53. Naina
Chapter Fifty-Three
NAINA
The grand opening was tomorrow night, and the hotel was getting livelier by the second as even more guests arrived.
I was afraid to walk through the lobby now because I could feel them watching me, judging me, somehow finding me lacking.
Normally, I wouldn’t care, but after what Kat said at the picnic, it was all I could think about.
Not that I had the time to focus on it because Kash had messaged me to say he was surprising me with a date.
That’s what I chose to focus on. Edward, Amelia, and the other Sutherlands might have chosen the aesthetically right person for them.
They weren’t Kash and me. I might be aesthetically wrong for him according to this family, but Kash knew I was right for him. He wouldn’t have fallen in love with me otherwise.
I was drying my hair and singing along to my favorite 90s tunes when he came into the room.
“We have to sneak out. Wear comfortable shoes because we’re taking the stairs,” he announced, in the middle of unbuttoning his shirt.
I turned off my dryer.
“Why?”
“This place is crawling with people. I don’t want to get stopped by them and get pulled into a long conversation about something mundane that literally anyone can answer for them. We’re going down the stairs and using the back exit.”
He removed his shirt, kissing my cheek in greeting.
“I’m going to take a quick shower.”
He looked down at my dryer.
“Are you putting your hair in rollers?”
“Do you want me to put my hair in rollers?” I asked.
His cheeks actually colored a faint pink.
“Yeah, I like the way your hair curls after you’ve had them in.”
Damn, he was adorable.
“I’ll do it for you.”
Removing the last of his clothes, he walked to the shower as I watched his ass muscles bunch and release in the mirror.
“Like what you see, baby?”
Looking up, I found him smirking at me through the mirror.
“I mostly certainly do.”
Laughing, he got in the shower, turning on the water. I pulled out my rollers and started to style my hair.
I was signing along to my boy band music because doing hair was tedious work. Around the third song, another voice joined in, and my mouth dropped open as I turned to face Kash.
He wiped the steam off the shower door, grinning at me as he sang along to the Backstreet Boys.
“You have made me the happiest woman on the planet,” I said.
“I thought I did that this morning.”
“That was good, great even. But this is incomparable. Kash Sutherland singing along to the Backstreet Boys.”
I clutched my chest, falling back against the sink like I was going to faint from the excitement of it all.
“This is what happens when you’re married to and in love with an amazing, wonderful woman. You sing along to 90s pop music and convince yourself it’s normal.”
I laughed, walking out into the closet to get dressed. This time, I chose my own clothes, a pair of blue jeans and a red, lace crop top with a V-neck that smooshed my boobs together.
The shower turned off and Kash came out, a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked me up and down and groaned, pushing his wet hair back with one hand.
“What is this?” He waved at me.
“Do you specifically wear these clothes to torture me? Is it not enough that you’re already the hottest person in any room you walk into? Then you go and dress like that, and how the hell am I supposed to function? I can’t fuck you any more than I already do.”
“It’s already bordering on escaped convict who hasn’t had sex in years,” I said, laughing at his ridiculousness.
“You’re saying I need to fuck you more.”
Kash gripped my waist, pulling me into him and kissing me. His arousal pressed against my belly. His hands dropped to my ass and squeezed.
“What’s it going to take?” He murmured on my lips.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
I bit his lip playfully and pushed him away, laughing as I walked back into the bathroom to remove my rollers.
“Pottery class?”
I looked through the window of the store front, where people were already gathered around the lathes. I hadn’t been to a pottery class in years, but I used to drag Kat with me whenever I got tired of studying and needed a break. Something about breaking and molding the clay was oddly therapeutic.
“How did you know?” I looked up at Kash.
“I begged and pleaded Kat for it,” he said. “She really doesn’t like me, but I told her it would make you happy and she caved.”
I leaned up to kiss him. “Thank you for begging and pleading.”
His eyes softened as he looked down at me.
“Baby, I would do anything for you. Begging and pleading is nothing.”
My heart fluttered.
Kash took my hand and walked us into the class. The instructor was a middle-aged woman with wiry hair, wearing an apron with the store’s name on it, Potter’s Way.
