Chapter 6
Karthik stretched his neck to the side, twisting it back and forth, reveling in the sound of it cracking and popping. His mother had always told him not to bend it like that, saying that those noises meant he would get arthritis. He wasn’t that sure about the soundness of her medical advice, but the stretch gave his aching muscles some relief, and he definitely needed that right now. He’d fallen asleep in the wrong position on his early-morning flight home, and his neck and shoulders were still painfully sore.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket for the fifth time since his plane had landed. Not to see if Meghna had responded to his message. He just needed to check his email. Or the time. Or the weather. At least that’s what he told himself. But every time he opened the home screen, he looked at the little message icon, disappointed when there wasn’t a new notification.
He wondered if the joke hadn’t been funny. Or maybe it had been ill-timed. But how was he supposed to know? He didn’t make jokes like that. He had no idea how it would be received. For all he knew, he had offended her. He shouldn’t have sent it, but he just hadn’t been able to stop picturing the way she’d looked last night. The sad, pinched corners of her mouth, so different from her normal wide smile. The light in her eyes, the sparkle of amusement that had been there most of the night, had disappeared. She’d seemed exhausted. Listless.
He’d wanted to change that expression. Do something to wipe it from her face. Unthinkingly, he’d suggested getting ice cream, hoping to take her mind off the events of the night. Now that he was back in his office, it no longer seemed like such a great idea. She’d seen something shocking, had clearly been upset, and he’d suggested getting dessert. She must have thought him so callous.
And then he’d been back in his hotel room, imagining her lying in bed, still wearing that small, pinched expression. He hadn’t wanted her to go to sleep like that. Hadn’t wanted her to replay everything in her head. So, he’d sent a joke. That joke. He ran a hand through his hair and groaned. He was a fool.
“Dude, did you see what they’re doing on the fourth floor?” Paul asked, gliding into his office. He handed Karthik his coffee, then sat in the chair in front of his desk. Karthik didn’t know how it had happened, but the intern had developed a daily habit of chatting in his office, always lingering for a while after he dropped off coffee or lunch.
“No,” Karthik said, removing the lid from his drink and blowing across the surface.
“It’s amazing. They have, like, this robotic arm? One of the guys was showing me the controls. It’s not working yet or anything, but I think they’re getting close.”
Karthik let out a noncommittal grunt. Of course the biomedical team was working on something cutting-edge and exciting. They always were. Karthik had stopped paying attention to their projects after a while. He wasn’t ever going to work on them, so what was the point?
“Don’t you think that’s cool? Almost makes me want to give engineering another chance.”
Karthik shrugged, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand.
“Rough night?” Paul asked.
“Just an early morning,” Karthik said.
“Same.” Paul sighed dramatically. “Actually, I barely slept at all. There’s a new club that my girlfriend and her friends were dying to go to. We didn’t get home until three.”
Karthik nodded, turning to his computer screen. He hoped Paul would take the hint that it was time to start the workday, and even more important, time for this conversation to end.
Instead, Paul took a big slurp of his own coffee. “Why were you up so early?” he asked.
Karthik sighed and slowly turned back to face him. “I had an early flight.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Dallas.”
“Ohh. That’s where your fiancée lives, right?” Paul grinned widely and a bit too knowingly. “Nice. No wonder you’re so tired.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Karthik said in a clipped tone. “We had to go to a party. It went late and it was … well, kind of a disaster.”
Paul’s grin stayed on his face. “The best parties are.”
“Not this one.”
“What happened?”
“Honestly, it’s too hard to explain.”
Paul rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t be more complicated than what happened at last year’s Sigma Delta homecoming party. My girlfriend wouldn’t text me for a week after that one.”
“What does it mean …” Karthik stopped, surprised he had actually said the question out loud. He almost let it go, but decided to soldier forward. “What does it mean if she’s not texting me back?”
Paul leaned back in his chair, adopting the solemn air of an expert. “What did you send her?”
“A joke.”
“What kind of joke? Something dirty?”
“No. Just a pun.”
“Like a dad joke?” Paul asked, slightly horrified. “No wonder she’s not responding.”
“She likes jokes like that,” he said defensively. “She collects them on T-shirts.”
Paul gave him a look. “Sounds like a match made in heaven.”
“And she had a rough night,” Karthik said, continuing as if Paul hadn’t said anything. “It probably has nothing to do with the joke.”
“She had a rough night and you decided to send her a joke?”
