Chapter Nineteen
“ANYWAY,” Gina says, sitting atop the checkout counter and drumming her fingernails on the laminate. “Is thirty-seven too old to be having a bisexual awakening?”
Yael looks around, but the only other person in the library is sitting in the far corner with noise-canceling headphones on. “No,” she says firmly.
“Are you sure?”
“What does it matter if I’m sure? You’re the one having the awakening,” Yael says.
Gina huffs. “I’m asking you because you’re the expert!”
“The expert in … bisexuality?”
She nods. “You’ve been at it for a while, no?”
Yael throws her head back laughing. “Yeah, most of my life, I’d say.” She pauses. “What’s bringing this on now?”
“The new emcee at the club,” she answers, “is making me feel things. The hottest butch I’ve ever seen. But, like, I’ve made it this far never once feeling anything for a woman. Or even a fem man, to be honest.”
Yael shrugs, scanning a return and moving it to the cart.
“Maybe you’re just into masculinity. But also, it kind of doesn’t matter, does it?
If you’re into this woman, you’re into her.
” Gina taps a finger against her bottom lip, staring at Yael, which prompts her to continue.
“I think labels are supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. They’re useful in helping us find community or signaling to other people whether you might be available to them or not, but they don’t tell you who to be. ”
“That is an extremely bisexual response,” Gina says.
Yael grins, slotting another title onto the top shelf of the cart. “Well, I have been at it for a while,” she says.
“Hot Volunteer Ravi alert,” Gina whispers, nodding toward the windows that look out onto the street.
“What?” Yael snaps her head up, and there he is, wearing a rain shell open over a dark green-gray crewneck and carpenter jeans, ascending the steps to the entrance. “It’s too early!”
Gina narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Doesn’t your club start in, like, twenty minutes?” The bell sounds, as if to punctuate her point.
“Yes, but he never comes on time anymore!”
“Oh, is that why I haven’t seen him lately? I thought I’d gotten better at clearing out of here quickly,” Gina says. She pauses to survey Yael, then says accusatorily, “You seem stressed.”
“I’m fine,” Yael says tightly.
Gina leans forward, smirking. “Anything you want to tell me about…?”
Yael very pointedly does not look at the open door to the library office. Heat trails up her neck to her jaw to her lips, retracing the path Ravi’s mouth had taken. “No,” she says.
“I see,” Gina says, dropping her voice to a whisper. “You stopped sexy-emailing with Kevin, so now you want to be hot-volunteering with Ravi.”
“It’s bad enough as a noun; please do not make it a verb,” Yael says.
“Hey,” Ravi says from the doorway, tugging his arms out of his rain jacket.
“You’re early today,” Gina coos at him, sliding down from her countertop perch.
He shrugs. “Thought I’d help Yael set up,” he says, eyes flicking toward her when he says her name.
“What a committed volunteer,” Gina pretends to tell Yael, so loudly that it’s clearly meant for Ravi to hear.
He’s amused enough for that incisor to make an appearance. “I’ll start the circle,” he says, rolling his jacket into a ball and tucking it under his arm.
“I’d like to sink my teeth into that ass, you know?” Gina whispers.
Yael sighs. “Not really,” she says.
“Seriously…?”
“I’d rather sink my teeth into his biceps.” Yael smiles mischievously.
Gina’s jaw drops. “Oh my God,” she says.
“Goodbye, Gina,” Yael says, starting after Ravi.
When she catches up with him, he’s already cleared most of the tables. He nods at her, and she nods back, and they go about doing the rest quietly for a few minutes.
“Gina’s right—you’re earlier than usual,” Yael says eventually, not looking at him.
“Is that a question?” Ravi asks. Yael can hear the laughter in his voice, feel his eyes on the side of her face.
Finally, she makes eye contact. “Maybe.”
“I had less to do today than I usually do,” he says. “And I thought we were trying to be…”
“Normal?” Yael guesses. In her periphery, she sees Eli and Jaxon arriving hand in hand.
Ravi holds her gaze for a long moment, playing with one of the hoops that hug his earlobes. His fingernails are painted a sparkly purple. “Yeah,” he says, voice strained.
Yael swallows thickly. She knows she’ll be thinking about that single syllable for the rest of the night.
YAEL LOOKS GOOD today.
Ravi got in a silent fight with Suresh this morning.
He woke Mia up and got her ready to go while Suresh double-and triple-checked that he had everything he needed for their three-and-a-half-day trip.
Mia was irritable from the get, but when she was about half dressed, her petulance peaked, and suddenly her vocabulary was limited to “Do I have to?” and “I don’t wanna. ”
When Ravi finally got her downstairs, he offered once again to watch her for the weekend. Irritation approaching anger flashed in Suresh’s eyes, and all Suresh said was, “The car is ready.”
An hour and a half later, Ravi got a text saying they’d made it safely. He liked it, and that was it.
A low hum of frustration has followed him through the day since, utterly obliterating his patience.
When he realized there was only a sad, stuttered squeeze left of his conditioner, he said his longest string of expletives in years.
