Chapter 23
He ran his fingers over the case of the watch, a reminder of the day Pita had given it to him—the day he’d graduated from Quantico.
He was so proud of Rajesh. While he knew his father had hoped that he and Ishani would come back to Punjab, he didn’t think that was in their future.
Especially with their children having careers so close to home.
He knew Ishani worried about Rajesh’s career—about the fact that he would have to risk his life sometimes.
He didn’t like that, but he respected his son’s desire to make the world a better, safer place. He wasn’t sure how successful that would be, but he respected it nonetheless.
He knew he’d held onto the watch for too long—longer than his father had held onto it. He’d been given it when he’d married, and Farhan had married years ago. His granddaughter was two already, in fact.
But it was time.
He pushed himself up from his son’s recliner and walked out onto the back patio, where Farhan was grilling marinated cubes of goat and vegetables. He brushed his fingers over the watch—his great-great-grandfather’s. The back still bore his name: Rajesh Farhan Parikh.
I pushed myself out of the memory, which must have belonged to Raj’s grandfather. “Did you want me to go all the way back?” I asked him. “To the first owner?”
He smiled, shaking his head. “No. I just thought you might have enjoyed something that old—and not traumatic, at least I don’t think so.”
I smiled. “No, nothing traumatic. Did you want me to tell you—”
But he was shaking his head with a smile. “It belonged to my…” Raj paused, thinking. “Great-great-great-great—I think—grandfather.” His face scrunched into a small grimace. “Serving the purposes of colonial oppression, although we generally don’t like to talk about that part.”
“What does that mean?” I asked him, handing him back the watch.
A smile flickered across his lips as he returned it to the box. “It means he worked for the British Raj—the British colonial government.” He shrugged. “He used it as a means of getting his family to the UK, which is where my Pita grew up.”
“Your father is British?”
He smiled. “Yeah. But his family still travels back to see their family—my great-grandfather, for instance, moved back to Ludhiana, but he kept business contacts in London, so then my grandfather moved back for college and after, but then retired back to Ludhiana...” He smiled.
“So I have aunts and uncles and cousins there. And Mata is from Kattupalli, down on the southern coast, and she has two brothers and a sister who work in Chennai.”
“But you were born here?” I asked him.
He nodded. “All three of us were. Me and Meena and Gibran.” He smiled. “My parents live in Annapolis, Gibran’s in Baltimore, and Meena’s down in the Outer Banks.”
I nodded. I couldn’t really respond in kind, since he already knew Vi lived in Williamsburg and that my parents were dead.
I was saved from having to come up with something by a chime from the oven. Raj smiled at me. “That’ll be dinner.”
He pushed himself up to his feet, and I followed.
The kitchen smelled incredible.
Garlic, seafood, something cheesy. “That smells amazing,” I told him.
He smiled. “You like seafood, right?”
I nodded. I rarely got it, because seafood—especially shellfish—was expensive, but every now and then I’d get fried shrimp or fish and chips as a special treat.
“Good.” He put on a pair of thick gloves with rubber stripping on the hands, then pulled a bubbling casserole dish out of the oven.
Then he pulled out a tray of toasted bread, the tops clearly having been brushed with butter and herbs.
“It’s a little… rustic,” he said. “The idea—although you don’t have to eat it that way—is that you spoon the bake onto the crostini, the bread. ”
I nodded. That sounded good to me. “Okay,” I replied.
He pulled open a drawer and handed me some woven mats that I assumed were probably hot pads. “Can you put this on the table somewhere we can both reach?” he asked.
I took them, smiling when I walked into the dining room to discover that he’d set the table with plates, silverware, wine and water glasses, and two candles, still unlit. It was like the setting from any romantic comedy I’d ever seen—a candlelit dinner for two.
I liked that he wanted to do things like that with me. For me, really. It wasn’t like I’d ever either think of it or have the money to do it, something I felt a little guilty about, but I couldn’t really help.
I went back to the kitchen, and Raj handed me a basket full of the toasted bread. “Put this out, please? And then there’s a pitcher of water in the fridge.” All things I could carry with one hand.
I nodded, following his instructions, moving around him as he carried the steaming crock of creamy seafood out to place on the hot pads, followed by a mixed green salad with some nuts and chunks of pear and cheese.
Then he got a bottle of wine and poured glasses for both of us, smiling as I settled into one of the chairs.
