Chapter 22
chapter 22
Every time Naomi spent the night with Dev in his apartment, she could count on his hand seeking hers at various points of the night while they slept. Maybe it was a silly habit of his—born out of growing up with a security blanket or something—but she liked to pretend he craved her touch. Thrived on her closeness, like she did his.
As she lay in the quiet of her bedroom, away from traditions and mothers and fumbling half-truths that made her want to hide away in there forever, Dev’s hand tucked against hers made her heart launch itself off a gymnastics vault, landing be damned. Too bad, at this rate, she was going to splatter all over the mat.
Why him? Naomi asked herself as she studied Dev. He was sprawled on his back and taking up more than his fair share of the bed. And snoring softly. Even in peaceful sleep, he looked a little grim. The fact that she had fallen for an accountant—and a cantankerous one at that—was baffling on its own. But his situation also represented everything about the community her mother had warned her against, had protected her from with an iron will that bordered on zealous.
And yet the sight of her hand loosely tangled with his on her colorful bedspread filled her limbs with a sense of contentment, satisfying and plush. Naomi had worked with various businesses in the past. No matter how much of herself she poured into her work, or how deeply connected she felt to previous clients, it had always been easy to walk away. Although she nurtured those businesses like they were her own, releasing them back to their rightful owners had never been a problem.
But this wonderful, heavy feeling sinking her into the mattress and making Naomi wish an hour were endless and a second could last a lifetime? This would be hard to walk away from when her work on the bazaar was complete. And it was all because of this man. This awkward, brooding, aggravating man.
But time was not on Naomi’s side. Very carefully, she pulled her hand away and reached for her phone to find a message from Nick.
Nick: You gonna be late coming in today?
He’d punctuated the message with a gif of two people dressed as potatoes gyrating on a dance floor.
Naomi rolled her eyes. She hadn’t so much told Nick of her new relationship—or whatever this was—with Dev so much as he’d just figured it out, as best friends often do.
She almost texted back a quick no , but the heat of Dev’s body beckoned her to sink more deeply into her mattress, to forget about the pressing demands of the rebrand for a little while and just bask in this lovely little glow that surrounded them in the quiet of a cozy morning. It had been a long while since she’d had someone spend the night in her apartment, and with Dev snoring at her side, she felt a strange sense of security she hadn’t felt with someone before. Suddenly, she wasn’t bothered by her faded comforter or the deep scratches on her secondhand dresser.
Her response to Nick was simple and devoid of any guilt for putting off the bazaar: I’ll see you at noon.
She was staring at Nick’s answering text bubble when it registered that the snoring had stopped and Dev was lying on his side, head resting on the crook of his elbow, watching her.
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” she said, Nick’s impending response forgotten.
Dev’s drowsy voice was the the rasp of dry leaves on a forest floor in late autumn. “How can you work first thing in the morning?”
“Says the guy who chooses to set his alarm for five thirty a.m. so he can work out at the gym without the ‘beefcakes’ watching his every move.” Naomi waved her phone at him. “And while I wasn’t working, that does remind me: We need to make some decisions about displaying the menu. Is your mom into chalkboard art? Or maybe she’d prefer—”
With a groan, Dev rolled onto his back. “Does it even matter at this point?”
Naomi’s fingers clenched, but she barely noticed the crunch of her phone grinding against the chipped phone case. “What do you mean?”
“My older brother has gotten it into his thick skull that he’s going to be running the place when the rebrand is done, and he has a different vision for the café. An asinine vision, but he’s pretty sold on it.”
White noise trampled Naomi’s eardrums, and she paused a moment before responding. “What?”
“He wants a grab-and-go type of café. Of course, he has no taste, so…” Dev trailed off when the crunching sound emanated from Naomi’s palm again. He looked at her warily. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re kidding, right? This is, like, your version of a practical joke?”
“Accountants don’t joke,” Dev said with a sardonic grin. “It overwhelms our circuit boards.”
“Dev, seriously. Is Neel taking over?”
“Apparently.”
“Since when?”
“He mentioned it to me a few months ago, but I didn’t take it to heart because he’s a douchebag. But then a few weeks ago, he stopped by the bazaar and…” Dev glanced at Naomi’s face and snapped his mouth shut.
“Your brother is going to take over the business. Your brother doesn’t like how it looks right now.” Naomi paused. If anyone was short-circuiting right now, it was her. “And you’re just telling me this now ?”
“I…” Dev shook his head. “It’s not a big deal, Naomi. The bazaar will stay in my family. And the changes he wants to make are minute, easy fixes.”
Naomi pressed her hand to her chest, trying to decipher if the rapid rise and fall of her chest was the beginning of a panic attack or her soul trying to wrestle its way out so it could strangle one very clueless accountant. “I’ve been busting my ass to impress Gia , Dev. And now I’m finding out, with less than two weeks left, she’s not even my client anymore? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“You still have the job, Naomi. Why is this freaking you out?”
“I have so much riding on this. The chairs are supposed to come this week. The concept for the redesign is all about community and closeness. I…The…The—”
“Hey.” Dev reached for her, his hand firm and solid on her knee. But when he extended his other arm to pull her close, she jumped out of the bed and stared at him incredulously.
“This is a big problem!”
Dev’s eyes widened. “You’re yelling at me.”
“Yelling is better than killing, Dev!” Although her voice sounded too loud in her ears, Naomi was beyond caring. Beyond checking herself for someone else’s comfort.
“This isn’t your problem, Naomi. You did what you set out to do.”
