2. Queenie
CHAPTER TWO
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘LOVE ON THE brAIN’ BY RIHANNA
For a second, the strange male person freezes. I don’t blame him. I’m basically attacking his personhood for my own agenda. More tears gather in the corner of my eyes at my predicament. My lips are almost smushed against his tightly closed ones. I can taste his bristle and cologne - sandalwood, citrus, and myrrh.
I know I’m not a great kisser, but this is the pits.
Then, his lips part. And he’s kissing me back.
Soft and slow and gentle. Our chests are pressed together, breathing the same air in motion. Its hypnotic. Sweet.
My eyes almost drift shut at the simplicity of our lips touching. But I don’t, because I achieved my objective. I’m sufficiently swallowed by the crush of people and Moronica cannot spot me anymore.
I tear my lips away from the male person’s and swallow. I also drop down to my toes.
“I’m so incredibly sorry about that.” I talk to his white tee shirt, showcasing a leanly muscled chest.
“What just happened ?”
“A mistake. A desperate one. I was just…” I shrug. “Trying to get away from someone.”
“And you thought Frenching a stranger was the best way to do it?”
“Yes.” I am nothing if not honest in my humiliation. “I’ll just…” I turn to leave.
He touches my elbow, lightly. In a non-threatening way. It sends sparks down my stomach, dissolving the acidic shame into nothing. “Hey! One second.”
I turn around slowly.
“Was your mission accomplished?” He asks me gently.
I don’t know what to make of this conversation, this man. “Wha—yes.” I nod emphatically.
The crowd surges around us.
“Then…Excuse me,” I hear.
I look up, like tilt my head back and look up. “Excuse me?”
He smiles, flashing a row of cute white teeth against thinnish, pink lips. I trace his cheeks, tanned, lean, and cut to perfection; hidden behind a slight scruff. To the wavy black-brown hair brushing the collar of his jacket. His slight widow’s peak gives him a distinct forehead. His ears are cutely hidden behind the hair. And his nose is pure Roman ancestry, all straight and unbroken.
I am trained to objectively study human anatomy as a pre-med student, but he is a pretty great specimen of facial structure, so all I can conclude is WOW!
The Pretty Great Specimen of Facial Structure - PGSOFS - nods at my tee shirt. “That says ‘You’re excused.’” His smile is earnest. “So, I thought I’d just do the polite thing and excuse myself.”
His eyes are golden-black in color. I haven’t seen eyes like this; must be a recessive gene thing.
I am still holding onto his jacket. So, I try and step back. Someone bumps against me.
The PGSOFS puts a protective hand on my upper back. “Are you okay?” He tracks my face in concern.
“You don’t have to do that.” I quickly step back from him.
“Do what?”
“Be the gallant knight.”
“Aah, you protect yourself, don’t you?”
“I absolutely fucking do. I have pepper spray, mister.” I tap my bag which has all my essentials. Cash, phone, keys, pepper spray, and lip balm because chapped lips are no joke.
He winks. My heart does a slow roll in my chest because he also tips his head down, bending down to meet my eyes. Our knees brush because of the height difference.
“Maybe you can protect me, then?” His smiles invites me in. “This party is full of women who want a piece of my…” He taps his glistening lips.
“I’m sorry about that again.” Guilt flushes on my cheek and neck red. “I don’t go around doing…” I wave at his kissable lips. “That.”
“Awesome,” he drawls out, pronouncing it ‘Oh-Some.’ “Makes me the first then.” He pauses before continuing, “And last, I hope.” He yells to be heard above the noise.
“You’re Australian,” I declare, zeroing in on the Oh-Some.
The stranger blinks. “How did you know? No one gets it right the first time.” With every word, his accent is more apparent. Especially the way he sometimes rolls his r’s and sometimes flattens them.
“My team beat your team’s ass in the last cricket tournament,” I answer smugly. And successfully distract him from the awkward conversation I do not want to have about why I had kissed him in the first place.
He asks the most predictable, sexist follow up question. “You follow cricket?” Like a girl couldn’t possibly understand the game.
“That’s an incredibly clichéd thing to say.” I turn to move away.
“You’re right. It is. I apologize.” He tilts his head. “I didn’t think any Americans followed cricket. Please, stay,” he requests.
And I do. Surprising myself. Shocking myself.
