Chapter 13
Nine days until the wedding
Simran is good at sharing. She always leaves extra packs of Maggi instant noodles in the communal lunchroom at work.
She never takes the last bite of anything because she loves seeing the satisfaction on the face of the person who gets it.
Her local bookstore stocks extra copies of her favorite titles because she’ll buy them just to give away to her friends.
She genuinely would rather share things, even when it means less for herself.
The operative word being “things.” People, not so much.
A few minutes ago, her phone buzzed with a text from Rishi, telling her to come outside at eight thirty a.m. to see Leo’s progress in Operation DDLJ.
She trudges through the house, chugging her coffee, body heavy and sluggish.
Putting her insomnia to use, she had crept down to the living room last night and pulled out her father’s records, humming the songs quietly and transporting herself to her childhood until she’d finally slipped back into bed for a few hours of bone-tired sleep.
By some stroke of luck, Veena perima is tending to her garden out back this morning and Simran makes her way to the front of the house without any interference.
Rishi Chopra [8:37 a.m.]: Wait for it.
Simran waits for this supposed grand unveiling and peers into the Shahs’ front yard two houses to the left, where Neeta aunty has emerged dressed in a nice top, jeans, and strappy sandals, an oddly formal outfit for someone with a weed whacker in their hands.
She attends to her shrubbery but mostly keeps craning her neck to the street.
Three houses down, Nirmala Brindavan comes outside with a full face of makeup and a blowout, inspecting a patch of lawn and stamping at it with her foot.
Neeta aunty and Nirmala aunty wave at each other but instead of talking like Simran would expect, they hover in their respective yards.
At the house across the street from the Chopras’, Jennifer Briganza steps out in her Lululemons and a workout top with a small area rug in her arms. She lays it on the railing of her front porch and begins beating it.
These are mundane activities that people in the suburbs do, but there’s a prickle in the back of Simran’s neck. Something is up.
A few minutes later, it all begins to make sense.
Coming around the bend of the cul-de-sac at a graceful clip, hair bouncing with every step like a stallion’s mane, is Leo.
He isn’t wearing a shirt and his shorts end just above mid-thigh, a perfect frame for his ass and long, strong legs.
Drops of sweat slip obscenely down the ridged planes of his chest. It’s impossible, she knows, but she swears he’s moving in slow motion.
As he runs, Leo raises a hand. “Good morning, Nirmala aunty!”
“Oh, good morning, Leo!” Nirmala aunty pretends to have just noticed his existence, despite the fact that her head has followed him as if on a track since he came into sight. “Another run! So nice to see how dedicated you are to your fitness.”
He waves to Mrs. Briganza, and Simran is sure she beats the carpet with a little extra vigor as he jogs by. He slows to a walk, two indecently long fingers pressed to the pulse in his neck as he passes the Shahs’ front yard. “Good morning, Neeta aunty.”
She smiles coyly at him. “Morning! Make sure you’re wearing sunscreen, haan? This New Jersey sun will burn all that skin.”
He grins, white teeth and bright eyes—not his most sincere smile but possibly his most charming one. “I did, Aunty! Two coats. I remembered from when you told me yesterday.”
“Achcha bachcha,” she says, calling him a good kid in Hindi even if the way she looks at him is decidedly adult.
Simran’s phone buzzes—she knows it’s Rishi—but she ignores it. This approach to growing Leo’s popularity is annoying but she can’t deny it’s effective, which only annoys her more. She’s very resentful that she has to thirst over him from afar, like everyone else.
Leo’s face goes from smile to smirk when he sees Simran standing on the porch, stormily sipping her coffee.
Once all the other aunties have gone inside their respective houses after the morning floor show, and after looking around for Veena perima and finding no sign of her, he saunters into the Iyers’ front yard.
“Good morning, Sim.” Her gaze roves his body, getting stuck on the flat puzzle of interlocking muscles on his abdomen. “My eyes are up here,” he says, and then chuckles, an action that makes the lines between those muscles deepen and firm.
“Good morning.” She means to sound annoyed, but instead her words come out breathy, swooning. She finishes the dregs of her cup of coffee and clears her throat. “How was your run?”