“Will you be needing two lathes or one?” She asked.
“Just one. He’s going to Ghost me,” I said.
The instructor didn’t laugh, probably because she heard that joke a lot. She pointed us to a lathe in the back.
“How can I ghost you, we’re already married?” Kash asked.
Mouth open, I turned to look at him.
“Baby, honey, sweetums, you haven’t seen Ghost? Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, the famous pottery scene?”
Kash shrugged, looking confused.
“I have so much to teach you. But first.”
I slipped off my rings and handed them to him.
“What are you doing?” Kash asked, the smile dropping from his face.
“I don’t want to get them dirty while I’m working with the clay.”
Kash’s face hardened.
“I don’t care, put them back on. If they get dirty, I’ll buy you a new set.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Kash, you’re being unreasonable. It’s just a few hours.”
He took the rings from me, sliding them back onto my finger.
“I haven’t taken my ring off once since we’ve been married,” he said. “I expect the same from you. These rings are proof that you’re mine.”
His eyes burned into mine, and I nodded slowly.
“Good.”
“Is this what being in love with you is going to be like?” I placed my hands on my hips, looking up at him.
“It’s too late to take it back.”
I shook my head, smiling slightly.
Pulling an apron over my head, I sat down on the stool, Kash behind me. We weren’t the only ones working as a pair, it wasn’t that odd.
There was already clay on the lathe. I wet my fingers, dripping water onto the clay to soften it.
I started the lathe, using both hands to shape the clay and pull it up into a pillar, and then pushed it back down again only to build it up.
“Give me your hands.”
Kash put his hands on top of mine and we worked the clay together.
“This is oddly satisfying,” he said.
I hummed, using my hand to drip more water onto the clay. Slowly, I pushed my fingers through the top, creating a hole in the pillar. Kash’s fingers joined in, pushing in and out.
“This is extremely pornographic,” he said. “Is it meant to be pornographic?”
I widened the hole.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
I giggled.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Not really. I’ve been to a lot of these in my life, and they’re all the same. A lot of posturing.”
I watched the clay, molding it into just want I wanted.
“What do you need from me?”
Kash rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Just stay by my side.”
“And after?” I asked.
The clay was starting to take shape under my hands, except I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to be yet.
“After the party? We’ll go back home.”
“I meant, what about us? Are we going to keep this going for the whole six months?”
Kash stilled behind me, and I felt his gaze on the side of my face, but I didn’t turn to look at him. I kept my eyes focused on what I was creating. It was the only thing I could control.
“You said you loved me.”
I nodded. “I do, but we didn’t talk about what that means in terms of our future.”
“Why are you asking this now?”
I shrugged. “Seemed as good a time as any. I need to know where we stand, but I am not asking you for a commitment. I know we love each other, and sometimes love isn’t enough to keep two people together.”
I didn’t tell him that this afternoon, Sami and I spoke to the designer Vera suggested, Stella Wilson. She lived in San Diego, but she was willing to come up to the Windfield to see it in person.
I was ready to move forward and put my fears behind me.
I’d spent enough time trying to find the old me.
I was now realizing that going back your old self was not the point of life. We had to grow as people, become something new.
I was still me, the same Naina my parents raised. But I was also the woman who had made mistakes, and loved, and lost.
I could never be just one thing.
“I don’t know about after,” Kash said, voice hard.
“You don’t know?” I repeated slowly.
“I’m just focusing on getting through the next few days. Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
I smashed the clay back into a ball, my heart aching at his words. Had I expected him to say we would work things out after? Maybe. I hadn’t expected the answer to be ‘I don’t know’. Because that was one step away from we will break up, I just don’t know the date yet. Seemed like we were going to be one of those couples who loved each other and didn’t stay together.
“I have to go back to California the day after,” I said. “The designer is coming to see the Windfield, and I have to be there. I’ve already been gone long enough, and Sonia can’t run the restaurant and the Inn.”
Kash remained silent, his hands still working the clay with me, though we were only destroying what we had built.
“I’ll have the plane readied.”
I swallowed thickly, nodding.
It looked like tomorrow was going to be our last day together. Love couldn’t hold us together if one of us refused to fight for it.