Chapter 8
Leo!” she calls, when she finally spots him in the winding security check line.
Almost always a head taller than everyone around him, he turns, broad shoulders swinging like an open door, gaze landing right on Simran in her bright outfit. He’s too far away for her to see his expression, to tell if his easy smile might be in the wings, waiting to emerge at the sight of her.
Or if his face will say this is all over. That this is not the happy ending of that movie she is acting out, but an ending of a different kind, of them, after they have barely even started.
If she can’t read the look on his face, she doubts he can read the one on hers. There’s only one thing she can do.
“I’m sorry,” she calls.
He blinks a few times, frowning, and then holds a finger to his ear.
“I’m sorry!” She shouts this time, hands cupped around her mouth, and about fifty heads swing in her direction, including several near Leo.
Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath, she says, at that same cringingly loud volume, “I’m so sorry.
Please—please—you have to know—I’m crazy about you. You have to know that, Leo.”
To her embarrassment, the crowd reacts. A handful of people let out an “awwww,” while a few others—not many but not none—snicker at her. She holds both of those reactions inside herself, mortified at her earnestness yet freed by saying exactly how she feels.
Leo has started the awkward process of making his way through the line, saying “Excuse me” over and over like a mantra, ducking underneath the barricades and swerving around strollers.
Seconds go by like hours until he’s finally out of the line but he stops before he reaches her, leaving a wide gap between them.
His usually open-book face is unreadable and the ground beneath her feet feels shaky.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “You really hurt me.”
“I know. I hate that I did,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
His frown sinks deeper into his features. “What was all that, back at your aunt’s house?”
She forces herself to stop fidgeting and looks him in the eye.
“I didn’t know what else to do—you have no idea how complicated things are with my family, what it’s like being here again,” she says.
A lump forms in her throat. People are still watching them, not bothering to hide their curious gazes.
A few have pulled out their phones and are filming.
“Then talk to me about it, instead of avoiding my calls and barely replying to my texts,” he says.
“Okay,” she replies, her heart hooking on his use of present tense.
It’s been so long since she’s let someone be this close to her; she’s scared what his proximity will do to the things she’s hidden deep within herself.
But it’s Leo. She’ll try her hardest for him, even if she’s not quite sure how. She takes a step forward.
“If you want this, you can’t shut me out. We’re in this together and we’re in it,” he says. His forearms are still taut, hands in fists, but his arms are by his side now and the trenched line between his eyebrows has softened.
“I’m in it. I want this, Leo. Us. Just tell me what I can do to show you that,” she says, taking another step closer. “You are the first thing that’s felt right to me in sixteen years.”
Leo stares at her for a long moment.
And then he unfurls as he opens his arms and her feet move forward like a magnet to his charge. When she reaches him, she grabs the fabric of his Henley and pulls his face to hers. It’s a soft kiss that scorches with promise, and his hand steals up the side of her neck.
She’s vaguely aware of a few people—no doubt in the “awwww” faction—applauding, and she knows what a sight they must make, her still in Indian formal wear, him casual and old-Hollywood handsome, all of this taking place in an airport, a movie cliché and very much a real-life love story.
A tour group of septuagenarians in matching emerald-and-gold visors and T-shirts that read “Vaxxed and Waxed: Class of ’73 Reunion” moves towards the security line, breaking around the two of them so they’re surrounded by yellow and green, as if she were in a windswept field of mustard flowers.
They pull away and he smiles down at her. “You ran through the airport to find me?”
She blushes at the spectacle she’s made. “I couldn’t let you leave like that.”
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t love the grand gesture.
Or that what you did wasn’t kind of messed up.
But I don’t need all this. You just have to talk to me.
That’s all I’m asking for,” he says. The crinkles around his eyes are little rivers of emotion.
“Well, one more thing. Can you fix your family thinking I’m some white looter? That’s my forefathers, not me.”
Simran laughs. “I can work on that.” She kisses him again because she can, because he’s here, because he’s hers, and she came too close to not being his.
“Not to interrupt the moment,” a voice drawls from behind Simran. She startles, turning with her arms still around Leo, to see Kavitha a few feet behind them, hair frizzy from the humidity. “But I’ll take that explanation now, Akka.”
Simran nods at her cousin. “Okay, let’s talk.” She turns back to Leo and pulls their joined hands to her lips. “Text me when you land?”
“No, no,” Kavitha replies. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s part of the explanation.”
“Come on, Kavi! He’ll miss his flight,” Simran says, turning to face her. “You can’t expect everyone to drop everything whenever you want!”
They square off, silently radiating years of unspoken frustration. Kavitha crosses her arms.
From behind her, Leo pipes up. “Whoa, it’s okay. I can stay.” When Simran turns, the look he gives her is plain to understand: This is what being in it means to him.
And as the three of them walk back to Kavitha’s car, Simran realizes that despite her heroine dramatics and grand gestures and big speeches, her life isn’t at all like a Bollywood movie.
This isn’t happily ever after; this is just the beginning.