Chapter Twenty-Five
On Tuesday, Yael wears a matching set of espresso-brown lace bra and panties to work.
They’re slightly less than comfortable under her jeans and sweater, but when she imagines how Ravi might react when he (hopefully) undresses her later tonight, her cheeks heat so much that she has to tuck her chin and take a deep breath, praying none of her students see her face.
She distracts herself from the prospect of seeing Ravi by thinking of tomorrow’s dinner with Jami.
She distracts herself from the dinner with Jami by thinking of—and remembering—Ravi.
Mostly, she sits behind the checkout counter, hoping for a student to approach so she can distract herself from all of it.
Instead, she gets Gina, who arrives during last period with a finger pointed directly at Yael. “You,” she says, “are sexy-emailing Kevin again.”
“I very much am not,” Yael says, clicking to submit the returns for the day.
Gina hops up to her perch on the counter. “You are sexy-something with someone.”
Yael keeps her hand on her mouse and her eyes on her screen. “Also not that.”
“I don’t beeee-lieeeeeve you,” Gina sings. “You’ve been low-key morose since that stopped, and you’re not anymore.”
Yael hums. “Please do not take the fact that I don’t feel like arguing as evidence you’re right.”
“You have a crush. I can feel it.”
Yael gives up and swivels toward Gina. “How’s your crush on the emcee?”
Gina scrunches her nose. “Less fun when we talk about me.”
“For you,” Yael says. She glances up at the clock—Ravi will walk up the steps in a few short minutes. “Don’t you have cleanup to do in your classroom?”
Gina lowers herself from the counter. “Whoa, sorry. I’m just playing. I can go.”
“No, no—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just—” Stressed? Horny? A little bit infatuated, for the second time in as many months, with someone I shouldn’t be? “How was your day?”
“You know how I had a student submit charcoal instead of watercolor a while back?” Yael nods. “Well, we’re on to oils, and she submitted charcoal again!”
She launches into a story, and Yael nods along, not breaking her focus on Gina even as the bell rings. Even as an internal countdown until Ravi pushes through the library doors begins.
“I think I might have to, like, preemptively email her mom this time even before grades are posted. Which I hate doing—I teach high school, not elementary school! But she freaked out on me at parent-teacher conferences last time, and even though she ultimately came around, I don’t want to deal with it again. I want peace.”
Yael smiles. “You shouldn’t have been a teacher of a subject parents expect to be an easy A, then.”
“You are completely right. And I tell people I’m not into masochism,” she says.
Ravi arrives.
Raking his rain-curled hair off his forehead, his eyes immediately find Yael’s.
His dark circles are pronounced, his stubble scruffy.
For a beat, she isn’t sure if he’s happy to see her.
But when she smiles at him, his lips twitch before he smiles back, and it softens his entire face. He looks at her like …
“Oh,” Gina says.
“Gina—”
“I’m leaving now,” she says, and rushes past Ravi with a simple nod.
He takes a small eternity to reach Yael, and when he does, her stomach clenches. Up close, his face is mostly taken with naked want. But there’s anguish there, too—another entry for her series, and she doesn’t like the direction it’s gone. “Hey,” he says.
“If you keep looking at me like this,” Yael says, “the students are going to suspect something.”
Ravi laughs, but it sounds tired. “I’ll try not to look at you, then.”
“Is everything okay with your family?”
Ravi half shrugs, shakes his head. “I’m … dealing with it.”
She peers over his shoulder—Zoe and JQ are early. “Come find me after?”
He nods, face suddenly solemn. “I’ll set up the chairs,” he says.
On second thought, Yael hates the way this lace chafes against her skin.
IN YAEL’S PRESENCE, it’s easy to forget everything else. Or, maybe, it’s tempting to pretend.
Ravi spends book club waiting to talk to her privately, tugged between eager anticipation and dread.
But as the students leave, he finds Leo first.
“Hey, Ravi,” Leo says.
“I want to apologize. I spoke more harshly to you last week than I should have.”
“Oh,” Leo says. “I didn’t think you were harsh.”
Ravi feels his shoulders relax. “That’s good. I still think I could have said things better, though, so I’m sorry.”
“I told Alex I didn’t want to get back with him. I thought about it, and you were right.”
Ravi nods and presses his lips together, wanting to hide his relief.
“But I … I still think I want to tell my parents. I’m ready.”
Leo looks at him hopefully, like he wants some assurance that Ravi can’t give. “I hope it goes well,” he says. “You have my number—and Ms. Koenig’s—if you need anything.”
“Okay,” Leo says, and Ravi can tell it wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear. But he accepts it, anyway, and tells Ravi he’ll see him Thursday, before jogging toward the door.
Ravi finishes resetting the chairs, and Yael appears as he slots the last one into place. Her hair is pulled back from her face today, sitting atop her head in a cloud of curls, her braid tucked behind her ear. Instinctively, he takes a half step toward her. To do what? Pull her to him? Kiss her?
“I still have the apartment to myself,” Yael says.
Ravi wishes that he’d come up with a plan this past weekend.
But he hadn’t, and he realizes now that it’s because he didn’t want to need one.
That he wanted to suspend time and make good on his promise to see her again without ever dealing with the rest of it, as though that wouldn’t be unbelievably cruel.
To her, and to him. “I can’t tonight,” he finds himself saying.
He watches Yael’s face start to crumple before she turns away. “Right, the family stuff. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be,” he says, quickly catching her by the wrist. She looks back at him, and he lets her go just as quickly. “Could we talk, maybe?”
She nods and leads them to her office, waving him inside and closing the door behind her. This time, he leans against her desk. Yael steps between his legs, and his hands find her hips.
She breaks eye contact before opening her mouth. “Are you feeling any regrets about last weekend?”
Ravi’s stomach clenches, and he tightens his hold on her hips. “No,” he says firmly, and she exhales.
Maybe if I just talk to her …
And tell her what? What do you want from her that you can actually have?
“This doesn’t need to be anything big,” Yael starts, still not looking him in the eye, and he realizes how long he’d let the silence stretch. “I wasn’t really … planning to date right now. We can be, you know, casual.”
Ravi isn’t sure what sound he makes, but whatever it is elicits a look of surprise. Her eyes snap back to his. “Did this weekend feel casual to you?” he blurts.
Instantly, he regrets it.
Yael shakes her head before he can take it back.
He shouldn’t be in this office with her. He shouldn’t even be at book club, not when he’s this unsure of himself. He needs to leave, and he needs to write down what he wants to say to her before he comes back on Thursday.
Because he can remember being certain they couldn’t be together. But when she’s standing between his knees, her face open and anticipative, he can’t seem to recall a single coherent reason why.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he withdraws it—Suresh. He declines quickly, before Yael can see the screen. “It’s my brother. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“It’s okay,” Yael says. “Deal with your family. I’ll see you Thursday.” And she kisses him.
He kisses her back.
She was right when she’d called him an asshole.