. His sister deserved the same.
“I miss you,” he said.
Maisa’s eyebrows quirked. Despite the grand gestures of the rom-coms they both loved and knew too well, their common ground was exchanging quotes from said movies, not discussing feelings.
Still, her face softened. “I miss you, too, big brother. You should do something fun tonight. Whenever we talk, you’re on your way to or from work or sitting in your apartment watching television. Boring.”
Rohit forced a careless smirk. She didn’t need to know that his shoestring budget didn’t allow for much else.
“Where are you now?” Maisa asked.
“I’m in my rental car.”
“No, you fool.” Maisa closed her eyes in exasperation. Although his family loved loudly and freely, they never shied away from ribbing one another. “I mean, where are you in Kelowna right now ?”
Rohit squinted through his driver’s-side window at the building across the street.
He’d parked here before his interview because it was free and had ignored his surroundings as he rushed, on foot, to beat his interviewer at the agreed-upon meeting location.
“In front of a bar, I think. The Leprechaun Trap.”
“Perfect! Leprechauns are lucky! Go inside and have a drink. Get to know your new townsfolk. Have some fun.”
It sounded like a good idea to Rohit, but he couldn’t help but tease his little sister. “Encouraging me to drink and party? Does Ma know that your tutor is debauching you?”
“?‘Debauching’?” Maisa pursed her lips. “What does that mean?”
“Keep studying Hemingway and you’ll find out. I’ll talk to you later.”
The inside of the Leprechaun Trap was like all the Irish-style pubs Rohit had frequented as a student.
There was no cover, it was dimly lit, the sticky floor squelched beneath his feet, and the mostly male patrons nursing pints of beer were clearly regulars.
It was too dark to see the framed black-and-white photos scattered across the peeling walls properly, but they weren’t the focal point—the rectangular bar in the center of the room was.
It was kind of a sad place for celebrating, a Sunday-night stop for someone who did not want to go home. Everything inside felt a little dull and worn out.
Except her.
A woman in a red dress sat at the far corner of the bar, seemingly oblivious to the dreariness around her as she contemplated the shot glass on the counter in front of her.
Now she was the true focal point of the pub whose name Rohit could no longer recall.
His brain was buzzing, his senses both alert and overloaded at the same time.
It might’ve been the red dress she wore, conservative in cut and length but wonderfully seductive, hugging the slender curves of her long, lithe body.
It could have been the glossy shine of her chin-length hair that Rohit somehow knew would feel like silk against his skin.
Maybe it was the perfect curve of her back—her spine was straight, regal even, bowing only a little at her smooth, bare shoulders so she could rest her elbows on the bar.
In this dingy, near-empty bar, she projected strength and grace and something else that Rohit couldn’t quite name but that tugged him forward like a magnet’s south pole seeking its north mate.
She didn’t glance his way when he took a seat on the stool next to her, nor did she seem to notice when he ordered a beer. She appeared to be talking to herself and Rohit swore he heard her murmur “fuck it” before tossing back the shot.
Nothing about her invited him to speak and yet, for the first time maybe ever in his life, words fell from his mouth before his brain could properly polish them.
“I can’t hold my tequila worth a damn,” he said, “but can I join you?”