Paul made an annoyingly good point. But there was nothing Karthik could do about it now. There wasn’t any way he could take it back. He would just have to deal with it. At least he had a week before he had to see Meghna again. A week to put some distance between them. Maybe she’d respond by then. Or even better, maybe she’d completely forget he had ever sent that joke at all. He found himself desperately hoping for the latter.
It had been one week since Meghna had caught her best friend and her brother making out in a public restroom, and she was still ignoring their calls. She wasn’t ready to face them yet. Wasn’t ready to hear their explanations. Thankfully, she had a reason to be out of town for the next few days and would be able to avoid them for a little bit longer. She was almost looking forward to being in New York for the weekend. Her only hesitation was that it meant being around Karthik again.
She wasn’t sure what his problem was, but it was clear that there was some problem. Or at least some kind of disconnect between them. At Ankita’s party, there had been moments when he’d almost been … kind. Considerate, even. But then he’d made those comments about ice cream and sent that joke and she just couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t figure him out. Had he been making light of the situation? Mocking her? Or just trying to make her laugh?
This was the kind of thing she usually discussed with Ankita. That she wanted to discuss with Ankita. But that wasn’t a possibility right now. Meghna wasn’t ready to wade through her feelings about what she had seen. She loved her best friend. She loved her brother. But the two of them together? When Ankita had seemed so happy with Rishi? She couldn’t believe that neither of them had told her. She told Ankita everything. That apparently didn’t go both ways.
She shoved her hurt feelings to the side and smoothed her yellow sundress, adjusting the pleats that fell right around her knees. This retirement brunch party was going to be held outdoors, at some rooftop restaurant, and she didn’t want to melt in the hot sun. She was used to the boiling temperatures in Texas, but sometimes New York struck her as just as hot. She theorized that it was because the heat soaked into the concrete, making it radiate all around her.
She couldn’t vouch for the scientific accuracy of that theory, but as she walked to the restaurant, she became even more convinced she was right. The heat rose from the sidewalk beneath her, as if she were trapped in an oven. She entered the building, strands of her hair sticking to the nape of her neck. She hoped her sweaty appearance could be mistaken for a radiant glow.
She was meeting Karthik an hour early, before the party started, so they could go over their respective stories. Karthik had described his boss as incredibly inquisitive, and he wanted to be sure they had a response to anything she could come up with.
She rode the elevator to the very top and walked onto the roof, thankful for the fans blowing cool air all around her. She spotted Karthik and was walking in his direction when a sudden gust of air swept through her skirt. She grabbed her dress in a hurry before it could fly up, quickly realizing the pose wasn’t half as glamorous as Marilyn Monroe had made it look.
Karthik stared at her for a moment, then jumped up and led her over to his table. She shot him a thankful glance and sat down on her dress, finally pinning it in place.
“Tell me about your boss,” Meghna said once she was settled.
“She’s retiring.”
“Well, I guessed that much,” she said with a smile.
Karthik ran a hand through his hair. She’d thought his hair had looked so perfect when they had first met, but she was finding that she liked this rumpled, slightly disheveled look even better.
“They’re thinking of me for the replacement,” he said.
“That’s great!”
A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“In what way?”
“Well, she thinks we’re engaged.”
Meghna couldn’t understand how that was a problem. They technically were engaged. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s part of why she recommended me for the promotion. Apparently, my inability to commit has been an … issue. In the past. She thought this”—he waved his hand between the two of them—“meant I was serious or stable or something. I really don’t know. All I know is she asked to meet you.”
Meghna raised her hands in a ta-da gesture. “Well, here I am.”
“I know. And I appreciate you coming,” he said, a worried look still on his face. “I just don’t think she’ll buy it.”
“Everyone else has. My parents. Yours. What are you so worried about?”
He grimaced. “We don’t even know anything about each other.”
She raised a shoulder nonchalantly. “So, you tell them this was arranged. Big deal. If they ask anything we don’t know, we’ll say we’re still getting to know each other.” She took a sip of the ice water in front of her and breathed a sigh of contentment. “Besides,” she said, “I know things about you. You know things about me. You’re an engineer. I’m a teacher. You live in New York. I live in Dallas.” She tried to think of more items to add to the list, but realized she had already laid out everything she knew about him. Maybe he had a point.
“Well, what do you want to know?” she asked.
He took a sip of his own water and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “Where are we going to live?” he finally asked. “After we get married.”
She thought it over for a second. “I don’t care. You pick. It’s not going to be true either way.”