Adobe After Effects crashed in the middle of a render, and even though Ravi didn’t actually lose any of his work, he had to get up and walk a lap around the block to fight the urge to throw his monitor at the wall.
And now Yael looks good. In a way that makes him feel a little desperate, impatient. If he closes his eyes, he can feel the pulse point of her wrist under his fingers, the one on her neck under his tongue.
Elle occupied the desire center of his brain for weeks, Yael creeping in on the margins. And now that he’s trying not to think about Elle that way, it means more space for Yael.
Part of him wonders if she’s always had this effect on him, to some extent.
He could’ve just apologized and slipped out the window.
He should’ve. But he stayed and talked to her.
He stayed and memorized an image of her, sleep-rumpled, that has been withdrawn from its folder in his mind far too many times these past few weeks.
What is it about you? he thinks as he sits down across from her. Her eyes meet his, and his thoughts must be written on his face, because something shifts in her expression. She crosses her legs, looking away from him.
Christ, he wants his hands on her again.
Right now he lacks the self-control to try to convince himself that he doesn’t.
They spend the club meeting talking about the climax of the novel, and Yael is all Ravi can think about.
And there are moments that make him nearly certain that she’s thinking about him, too.
The heat in her eyes after he turns a page in his notebook.
The way she scans his body when he shifts, resting his forearm on the back of his chair, letting one of his legs extend farther into the circle.
He swears, on everything he’s ever known, that the first time he speaks, she watches his mouth instead of his eyes.
Leo lingers after the club, and Ravi waits for him, scrolling on his phone and leaning against a table. No new messages from Suresh, not that he expected any.
“Ravi?” Leo says.
Ravi looks toward the door before he looks at Leo, and sure enough, it swings shut behind Jackson and Eli, leaving only him, Leo, and Yael in the library. “Hey, Leo,” he says.
“Alex told me he wants to get back together.”
“Oh,” Ravi says. He can feel himself grimacing, and the corners of Leo’s mouth tug down in return.
“I really like him,” Leo says.
“Have you talked to your parents yet?” Ravi asks.
Leo shakes his head. “But he says he’s okay with that now.”
“Are you telling me because you want me to tell you what to do? I can’t do that, Leo. You have to make your own choices.”
Leo bites his lip, color rising in his cheeks. “Can you just tell me if you think it would be a good idea?”
Ravi shakes his head slowly. “I don’t. A boy who made you feel bad enough that you wanted to drink until you threw up isn’t good enough for you. Especially when it sounds like he doesn’t know what he wants or what he’s okay with.”
Leo swallows, looking at the ground. “Maybe if I told my parents…”
“Leo—” Ravi starts.
“My mom’s here,” he says. “I have to go.” And then he disappears.
Ravi scrubs his hand down his face. His chest feels tight, his face hot. He shoves the sleeves of his sweatshirt up to his elbows.
“That’s not your fault,” Yael says from behind him.
He turns, and she’s dragging the last of the chairs into place. She rounds the table to face him. “What makes you think I thought it was?”
“Literally every single thing about your demeanor right now. Although,” she pauses, “you’ve generally been a little off today, I guess.”
“I’m not being normal enough for you?”
Yael recoils at the word normal, blinking in surprise for a moment before her brow lowers and her gaze turns steely. “What does that mean?”
Ravi pushes out a sardonic laugh. “I think you know,” he says.
She takes a half step toward him. “Why don’t you tell me,” she says flatly.
“I don’t feel like pretending,” he says, “that I’m not thinking about kissing you.”
Yael’s lips part, her breath escaping her. Her words, too, it seems.
“That I’m not thinking about other things, too.” He swallows, his heart thudding. “And I know why it won’t happen. I wish … Believe me, I wish that we hadn’t met the way we did, or that I’d met you before I met Charles, I don’t know. But I can’t undo it. And I can’t unfeel you, either.”
His words shoot through the air like current on an exposed wire, heating the space between them. He kind of can’t believe he’s said it; is even more incredulous of how good it feels. How freeing.
Yael’s brows furrow, and Ravi has the strangest urge to reach out and smooth the crease between them. So many conflicting emotions seem to pass through her features, and he wishes he could read them. Especially as the moment stretches like putty, Yael not saying a word.
Christ, this was a bad idea. Or not an idea at all, really—he can’t say he did a lot of thinking before he opened his mouth. Several more seconds tick by, and Ravi accepts defeat and turns to leave.
“I don’t have work tomorrow,” Yael says.
Ravi looks back at her, and her eyes are on her fingers, fiddling with a pleat in her long skirt. His pulse quickens. All he can manage is a questioning “Hmm?”
Yael’s eyes flick up to his, her black irises molten. “And I have the apartment to myself.”
She’s not saying …
Is she?
YAEL WALKS TOWARD the checkout counter to retrieve her tote bag, her heart threatening to beat its way out of her chest. She expected that turning away from Ravi would cool the heat unspooling within her, but it doesn’t.
Not when she can feel his eyes following her.
She slings the bag over her shoulder, looking back at him.
Lips parted, jaw set. Devastating.
She takes a deep breath, hoping her voice won’t sound as unsteady as she feels. “You coming?”