by Sajni Patel
I sat on the couch behind Momma as she chirped away. I couldn’t resist playing with her hair. She always had it in a braid, but it was intensely frizzy. I absolutely had to fix it for her.
Reema’s and Preeti’s moms were not like the other aunties. They didn’t seem to care much about my past or my wayward attitudes about life. It was nice to sit with them and laugh about how hard they tried to get the traditional details down. We seriously needed a how-to book for Indian weddings.
“I heard you had dinner with Jay and his family,” Momma said hopefully.
I replied, “Yes. I’m sure you also heard that it went well and I behaved after a big argument with Jay?”
She sighed. “Always arguing.”
“He’s easy to argue with.”
“His mother says you’ve been spending some time together at work?”
One by one, everyone in the room glanced at me with knowing, arched brows. I groaned. “Yes. He’s helpful at work.”
“Isn’t he a nice boy?”
“Sometimes.”
The aunties laughed, but before Momma could delve deeper into the details, which I was sure would be requested via a private phone call tonight, Preeti’s mom mentioned how Preeti’s intended looked similar to Jay. This I had to see for myself, but something about Preeti’s shrugged shoulders and indifferent expression told me that Yuvan didn’t make her feel the way Jay made me feel. She was still hung up on her first love and I felt it.
Once the moms left, the girls and I sat around the coffee table and stuffed small gift boxes with assorted gourmet chocolates. These were to be placed at each reception setting.
As much as I actually wanted to discuss Jay, we immediately moved the conversation to Preeti.
“So, what’s wrong with him?” Reema asked.
“Yuvan seems like a nice guy,” Sana added, always the optimist. She was the most easygoing of us all. I was, by far, the least easygoing. Reema had strong traits, too, that Rohan matched perfectly. And then there was Preeti.
As a doctor, she was intelligent and independent. But she was also tied down to tradition with enough weights to drown her.
She forced a smile and said, “He’s fine.”
“Fine is not great,” I replied. “Something is obviously amiss.”
“He’s perfect on paper, but we don’t have a connection.” She slumped a little. “Is that really important?”
“Yes,” Reema and I said together, while Sana answered, “No.”
We looked to her as she explained, “Connections can be made later. Love can come later. And anyway, both things can fade. His other traits won’t fade, or at least not easily or soon.”
Logical Sana.
“You’re right,” Preeti replied. “I put too much emphasis on how I expect to feel that maybe that’s why I’m not feeling it. I just thought…that I’d be in love with my fiancé-to-be.”
Granted, while many of our friends were either “arranged” or had their spouses approved by their families, most of them were in love when they decided to marry. It wasn’t too much to ask for.
Reema and I glanced at one another as Preeti busied herself with boxes. We knew. We knew that once Preeti had fallen in love, she would always try to measure all other guys against the one who got away. I bit my lip because I wanted to ask…
“Just so you remember, Brandy and her brother will be at the wedding,” Reema said.
“I know.” Preeti smiled big. “I can’t wait to see her.”
Yet we all tensed at the idea of Preeti seeing he who couldn’t be named. She was still in love with her ex. That was the real reason she couldn’t scrounge up any feelings for Yuvan. As great as Yuvan probably was, he was not Daniel Thompson.
My phone rang. I dug through my purse before it went to voicemail. I hadn’t expected to hear from Shilpa.
“How are things with Jay?” she asked over the phone as I finished the last of the chocolate gift boxes with a perfectly tied bow.
“Calm. Why? What did you hear?” I asked.
She giggled. “Wanted to make sure that whatever you guys had been fighting about is okay.”
“It’s fine. Sometimes we’re volatile together. Bad mix.”
“I dunno. Jay likes you.”
“I’m sure…” I clamped down a giggle.
“He doesn’t talk about women. He talks about you.”
I perked up. “What does he say?”
“And you’re not interested at all, huh?”
“Women always want to know what guys said about them.” I waved off the girls as my words caught their attention.
“Let’s just say that he’s really into you.”
“I don’t know why.” But I was delighted to hear so.