“But we should have the same story,” he said, being irritatingly reasonable.
“Fine,” she said on an exhale. “New York. I’ll move up here. I’ve thought about it before anyway.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. Most people interested in theater dream about moving here at some point in their lives.”
“I thought you taught English,” he said.
“I do. But I used to want to write plays.” She frowned as she registered what she’d just said. “Actually, I still write plays. I’m working on one now, but I just haven’t made a lot of progress on it lately. Maybe if I moved here, I’d get back to it.”
“You could even go back to school,” he suggested. “Get an MFA.”
Huh. She’d never thought about that before. Her parents had pushed her to consider grad school for years, but their suggestions were usually limited to business or law school. And engineering, of course, but they seemed to have given up on that one, realizing she wasn’t cut out for it.
“Maybe,” she said hesitantly. “So, what’s going on with this promotion? After all, I should know something about your job.”
“It’s not that interesting,” he said. “Almost everyone at the company is some kind of mechanical engineer, and we’re all specialized in a particular area. I work on a team that designs HVAC systems. Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning. Mostly for commercial buildings. We study the blueprints, design systems, test them out. But my boss’s job is a lot more management and supervision. I’d be overseeing the entire team instead of being a part of it if I got Marianne’s job.”
Meghna set her elbow on the table, propping her chin on her hand. “Is that what you want?”
He moved his head back subtly, as if he was surprised, as if no one had asked him that question before. “What?”
“This job,” she said. “That’s what you want?”
“It’s the next move. It makes sense.” He shook his head. “It’s actually more than the next move. It’s … it’s the kind of job I’d thought I’d get in ten years. Maybe fifteen. I still can’t believe they’re really considering me.”
Meghna leaned back in her seat. It sounded like a big deal. And even though it sounded incredibly boring to her, it was obviously important to him. No wonder he was so stressed about the party. “Will you miss any of the day-to-day work? If you’ll be spending all your time managing?” If her school asked her to be the vice principal, she’d miss being in the classroom.
He blinked. “I won’t miss it. I’ll still be involved. But this is what I’ve been working toward. Where everything has been leading.”
“All right, then,” she said, deciding to drop it. “What do you do for fun?”
He stared at her blankly.
“For fun?” she asked again. “I write plays, like I mentioned earlier. And I swim. I also watch an unhealthy amount of reality television, but everyone has their vices. What about you?”
He looked away for a long moment. “I run,” he finally said.
Of course. He just had to be one of those people who liked to run. Not that she had anything against people who ran. She did it too, but couldn’t imagine describing it as fun. Though she had to admit that it suited him. She could almost picture his perfect hair flying in the breeze, his muscles showcased in his tight running clothes. If she saw him jogging past her in the park, she’d definitely take another look. Maybe more than one. She’d probably smile at him, and he’d just stare right back, his eyes dark and intense, just like they were now. And then …
Suddenly, his voice cut through, shattering her daydream.
“Who’s Seth?” he asked.
Meghna jumped, but tried to hide it by sipping her drink. Unfortunately, in her haste she choked on the water, accidentally swallowing an ice cube. It slid uncomfortably down her throat.
“Who told you about Seth?” she asked once she recovered.
“Your brother,” he said, watching her closely. “Seth’s the one who called you at the party, right?”
“Right.” She mentally added another thing to fight with Samir about whenever she gathered the nerve to confront him. “He’s the one getting married.”
Karthik leaned forward, his eyes trained on hers. “He must be important to you.”
Her heartbeat doubled. What did he know?
“Why would you say that?” she asked as casually as she could manage.
“Well, didn’t you say you were part of the wedding party?”
God, did he remember everything she said? She couldn’t even remember telling him that.
“I am,” she said, making an effort to appear composed and collected. “I’m the best man.”
She expected some kind of response to that. Raised eyebrows. A shocked exclamation. Maybe even a You? The best man? But he did none of that. He just looked at her thoughtfully and took a sip of his water. She found it unnerving.
“Do you have any plans while you’re in the city?” he asked after a moment.
“Not really,” she said, relieved that any questioning about Seth was over. “I know we have that dinner with your parents tonight, but I don’t have anything else figured out. I’ll probably just walk around and find a bookstore. Go to the park.”
“You’re not seeing a show?”
“I looked into it, but didn’t buy any tickets.” She hadn’t been sure of their schedule for the weekend.
“We should go to one,” he said.
