41. Painfully uted
Painfully Executed
Kiri
Radhika sees Rithy first.
“Rithy?”
He opens his arms and she steps into them without hesitation.
“Oh my God.” She laughs against his shoulder. “Look at you.”
“Look at me? You’re the one sacrificing virgins, Miss Bathory.”
She pulls back and holds his face between her hands. “You still talk too much.”
“You still love me.”
Ronan arrives next, grinning like an idiot. Radhika makes a sound of genuine surprise and hugs him too.
“You’re still alive.”
“Against all logic.”
“I assumed someone would have killed you by now. You’re too honest for this world.”
“Many have tried. Myself included.”
Rafe steps forward, and her smile softens differently.
“Rafe.”
“Radhika.”
She hugs him, and he closes his eyes briefly, the way he does when something catches him by surprise. She pulls back and studies him.
“You look miserable.”
“I’m in love.”
“Ah. Your first mistake.”
His eyebrows lift. “Don’t tell me you’ve become a cynic in your graceful age.”
“No, only wiser.” She smiles. “You’ll have to tell me all about her. Him?”
Rafe looks delighted by the question.
“Her. Kasia. You’ll love her.” Then he takes both her hands in his, his expression turning serious. “Radhi, I’ve missed you.”
The words come from him without performance and Radhika’s tension eases in her shoulders.
“I’ve missed you too.”
Then there’s no one left for her to greet. Her eyes find mine. Everything warm in her expression retreats behind something composed and impenetrable. The years between us arrive all at once.
I can’t move.
For ten years, I’ve imagined what I might say if I ever saw her again.
Most versions involved an apology good enough to make the past hurt less.
Some involved her slapping me again. A few involved her looking through me like I don’t exist. None of them prepared me for the brutal politeness of reality.
“Kiri,” she says.
“Radhika.”
She gives me a slight nod, the kind she might offer someone she worked with once and didn’t particularly like.
The man beside her moves closer. He’s tall, polished, probably an actor.
Dark suit cut perfectly through the shoulders, watch expensive enough to fund our first two tours, face familiar from something I can’t place.
He was relaxed when we approached, his attention divided between her and the conversation around them.
He isn’t relaxed anymore. His hand moves fully to her waist. Possessive without being obvious. Protective without having any clue what he’s protecting her from.
Me, apparently.
His eyes stay on my face while he leans down and murmurs something against her ear. Radhika turns slightly to listen, but her gaze flicks back to me before she can stop it. The man sees it, and his mouth tightens.
Once, I would have found that funny. When Radhika and I were together, I never worried about other men.
They watched her everywhere we went. Actors, musicians, producers, heirs to fortunes large enough to buy the buildings we stood inside.
They leaned closer, offered drinks, touched her arm, tried to make her laugh.
I never cared. Radhika made me arrogant.
Not because I thought no one else could have her.
Every man with functioning eyes wanted her.
I simply knew she wanted me. She could enter a room containing better-looking men, richer men, men her father would have preferred, and I never questioned where her eyes would land.
I never had to wonder whose hotel room she would come to later or whose name she would whisper when the door closed.
That certainty lived so deeply inside me that I didn’t even recognize it as a gift until I destroyed it.
The man beside her doesn’t have that certainty.
I can see the fear all over him. He looks at the way Radhika has gone still.
At the control that has entered her face.
At me standing several feet away like I have any right to affect her after all this time.
He knows enough to be afraid. Hell, who wouldn’t want Radhika?
Who wouldn’t be terrified of losing her once they had even a small piece of her attention?
Only an idiot like me would ruin a gift like that.
Rithy looks between us, either oblivious to the tension or choosing violence.
“Come sit with us.”
Radhika’s attention snaps toward him. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m here with friends.”
“So bring them.”
Her companion’s expression suggests he would rather be dragged naked through Hong Kong traffic.
Radhika smiles politely. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”
“You’ve been having conversations with other people for ten years,” Ronan says. “Give us ten minutes.”
“Five,” Radhika counters.
“Twenty.”
“Ronan.”
“Fifteen, final offer.”
She laughs despite her attempt at seriousness. The sound hits me directly in the chest.
I lean toward Rithy, keeping my voice low. “I told you. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
His eyes stay on Radhika.
“She doesn’t have to talk to you. She can talk to us.”