“If the client isn’t satisfied with the end result, I might not get paid.” Naomi’s voice turned ragged. “I need the money, I have bills to pay. I—” Naomi caught herself before she blurted out something pathetic, like she was one more overdue notice away from having her power cut.
“I’ll make sure you get paid.”
“Great. The guy I’m sleeping with will make sure his family pays me even though I didn’t fulfill my end of the contract. Just perfect .” As soon as the bitingly sarcastic words slipped from her mouth, Naomi braced her hands on the edge of the mattress and focused her gaze on the floor while forcing herself to take deep, calming breaths.
Her lungs pushed back every attempt.
Naomi raised her head to look at Dev just in time to catch the familiar look of panic eclipsing his face. It was clear that he hadn’t thought through the implications of Neel taking over the family business, and the realization somewhat mitigated the rising tide of anxiety and anger in Naomi’s chest. An uncomfortable lump formed in her throat when she realized that the grumpy, cynical man sitting in her bed, staring at her in fear and completely unaware that he was sporting some serious bedhead, had become a puzzling soft spot for her.
She needed to sort the facts. “Okay, let me see if I understand the situation,” Naomi said, lowering her voice and easing herself onto the edge of the bed. “Your brother wants to take over the bazaar.”
Dev nodded, his eyes still scared. She couldn’t blame him: she sounded eerily calm, her voice the exact cadence of the ominous music right before an innocent victim was slashed across the throat in a horror movie.
“If that’s the case, why have you been helping redesign it according to what your mother would like?”
“I figured it was just Neel running his mouth, as usual. It didn’t seem like a done deal.”
“But your mom is going to sell him the café? She’s made arrangements to sign over the lease? She’s agreed to”—Naomi choked out the words—“the changes Neel wants despite what we’ve done?” To what she had painstakingly pieced together, forgone sleep for, and fucking sacrificed her mental wellness to accomplish?
“Not officially.” Dev hesitated before adding, “I’m not even sure she would necessarily agree with Neel’s vision. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s trying to bully her into this.”
“I don’t understand. If Gia isn’t on board, how do you know it’s even happening?”
“Because it’s what Neel wants.”
“So?”
“So…” Dev’s forehead wrinkled. “So my mom will give it to him.”
They were having one of those moments that always made Naomi feel like she was talking to Dev from behind a two-way mirror. He was on the reflective side, oblivious that his behaviors—like accepting Gia’s decree with a grumble and a helpless shrug or tossing the extra, unused napkins in the fast-food bag away instead of saving them for later—were being watched on the other side by a silent, baffled Naomi.
But when it came to her career, silence did not suit her. Naomi straightened. “You need to talk to her.”
“To whom?”
“Your mother!”
“What? Why?”
“Because this is the kind of decision that needs to be crystal clear to everyone, Dev. We’re not undoing everything we’ve done for someone’s passing interest in running the show.”
Naomi might have risked her self-worth for the bazaar, but she would put up one hell of a fight before she risked her career. Except, at this point, it wasn’t really her fight, was it? It belonged to the man staring back at her as if her face were disintegrating before his eyes.
“Are you telling me that after almost three months of spending every waking hour on the bazaar, you don’t care if someone waltzes in and changes everything?” Naomi asked.
Dev shrugged. “Story of my life.”
Not this time, buddy. “You have no interest in the café’s success?” she pressed.
Although he had opened his mouth to respond, something stopped Dev and he paused. When he finally answered, his voice was slow and careful. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of the work we’ve put in, but it’s not like I’m going to work there when it’s done.”
“What about Gia?”
“What about her?”
“It’s okay with you that your bullheaded older brother is going to take her bazaar away from her? You said he probably bullied her into it and that doesn’t bother you?”
Like clouds drifting across the sun, Naomi watched triumphantly as Dev’s complacency took a back seat to grim reluctance. Although she didn’t understand the patriarchal garbage Dev seemed to operate within when it came to standing up to his brother, she knew, despite his grumblings, that he cared for his mother. Took care of her. And as far as Naomi was concerned, Dev was a co-captain in the rebrand, and while he might not be as invested in its future as she was, he at least owed it to Gia to go to bat for her if she couldn’t do it herself.
“What would I even say to her?” Dev asked.
“What do you mean? Just talk to her.”
Dev’s hands fisted and released a few times, crumpling and uncrumpling her comforter in the process. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my mother and I don’t really talk. She’s not much of a listener.”
A part of Naomi wanted to reach for Dev’s flexing hand, but a sliver of irritation held her frozen on the spot, refusing to show even an ounce of empathy. The entire time she’d known him, she’d never seen him confront anyone in his family, not for anything important. The Mukherjees seemed to dance around conflict; they were more inclined to follow some ancient drumbeat created by their ancestors before them.
But Naomi’s livelihood was on the line now, and she didn’t care if she upset their rhythm. “This is going to sound like a bad cliché,” Naomi said, “but the only thing you can do is speak from the heart. You know better than anyone what Gia’s store means to her. If there’s anyone she’ll listen to, it’s you, Dev. There’s a reason she relies on you the most among your brothers.”
Dev’s nod was resigned but determined. “You’re right. I need to say something.”
Naomi nodded back. Good. She’d already done her fair share of jumping through hoops with the Mukherjees—it had been a never-ending series of tricks since meeting Dev’s family.
Sure, not all her efforts were a success. As Dev had pointed out last night, in the end, her work would be forgotten about. But at least she’d tried, despite everything working against her.
It was his turn now.