“You like theater?” For some reason, she hadn’t imagined that he was a fan.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“Really? My parents always took me and Samir whenever the shows on tour stopped in Dallas. They were good, but I would have died to have grown up in New York. To see performances with the original casts. I can’t believe you live here and have never been.”
He let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, well, I grew up in Queens. We weren’t exactly next door to Broadway. My dad would have thought going all that way for some singing and dancing was a waste of time.” He shook his head in disgust, making it clear he felt the same way too.
Meghna’s shoulders grew tense.
There were times when it almost felt easy to talk to Karthik. To be around him. And then there were times like this. When he was brusque. Dismissive. And rude.
At least she only had to put up with it for the length of the engagement. Then she’d never have to see him again.
A tense silence settled over the two of them, broken only by the sounds of other people stepping onto the roof. A cacophony of voices mid-conversation carried over on the wind. Meghna breathed a sigh of relief. Marianne’s retirement party had begun.
Once everyone said their goodbyes and the party came to a close, Karthik realized he’d spent all that time worrying for nothing. Everyone had loved Meghna. Of course they had. She’d been sparkling and funny and kind. He was quickly learning that that was just her natural state of being. And she’d fielded every question about their relationship deftly.
Several of the executives who would be on the selection panel for Marianne’s old position had asked how the two of them had met. A simple question, but Karthik had almost sweat through his shirt. Thankfully, Meghna had answered with ease.
“Our parents, if you can believe it,” she’d said with a laugh and a wave of her hand. “We didn’t even know anything about each other. And neither of us ever thought we’d go for an arranged setup, but you know, arranged introductions like this worked for all my aunts and uncles. I figured it couldn’t do any harm.” She’d shot Karthik a wide smile, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm.
His skin had sparked at the touch. Like he was a kid again, shuffling across the carpet in socks.
“Little did I know,” she’d continued, “that I’d end up meeting the love of my life.” Everyone had awww’d appropriately in response and left the encounter with her thoroughly charmed.
By the end, no one had any reason to suspect that they were anything but an engaged couple in love. Before leaving, Marianne had even leaned toward him and whispered, “This one’s a keeper.” And Karthik hadn’t been able to do anything but smile and nod in response. Meghna so clearly was. He was the one with the problems. The one who was so decidedly not a keeper.
And if Meghna hadn’t figured that out by now, she would surely realize it once they were done with dinner at his parents’ house. Once she met his father. The spitting image of what Karthik would look like in thirty years.
He was dreading the two of them meeting and had done his best to put it off, but once his mother had learned that Meghna would be in the city, she’d insisted on making them dinner. They’d met only briefly in Dallas, and she wanted to spend more time getting to know her future daughter-in-law. Karthik hadn’t seen a way around it.
He sighed and followed Meghna into the elevator, out of the restaurant, and onto the sidewalk. They stood there for a moment, facing each other awkwardly, unsure of what to do next.
Karthik put his hands in his pockets. “I, uh, was checking on my phone earlier. I couldn’t find any tickets for something on Broadway, but there’s a matinee performance Off-Broadway that we could go to. We’d have to leave straight from there to go to my parents’ house, but it might be—”
Meghna shook her head, her smile tight and small. “That’s okay. You don’t have to do that. I was thinking I’d just go shopping for a bit.”
He paused, a little confused. She’d seemed interested when he’d mentioned going to see a show before, but maybe she had changed her mind. He waited a moment to see if she wanted him to come along, but after a few seconds of silence, he could tell no invitation was coming. He cleared his throat, gave her the address for his parents’ house, and left, each of them going their separate ways.
When it was time for dinner, they met a block away from his childhood home, just like they had planned, and walked to the house together. As soon as Karthik opened the front door, the most inviting and comforting smell washed over him: basmati rice, curry leaves, turmeric, and fried onions. He could already tell his mother had made mutton biryani. His absolute favorite.
Karthik showed Meghna to the kitchen table. His mother jumped up to hug them, beaming with joy. His father was surprisingly also pleasant, and expressed his congratulations on their engagement. They all took their seats and began serving themselves from the large bowl of steaming rice in the center of the table.
“Everything looks delicious, Shanti Aunty,” Meghna said to his mother.
“Thank you. This is Karthik’s favorite dish, you know. I’ll send you the recipe so you can learn to make it too.”
Karthik wanted to groan. “I know how to make it, Amma. If I want it, I can make it for myself.”
Meghna smiled and placed her hand on his arm, silently telling him it was fine. “I’d love to have it,” she told his mother. “It’s different from the kind my family makes. You can never have too many biryani recipes.”