“Don’t play that. You know exactly why.”
The sun shone high when we met at the lake. Jay rented a nice little boat to take out, and we enjoyed a refreshing breeze, music, and a picnic on board.
“No fishing,” he promised.
“Gutting is not romantic,” I assured him.
“Who said I was trying to get romantic?”
“What else is a date for?” I asked, trying to control my hair from whipping around my face.
“To get to know someone.”
“Oh.”
He leaned back on the railing, looking mighty fine on the sun-drenched lake. “Men haven’t treated you well before, have they?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze.”
“All right. I’ll just ask questions.”
“Boring.”
He rubbed his hands together and looked out at the water. “What do you want to do then?”
“Swim.”
“Okay.” He pulled me up from the bench. Even though he looked absolutely edible in a pair of trunks and a muscle-fitting white tee, he stripped off his shirt and revealed just how much time he spent working out.
Jay was chiseled, from a thick neck to solid biceps and pecs, defined abs, narrow waist, and a faint vein that went down from his abs to beneath his shorts. I mean…damn.
“Did you drop something?” he asked, lifting my chin.
I swatted him away. “I’ve seen better.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Ego check.”
“And you?” He waved a hand at my shirt.
“Oh, this? I was just joking about swimming. I don’t take my clothes off for everyone, you know? But, um, nice effort.” I laughed.
“Funny. But remember, this, all this right here.” He pointed down his torso. “Will be popping up in your head every time you close your eyes. And that is your fault, not mine.”
“Not likely.”
He tugged on his shirt, but I held his forearm, as nice and hard as I remembered, and turned him around. “Wait a minute, now. Let’s take a look at the back.”
“Nope.” He pulled away, but I fought with his shirt as he tried to tug it down, and insisted on taking a peek, slipping my hands up his back. Where I expected to feel the dense smoothness of a sculpted back, I felt ridges instead.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.” He pulled my hands away.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” I said quickly, heat creeping up my face.
He pressed his lips together. “I don’t talk about that.”
“Didn’t you think I’d see if we had gone swimming?”
“Not if I kept my back turned from you. Let it go,” he said sternly.
“You said this whole dating thing was to get to know each other.”
“So ask a question,” he said, struggling to rein his voice back from irritated to normal.
“What happened to your back?”
“Anything except that.”
I raised my brows. “Really?”
“Don’t get angry. Getting you to open up about yourself is like pulling teeth. You know far more about me than I do about you.”
“Fine, you ask a question, then,” I snapped.
“All right. Why do you get mad so easily?”
“You make me mad all the time. Next question.” I crossed my arms and looked away.
“Why are you so defensive?”
“In a world full of people who make assumptions and accusations and judgments? I don’t have a choice.”
“Am I making any of those?” he asked gently.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No. So stop being so defensive.”
I huffed out a breath. “I don’t know why you bother trying with me.”
“You ever think that we always fight because there’s tension between us?”
“Yes. Annoyance.”
“I mean sexual tension between us.” He was against me in a heartbeat, one hand on my lower back and the other on my neck. That combination in itself drove me wild, but having his body flush against mine, with nothing but the skimpy material of our clothes preventing full skin-on-skin contact, was infuriatingly intoxicating.
“They say the only way to release sexual tension is to get it over with,” I whispered.
“I don’t want to have sex with you, not yet,” he said gently.
“If you don’t want me, then why are your hands all over me?”
“They’re barely on you. Trust me, Liya, if I wanted to be all over you, you wouldn’t have a coherent thought left in your head.”
“Put your lips to better use, Jay, or step back,” I teased.
“You want me to want you, don’t you?”
“I know you do.”
“I hate that you think you have nothing to offer me except your body, that it’s the only thing I care about,” he said softly.
“Isn’t it? You’re always flirting, always finding a way to touch me.”
“I know what you’re doing.” He raised his brows and gazed right into my eyes, forcing me to look at him.
“Which is what?”
He brushed a knuckle across my chin. “Pushing me away by insisting that I only want you physically, and if I so much as kiss you, you’ll convince yourself that you’re right and put an end to this dating thing. I’m not falling for that.”