His eyes dance, golden in the morning sun. “Scorching.”
“Maybe you should put a shirt on,” she suggests.
One side of his mouth lifts. “Wouldn’t that just make me hotter?”
She doesn’t think he can get hotter, but she can’t give his already unshakable confidence the satisfaction of saying that. She changes the subject. “How did you two even come up with this?”
“To quote Rishi quoting Sun Tzu, ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’”
Simran scowls. “Rishi listens to too many podcasts.”
“Might I remind you that I am doing this for you and only you?” Leo says, putting a leg up on the step to stretch, only too happy to remain on display.
“Getting ogled by every woman in the neighborhood is for me?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.
“Everyone else is a bonus. You’re my number-one ogler.”
“Number one on a long list,” she mutters, staring at her empty coffee cup, wishing for a refill.
“Oh,” he says to himself with a smile as he straightens. “She’s possessive.”
“She—I am not.” She is. But she doesn’t like being called out on it. “I just can’t believe your solution to the problem is to take your clothes off.”
“You should try it.” He lowers his voice. “And let me watch.” He pushes an arm behind his head so his full torso is taut and tensed and aimed right at her. Warmth spreads, behind her ears, at the base of her neck, low in her belly. She wants to devour him.
Simran clears her throat. “There’s a small balcony on the second floor at the back of the house. We could meet there tonight?”
He gives her a wolfish smile. “I’m in. We can solve some problems, take some clothes off. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Kya ho raha hain yahan pein?” Veena perima has stepped out onto the porch in default inquisition mode.
It wouldn’t do anyone good to answer her question honestly and say that what’s happening here is that Simran is experiencing mortifyingly teenage levels of inconvenient sexual frustration over the man she is secretly dating.
A man whom the whole neighborhood has seen closer to naked in public than she has in private.
“Hi, Aunty. Sorry,” Leo says, pale where he’d been golden a moment ago.
“Sorry for what, hmm?” Veena perima asks as she takes the empty coffee cup from Simran’s hands and replaces it with a fresh one. Her tone is sure and damning, as if she already knows what he should be sorry for (existing). “What are you doing here anyway?”
There’s no trace of the slick serial neighborhood seducer from a few moments before.
“I run, Aunty. Every morning. Around the neighborhood. I run all the time. I mean, for exercise. I’m not, like, Forrest Gump.
” Simran wishes he could run away from this conversation.
“I used to play hockey but then I injured my shoulder, and I wanted to stay in shape so I started running, and—”
Veena perima pinches the bridge of her nose. “Aiyo, I mean what are you doing here, in front of my house?”
“Um …”
“Perima, Leo stopped by to see if there’s anything he can help us with for the wedding,” Simran says, swooping in. She keeps her tone neutral as she adds, “Isn’t that nice of him?”
Veena perima slurps her own coffee loudly as she considers Leo. He keeps crossing and uncrossing his arms, finally settling with one diagonally across his chest and the other clutching his waist, like he’s trying to protect his modesty. “How do you run?”
Leo blinks twice. “Sorry?”
“Tell me, nah,” she says, impatient. “How does someone run?”
Leo and Simran exchange a brief, confused glance. “What do you mean, Perima?”
“After the bypass, the doctor told Ashok to watch his diet and get into shape. But the only shape your peripa has is the imprint of his behind on the couch.” Leo chuckles and Simran doesn’t miss that her aunt preens, even if it’s Public Enemy Number One doing the laughing.
“So I want to tell him how to start jogging.”
“Leo can help him!” Simran blurts out, before catching herself. Well, she’s part of Operation DDLJ now. “They can run together.”
Veena perima frowns, contemplating this. “Okay. Tomorrow morning, I will send Ashok out here at seven to run with you.”
“Could we do eight?” Leo asks.
“Nothing doing,” Veena perima replies. Leo frowns, not understanding but Simran knows the phrase well.
They’ll meet at seven with no room for negotiation.
“And please put some clothes on.” Turning back towards the house, she mutters, “We used to only have to worry about the girls. Nowadays, even the boys are naked. Chee!”