His father shot Karthik an approving look, making the hair on the back of Karthik’s neck stand up straight. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on the receiving end of a look like that from his father. He didn’t like it.
“My wife told me you’re a teacher,” Karthik’s father said to Meghna. “I am too. I teach at NYCU medical school.”
Karthik resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course his dad couldn’t go a few seconds without bringing up his work.
“That’s great,” Meghna said warmly.
His father started explaining all the ins and outs of his research, his latest paper, and the grant proposal he was working on. “I always thought Karthik would be a doctor too,” he said. “But he just never had the interest. He would have been—”
“You should try some raita,” his mother interrupted, passing it along to Meghna. “The biryani can get too spicy on its own.”
A muscle twitched near his father’s jaw. It was probably imperceptible to Meghna or a stranger, but not to him. Karthik had learned to look for it. In the past that tic would have meant that an angry outburst was imminent, but somewhere along the way his father’s temper had mostly dissolved into neglect. Disinterest.
Some of that disinterest had been there even when Karthik was a child. Making his father proud enough to just notice him had been the goal of his childhood. But nothing he’d ever been able to do had accomplished that. And the day he’d told his father he was going to be an engineer and not a doctor had been the final nail in the coffin. Any tiny bit of interest his father might have had in him had vanished. It didn’t matter that he was good at his job. Or that his colleagues respected him. Or that he was up for this huge promotion. His father didn’t care about any of that.
Karthik took the raita from Meghna and added some to his own plate. “Meghna’s an excellent teacher,” he said, trying to change the subject. “And she’s also a playwright.”
“Aspiring playwright,” she said, slightly flustered. “It’s just something I do for fun.”
“You teach English, right?” his mother asked softly.
“I do. And theater.”
“I didn’t know that,” Karthik said, turning to look at her.
She gave him a small smile. “It’s pretty new. We never really had the budget for a full-time theater program for our kids, but I did musicals all through school and college and wanted my students to have the same experience. The school finally agreed and gave us the funds, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s our first time putting on a fall play.”
They spoke about how rehearsals were going, and she told them her students were performing My Fair Lady, which happened to be one of his mother’s favorite movies. The two of them started talking about some of the other movies his mother liked, and Karthik snuck a glance at his father.
He sat stoically, his face blank and almost vacant. He’d probably checked out the second they had stopped talking about medicine, which suited Karthik just fine. In his mind, the less his father interacted with Meghna, the better. His mother was still talking, deep in the middle of a detailed plot summary of a classic Tamil film from the eighties, when his father stood up abruptly.
“I have to go check something at the office,” he said. “Meghna, it was a pleasure meeting you.”
Meghna seemed a little taken aback that his father would be going into work on a Saturday night, but Karthik didn’t bat an eye. This was standard operating procedure for his father. Honestly, he was surprised that his father had stuck around this long.
“Are you sure you have to leave now?” his mother asked.
A tense moment of silence followed. Karthik had never heard his mother question his father in this way. His father came when he wanted. And left when he wanted. Karthik and his mother were quite used to it.
“I have to go in to work, Shanti. You know how it is.”
His mother’s eyes widened, but Karthik saw a determined glint in them that he had never seen before.
“I do. But I think you can wait to have your meeting until our dinner is over.”
His father’s face took on a ruddy complexion. “I’m a mentor, Shanti. The students are busy, and I have to make myself available to help them.” He gestured in Meghna’s direction. “As a teacher, I’m sure you understand,” he told her. “Of course, the stakes here are even higher. These are future doctors. Not children.” A smile crept across his face, slightly cold and condescending. “We can’t all dress kids in costumes and play make-believe.”
The warmth on Meghna’s face faded.
“That’s enough,” Karthik said crisply. “We understand you’re in a hurry. We don’t want to hold you up.” He looked pointedly at the door.
His father left the house without further fanfare. His mother offered quiet apologies, but Meghna waved them away, guiding the conversation back to his mother’s excellent food, asking for recipes for everything.
“Just so you know,” Meghna told him when they were in the cab on the way back to her hotel. “If I hadn’t been playing the role of a dutiful fiancée tonight, I would have ripped your dad apart for saying that.”
Karthik almost snorted. Little did she know that he would have paid a good amount of money to see that.
“And he would have deserved it,” he said. “In the future, please feel free to tell him whatever you want. Though hopefully you won’t have to meet him again.”
“Hopefully,” she muttered. “Is he always like that?”