That shouldn’t hurt but it does anyway. The man says something else near her ear, his eyes never leaving mine. Radhika answers quietly. He looks down at her, then back at me. I can almost hear the questions running through his panicked mind. His jaw flexes.
Who is he to you?
What happened?
Should I be worried?
Radhika touches his forearm. “I’ll only be a moment.”
There’s something gentle in the way she says it.
Reassurance, maybe. The kind she used to give me without being asked because she always knew what I was trying not to admit.
The man bends and kisses her cheek. It isn’t a casual kiss.
It lingers just long enough to establish a point, his hand remaining at her waist while his eyes stay fixed on me.
Message received.
I look away first. She says something to the woman beside her, then turns toward us.
“Ten minutes.”
Rithy grins.
We return to the booth with Radhika between Rithy and Ronan.
I follow several steps behind, which feels appropriate.
She slides into the curved seat beside Rithy.
Ronan takes the other side before I can even consider where she might sit.
Rafe drops into his previous place. That leaves me across from her.
Great. A waiter appears and Rithy orders champagne without asking.
“I’m drinking whiskey,” Radhika says.
Four heads turn toward her.
She lifts one shoulder. “What? People change.”
“Not that much,” Rithy says. “You always hated whiskey.”
“I learned.”
Her gaze moves briefly to the bottle already on our table.
Then to me. A memory rises behind my eyes, and I’m almost certain I see it in hers too.
Or maybe I’m only imagining that. Expensive scotch in hotel glasses.
Her bare feet tucked beneath her. Her body pressed against mine, my arm wrapped around her.
The first time she took a reckless swig, coughed into my chest, then insisted she liked it while her eyes watered. Her expression closes again.
Rithy pours for her.
“To ghosts,” Ronan says.
Radhika’s mouth curves as she lifts the glass. “Some of us look remarkably good for dead people.”
We drink. For the next several minutes, everyone speaks at once. Rafe asks about her latest film. Ronan wants to know whether a rumor involving a director, a tiger, and an overturned golf cart is true. Rithy demands to know why she never answered his message after an awards show six years ago.
“You sent me one word,” she says.
“It was an important word.”
“Betrayal?”
“You promoted the film after they got Riley fucking Thorne to sing the title track. Riley. Asshole. Thorne. I told you what that motherfucker did at our first festival. Wicked Smile was headlining, we played right before them, and the second he walked onstage, he goes, ‘Thank God that’s over. That guitarist sucked. Now, are you ready for the good shit?’ And you still promoted a movie with his song all over it? Radhi, really?”
Radhika stares at him. “You’re a grown man.”
“That’s never been confirmed.”
She laughs.
With them, she becomes herself in pieces.
Her shoulders loosen. She leans into Rithy when he shows her something on his phone.
She covers her mouth when Ronan describes an incident involving a malfunctioning smoke cannon and a hotel fire alarm.
She listens while Rafe tells her about Kasia, interrupting only to ask questions that make his entire face transform.
“What does she do?”
“She’s a doctor.”
Radhika’s eyebrows rise. “A doctor?”
“An incredible one.”
“You sound disgustingly proud.”
“I am.”
Rafe pulls out his phone before she asks and begins scrolling through photographs. Radhika leans closer.
“She’s beautiful.”
I sit across from them and say almost nothing.
Whenever Radhika looks in my direction, I find something else to focus on.
My glass. The harbor. The label on the whiskey bottle I’ve read at least five times.
She once knew every version of me. Now I can’t even look at her without feeling like I’m trespassing.
Ronan asks about her family. Her mother is well.
Her father has retired from acting but has somehow become busier.
The aunties still know everyone’s business before it happens.
“And you?” Rithy asks. “How are you?”
There’s a slight pause.
“I’m well.”
The answer is polished enough to appear in print. Rithy hears it too, but for once he doesn’t push.
“What about the engagement?” Ronan asks.
Rafe kicks him beneath the table.
Ronan winces. “What? It was public!”
Radhika turns her glass slowly between her fingers.
“It ended amicably.”
“I’m sorry,” Rithy says.
“I’m not.”
The answer comes without hesitation. I look up before I can stop myself. Her eyes meet mine. Something unreadable passes through them.
Rafe leans forward. “He was an idiot, then.”
“No.” Radhika looks back at her drink. “He was exceedingly kind. We simply wanted different things.”
That sentence finds every vulnerable place I’ve left exposed.
Kind.