“I had to listen to the Australian captain “whinge” about how his boys performed badly against the Virat juggernaut,” I tell him haughtily. “And let the team down during the match presentation. Trust me, I know cricket.” I airquote ‘whinge’.
Cricket is something of a cross between baseball and old-fashioned croquet. Except, baseball has nine innings and cricket has only two – one for each side to bat, field, and bowl and try to get all the batsmen out. A batter runs between the wickets on the pitch, scoring runs around the outfield. And it involves a lot of waiting around, while the ball is fetched by a fielder from the stands.
“You’re Team India, then,” he realizes.
“Proudly Blue since forever.” I tilt my chin up in the same aggressive way I’d dealt with Veronica.
My humiliation and crushed heart are momentarily shoved into deep freeze. I have more important matters to attend to – namely, trash talking a member of a rival nation in the greatest sport ever invented.
Okay, I know that’s not true. Because all sport is great in its own way. But I also have seen the cheers and the fireworks my dad (the conscientious, rule-following surgeon) lets off every time India beats Australia hollow along with half our neighborhood desi association.
Cricket is not just a sport. It’s a fucking emotion.
“Damn it.”
“Yeah.” I nod. And loosen my grip on the Aussie PGSOFS’s jacket. “Dammit, indeed.”
“Nevertheless,” he recovers smoothly. “Would you be willing to protect me with your pepper spray if I ask nicely and plead asylum?”
Okay, he did not just say that. No one says that. Not unless they are overly dramatic.
I can’t help it. My lips twitch and break out in a small smile. Maybe it’s the alcohol or the loud party music or Rihanna’s seductive lyrics…or maybe it’s just this man and his ridiculously perfect face and earnest smile…
“What’s it to be, desi girl? Do we have a deal?” His voice goes down a notch and hits the back of my spine. Exactly like the alcohol. How did his voice get this deep?
I blink now. “Did you just call me desi girl?”
“What else can I call you?”
I don’t want to, I absolutely do not…but dammit if I am not a little charmed. I maybe the black cat everyone avoids when they see me coming, but I am still human. “Only if you promise to keep your whingeing to a nil, Aussie boy.”
“I promise. Scout’s honor.”
His eyes gleam, like he has done something incredibly smart or wonderful.
“Yo! Calvin !” Someone yells for him. “Get over here. We need you.”
He straightens up.
And I remember why I am here in the first place. For closure. To give Moronica a piece of my fucking mind like Geet from Jab We Met ! Not to drool over pretty great specimens of facial structures of the Australian persuasion.
“You should go.” I look at him with a parting smile. “I should go too.”
“I…” Calvin looks torn, looking over my shoulder. Where his friends (and, of course, he wouldn’t have come alone to the summer party of the year) are calling for him. “Give me five minutes.”
“Sure.”
“Desi girl.” He grabs my back again.
I feel heat. Like an actual rise in my body temp because he touches me with intent. I am so shocked; I don’t even give him shit for grabbing me.
“Give me five minutes. Do not move from here. Not a centimeter. I’ll be back. And in case you don’t believe me…” Calvin whips off his letter jacket – a blue, cream, and black sports deal and hands it to me. “Hold onto this. I’ll be back for this. Okay?”
My strange rescuer lopes off, his legs eating the ground and parting the crowd. Until the dancers and hookups converge around him and I can’t see him anymore.
I clutch his jacket; it smells refreshingly of detergent, fancy cologne, and the beach.
This is definitely a parallel universe, because things like this do not happen in the real world. Not to anyone. And definitely not to me.
I start to move, regardless of what I told Calvin. Obviously, I am not hanging around waiting for a strange man to pick up his jacket.
A strange, charming man, a traitorous part of me whispers.
A strange, charming, Australian cricket fan. Who felt safe and gentle and took the time to make sure I was okay. Who also kissed me back, although that could just be motive, means, and opportunity playing out in boy brain.
A girl kisses you. You kiss her back. The end.
A headache throbs in the back of my eyes.
I’m so tired of thinking things through. Of being alone and isolated. I’m so tired of not being held.
Calvin held me so nicely. Safely.
Besides, he is from out of town, so he doesn’t know anything about me. Which makes him doubly safe.
So, why can’t I have one night off from the depressing disaster of my life? Why can’t I just be a normal twenty-two-year-old tonight?
I tilt my flask back and finish the whole thing off, the alcohol burning my throat as I gulp it down. I go straight to point two of the evening’s agenda.
Get. Full-on. Drunk.