Karthik sighed. “He’s usually better behaved when guests are around.” When they weren’t, he could be much, much worse. It used to frighten him as a child. Now it frightened him for a different reason altogether. Karthik had his father’s face. His father’s temper. And he was sure he had all of his father’s other failings too.
He wanted to be different. To be patient and honest and kind, like his mother. To have some control over his emotions so he wouldn’t hurt others with his angry, rash words. But despite his best intentions, he ended up hurting people anyway. Becoming like his father felt unavoidable. Inevitable.
Meghna’s phone pinged with an incoming text message. Karthik didn’t mean to invade her privacy, but her screen was large, and he could read it from his seat right next to hers.
Her phone pinged again. Seth had followed up with a string of emojis: confetti, a dancer, the ocean, and a bottle of champagne.
“He seems to call you a lot,” Karthik said in a neutral tone, even though a strange streak of hot energy had coursed through his body when he’d read the text. He adjusted the air-conditioning vent in the back of the car. He was probably overheated. This month had been unseasonably warm.
“He doesn’t, really,” Meghna said. “We’re just in the middle of planning his bachelor party.”
Huh. “Well, please feel free to call him back.”
“Thanks. It won’t take long,” she promised, dialing the number. Seth immediately answered, and they began discussing logistics. The call was loud enough that Karthik could hear both ends of the conversation. He convinced himself that it wasn’t really eavesdropping. He had no choice but to listen.
They talked about the guest list, how many nights they’d be staying, and some of the restaurants and nightclubs they had researched. Seth made some quippy remark that Karthik couldn’t quite catch, but it must have been funny because Meghna let out a loud, unrestrained laugh.
That same strange, hot energy from before returned. Before Karthik even knew what he was doing, he opened his mouth. “We’re almost at the hotel, Meghna,” he said, a little louder than necessary.
“Who’s that? Is that a guy?” Seth asked excitedly. “Meg, are you seeing someone?”
“Yeah, I am.” She shot Karthik a look, but he stared back at her innocently. “He’s, umm, that’s actually my fiancé.”
“What?” Seth screeched. “When did this happen?”
“Pretty recently.”
“That’s wonderful! Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” she said flatly.
“I had no idea you were seeing anyone,” Seth said. “You know, this trip’s going to be pretty much all guys. You should bring him! Then you won’t have to hang out with just us losers.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Meghna said, looking at Karthik worriedly. “I’m sure he’s busy then.”
“When is it?” he mouthed.
She shook her head, her eyes imploring him to say nothing.
A devilish sense of something shot through him. “I’d love to come,” he said loudly.
Meghna glared at him.
“Wonderful!” Seth said on the other end of the call. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
They talked through the remaining details before ending the call. As soon as she hung up, Meghna turned to fully face him, her irritation obvious. For some reason, Karthik couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say. He was almost … giddy. It was a foreign emotion, but he was thoroughly enjoying it.
“Why would you say that?” she asked.
“I was just thinking about our deal,” he said calmly. “If I was really your fiancé, wouldn’t I come with you?”
She looked at him uncertainly.
“And we could probably sell our relationship better at the wedding,” he continued. “This way it’s not out of the blue when I show up as your fiancé. Seth and the others will have met me before.”
“I guess,” she said slowly.
“Really, what’s the harm in my going?” he asked, genuinely curious why it was upsetting her so much.
She looked away, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I just think it’ll be awkward, that’s all.”
“Why?” he pressed. “Wouldn’t it be more awkward to go alone?”
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Why do you want to go so badly?” she asked, sounding more like herself, her voice filled with its usual fire.
He made an effort to appear casual, even though he found his heartbeat increasing.
“Who wouldn’t want to make a trip to Miami?” he asked. The answer, of course, was him. Normally, he’d hate the idea of a trip like this. The beach, a rowdy group of guys, clubbing. Truly a nightmare scenario. He couldn’t explain why he was so interested in going, but he was invested now. He had to go.
“And Seth already thinks I’m coming,” he helpfully reminded her. “You’d have to come up with some excuse about why I couldn’t make it. Wouldn’t that be a bit suspicious?”
She stared at him until a look of resignation crossed her face. “Fine,” she said. “But you’re going to do exactly what I say. We’re setting real terms this time.”
Her words sent a thrill of anticipation down his spine. “Of course,” he said. “I completely agree.” She pivoted away to face the window, and he did the same, taking in the blur of the city lit up at night. Without fully realizing it, he let out a small smile.