“This all looks amazing,” I told him.
His smile widened. “I wanted to do something nice for us,” he replied. “Especially since we’ve had a hell of a month.”
I nodded in agreement.
Raj is a very good cook.
I made him let me help do the dishes.
“So,” he said, after a moment of companionable silence.
I glanced up at him, waiting.
“You like puzzles, right?” He knew that Sam and Melissa and I did puzzle nights.
“Yes…” I did. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up puzzles as a thing that I did with just Sam and Melissa, though. I wasn’t sure how to say that without being insulting or without hurting his feelings, though.
“Well,” he continued. “Since I know you already do puzzle nights with your friends…” He paused, thinking. “Melissa and… Sam?”
I nodded.
“With them,” he continued. “I figured maybe you’d like to build some working models.”
“Models?” I asked.
“Yeah—like, well, I got a carousel. It comes with little lights and a battery pack and a little engine that will turn it and stuff. But you put together all the bits and paint them, if you want.” He shrugged, dropping his gaze. “Or not, if you don’t want to.”
“No, that sounds interesting,” I replied honestly. “I’m not sure we’ll finish it tonight, though.”
He smiled up at me. “We don’t have to,” he replied. “We can finish it next week, or whenever we have time and want to.”
I smiled back. “Okay.”
We’d started by painting, rather than assembling, although Raj had advocated for building it first until I’d asked him if he wanted to try to squeeze a tiny brush up under the ceiling in between all the tiny poles and tiny horses.
I was really enjoying using the tiny little brush to paint stripes on the poles, edging the scalloping in gold, and so on. It was a good thing I’d broken my left arm, because there was no way I could have painted these tiny details with my left hand.
Raj had gone to find a fan to dry them faster, and was starting to assemble the ones that had dried.
We’d talked more about his family, what his great-great-great-great-grandfather had done to earn the watch, what it was like visiting his parents’ friends in London, and the fact that he’d spent a summer at the same college where his parents had met in Cambridge.
“What’s your middle name?” I asked him, after a lull in the conversation.
He looked at me curiously. “Vijay,” he answered. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Your ancestor’s first name was Rajesh,” I told him. “And his middle name was the same as your father’s name, so I wondered if they didn’t swap them back and forth.”
He chuckled. “Oh, they did, sort of. Every generation always has one of the two names, if not both. My grandfather’s two older brothers were Rajesh and Farhan, and he was a Vijay.
He nearly lost his mind when my parents named Gibran something else, as the eldest son.
” He chuckled. “I think that’s how I ended up Rajesh—to keep my grandfather from disinheriting my father.
” The way he said it, however, made me think he wasn’t being entirely serious.
We worked in silence for a while.
“Where did your name come from?” he asked.
“I was born during a hurricane,” I answered. “It seemed appropriate, but my parents didn’t want to use a conventional spelling. Like Vi is Violette, like the flower, but fancier, because they were pretentious.” I shrugged. “According to Vi, it was our mother’s favorite flower.”
We fell back into silence, and spent the rest of the evening that way, working and chatting in a way that was extremely pleasant.
I had no idea what time it was when Raj set down the glue, then used his hands to crack his neck to each side. “I think I’m done hunching over for the night,” he told me, giving me a smile.
I looked up, blinking, realizing that I was also getting a little stiff from sitting hunched over my tiny brush. I stretched my good arm over the back of the chair, wincing a little. “Me, too,” I agreed.
“Stay?” he asked me, pushing himself back to his feet and coming over to reach out a hand. I took it, smiling, and nodded. I’d been hoping he’d ask me to stay.
He pulled me up out of the chair, and immediately tugged me against his body, his other arm sliding around my back to rest against my spine.
I let my hands rest against his chest, and his second hand joined the first against my back.
I pushed up a little on my toes, and Raj took it as the invitation it was, bending to press a long and lingering kiss against my lips.
I wanted more than lingering, so I nipped at his bottom lip.
It had the desired effect, and he let out a soft growl and deepened the kiss, his tongue pushing against mine as he pulled my hips against his.
My body reacted to his proximity and the teasing intensity of his mouth on mine, remembering other things that he’d used that mouth on.
I reached up, putting my arms around his neck, careful not to jar the cast on the injured one too much.
“God,” he breathed into my mouth. “You are—”