35. Behave
Behave
Kiri
For the first year after that, Radhika and I dated in pieces.
Something that was meant to be a one-night stand became something we couldn't let go of.
We dated in airport lounges and borrowed apartments.
In hotel rooms booked under fake names. In cities that belonged to neither of us, because sometimes the only way to see each other was to pick a country halfway between wherever her film had dragged her and wherever the band had a gig.
Two days in London. Thirty-six hours in Paris.
One night in Dubai because her shoot wrapped early and we had a gap before soundcheck in Berlin.
Nothing about us happened in the right order or made sense to anyone else but us.
There were weeks when we spoke every day, calls stretching until one of us fell asleep with the phone still warm beside our face.
Then there were times when she disappeared into a film set and I disappeared into tour rehearsals, both of us pretending we were too busy to notice the silence.
We broke up twice, maybe three times. The first time lasted four days.
The second lasted nine. The third was less a breakup and more Radhika telling me she was done answering calls after midnight when I'd been drinking, followed by her answering my call three nights later because I said I was outside her hotel.
I wasn't lying. I was there, in Prague. No one knew. Not even my manager until I missed my flight back and nearly blew soundcheck. I still made the concert. Barely. Radhika was worth Elise screaming at me when I finally showed up.
Every reunion started the same way. A door opening, two seconds of staring and then hands.
Hers in my hair. Mine at her waist. Fingers under shirts, mouths already desperate, luggage left abandoned in hallways like whatever had brought us there no longer mattered.
We could never keep our hands off of each other and somehow, it was hotter than anything I’d ever experienced.
Hotter than the kinks, the toys, the threesomes, and anything I’d ever been curious enough to try.
A rock star’s sex life was only dull if you wanted it to be, and I’d been a horny teenager when all of this started.
I’d wanted plenty. I didn’t regret any of it.
Didn’t feel guilty. Sex was sex. There was no shame in feeling good or making someone else feel good for a minute, an hour, a night.
By the time I met Radhika, I thought I’d done everything. Felt everything.
Then she put her hands on me, and I realized I still had so much to learn.
Sometimes, after, she'd lie across my chest with her hair everywhere and trace my tattoos while I watched the ceiling and tried not to think about how natural it felt.
That's when I got scared. It was easy to ignore when I was chasing her across continents or while I was spending obscene amounts of money I couldn't really afford on last-minute flights.
The fear came after. In the quiet, when I could imagine waking up beside her somewhere that wasn't temporary.
Then she'd kiss me, and I'd forget why I'd been afraid.
Then, almost exactly a year after that party in Los Angeles, she called me from a set trailer in India, acting strange.
I was in a hotel in Chicago, sitting on the floor with my back against the bed because Ronan had stolen the chair earlier for Buddha only knows what reason and chairs became communal property on tour.
Radhika appeared on my screen in a loose white top, hair pulled back, face mostly bare.
Beautiful as always. I watched her adjust something near the edge of her sleeve.
That made me sit up a little. Radhika didn’t fidget.
Not unless something had gotten under her skin, and there were very few things on earth capable of making a woman like her nervous.
“I was thinking...” She looked away from the screen. “My family is celebrating Holi next month, as you know.”
“Yeah.” I waited.
“It's at my parents’ home. There will be a lot of people—”
“Party at the Malhotras'.”
She exhaled through her nose. I smiled a little, trying to pull her back toward me. It didn’t work, and I watched her fingers tighten around the fabric at her wrist.
“I thought perhaps you could join me.”
I genuinely didn't understand. Then I did. I stared at her, and she looked like she wanted to take the words back. I leaned my head against the side of the bed.
“Isn’t that…” I searched for a way to say it without sounding as panicked as I suddenly felt. “Isn’t that a big deal? Meeting your parents?”
“It's only a big deal if you make it one.”
That might've been the only lie she'd ever told me. I raised an eyebrow. She looked away again.
“Do they know? About me?”
She hesitated, and my mouth went dry.
“My mother knows. My father would be informed before you arrive. If you decided to.”
I laughed, because the alternative was passing out. She frowned.
“This isn't funny.”
“It's a little funny. You’re talking about smuggling a bassist from a metal band into your elite family's palatial estate.”
“I'm talking about inviting my boyfriend to a family holiday.”
Boyfriend. The word threaded through the air quietly.
We'd used it before. Usually in arguments or introductions when explaining our situation became complicated.
Her boyfriend. My girlfriend. Still, the way she said it then made it sound official, like a place I had agreed to stand, beside her.
Radhika must have seen something change in my face because she rushed to fill the silence.
“You don't have to come.”
I blinked.
“It's a whole week,” she continued. “That's a long time. Even with the tour ending, your schedule is difficult, and my entire family will be there. It could be overwhelming.”
I let the silence stretch. Her confidence began to crumble in real time.
“It was only a thought,” she said. “You're busy. Forget it.”
“Would we have a room together?”
“There would be separate rooms,” she replied, enunciating the word separate with the discipline of a teacher. “There will be guests, family. We'd have to be respectful. My parents have staff; they'd notice.”
“Perfect. They can show you the fastest route to my room.”
That caught her off guard enough to make her grin. “You'll have to behave,” she said.
“I don’t behave.” I leveled my gaze at her and let it say everything I was thinking—every position I could put her in, every sound I could coax out of her, and how much I’d enjoy watching her fight to stay quiet in a house full of people.
She stared right back at me, completely unflinching.
Eventually, I relented. “I’m serious. What kind of hosts make two people in love sleep on opposite sides of the house?”
The words came out before I thought about them. In love. Her face softened as mine probably did something equally incriminating. I covered it with a grin.
“A week with you?” I said. “If you promise to be naked for most of it, I’m sold.”
She laughed, finally.
“My parents will be there.”
“So only naked ninety percent of the time, got it.”
Radhika shook her head, smiling now. She covered her face with one hand.
I could see her trying not to laugh again.
That made the decision for me, not that there had been much of one.
I wanted to see her world. More than that, I wanted to be a part of it, even if I didn't understand what that really meant.
“I’ll go,” I said.
Her hand dropped. The smile disappeared from her face, replaced by something softer.
“Truly? You mean it?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes shone. Something close enough to tears that it made my chest feel strange. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She looked at me as if the answer should have been obvious.
Because this was serious and meeting her parents wasn't the same as meeting her in some anonymous hotel room halfway across the world.
A week in her home meant being seen beside her in daylight.
At meals with her family. With no checkout time waiting to rescue us.
Because people who met parents were supposed to be considering what came next.
We both knew it, but neither of us said it.
Radhika smiled slowly. “Well, if you're certain… I'd like that.”
“So it's settled. And you’re sneaking into my room. Every night.”
“You'll be lucky if my father lets you inside the gate. He'll sense your intentions.”
“He’ll love me. I’m incredibly charming under pressure.”
She laughed openly then, loud and joyful.
There it was, that sound I had crossed countries for.
I smiled back at her, young and stupid enough to believe wanting something was the same as being ready for it.
She looked at me through the screen, glowing with happiness, and I grinned like we’d just planned a holiday.
Not like we’d set our feet on a road straight through her family, her faith, and every future she imagined for us.
A road we'd follow so far that by the time we understood how it changed us, there'd be no way back.