He leaned down, his mouth brushing against mine. “Next. Question.”
“Are you a virgin?”
He released me. “No. Are you?”
“You know I’m not.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No. How many girls have you slept with?”
“Two. How many men have you slept with?”
“Six.”
He didn’t seem bothered. “One-night stands or relationships?”
“Both. You?”
“Relationships.”
“That your mother and the community know about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t blab about it, but I’m sure they know and it doesn’t bother me. Ever been pregnant? Get an STD?”
“No and no. You? Got a girl pregnant?”
“No and no. I have one more question, and then you can end this date,” he said, pausing to stand in front of me again.
“Gladly.”
His next words were spoken carefully. “Why are you so bent on pushing me away?”
I’d been so into this rapid exchange of heated information that I spoke before thinking, “Because nice guys don’t come after me.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked in what appeared to be sincerity.
I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts. “I know that I have a bad rep, especially at mandir. No respectable guy there takes me seriously.”
“So…are you saying that I’m not respectable, or that I don’t take you seriously?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
His jaw twitched. “You can’t just cram all men into the asshole category, Liya. We’re not all the same. I’m not perfect by any means, but I sure as crap am not a walking dick conniving to use you. The fact that you even think I am makes me wonder—”
“Why you’re even here?”
He clenched his teeth, working that tick awfully hard now. “Makes me wonder who hurt you so badly.”
I froze. Some small part of me knew that telling him would be just fine. That maybe he’d understand or even take my side, but then there were all the hard facts of my life:
Good guys didn’t date me.
Bad boys, irresponsible jerks, players, or short-term commitments came around. Those who wanted sex, a good time were constants. Men fell into three categories: ones who wanted me for my body, ones who were intimidated by my personality, or ones who dismissed me because of my reputation.
Those who wanted to take me home to meet their mothers and sisters? Well, that had never happened. The fact that I knew Jay’s family was a matter of circumstances. Why was he even here, though? Did he have a point to prove? Did he truly just want sex…and then he’d walk away from us? Because I knew for certain that I was not the type of girl he’d end up taking to dinner with his mom of his own accord.
“Do you think I’d hurt you, Liya?” he asked, cutting through my thoughts.
I scoffed. “Of course you would.”
“There you go again, assuming the worst.”
“Well, let me ask you this: Would you tell the entire mandir that you want to marry me?”
He let out a long breath. “This isn’t about marriage. You don’t even want that.”
“Marriage is always the end game. Neither you nor your family wants you to be unmarried for the rest of your life. I don’t want marriage, so you’re wasting your time.”
“I’m not wasting anything, because I know once you let down your guard and realize I’m not another Mike, that you might actually want more with me, that marriage can be a good thing.”
I took a step back, feeling the hard, cold railing press into my lower spine. “What if I wanted a marriage? Would you, in front of everyone there, in front of the entire community, no matter what they say or think about me, stand proudly with your mom and your brother and say, ‘Liya is the right woman for me’?”
“Of course I would,” he said without needing a moment to consider his response, his expression full of sympathy and wanting.
“And if they had something profoundly disgusting to say about me, that others agreed with, would you still stand up for me?” I asked bitterly, my hands trembling with both rage and the abysmal fight it took to stave off the pain.
He sighed and rubbed the crook of his nose. “What are you getting at? What would anyone have to say that’s so terrible?”
“Something vicious and evil…could be anything. It doesn’t matter. But the way they look at me would be the way they look at you. If you stood your ground.”
He scoffed. “I don’t care what others think.”
“And if those insinuating, judgmental eyes were cast over to your brother? Your mother?”
He swallowed but didn’t respond. And that’s how I knew. Maybe Jayesh Shah was a good guy. Maybe he wasn’t another Mike. But he was someone who would protect his mother and his brother, and if that meant keeping me and all those sticky, insidious rumors from touching them…well, Jay had to do what he had to do.
All emotion drained from his face. He parted his lips to speak, but my finger touched them first.
“This date is over,” I said softly, as if pardoning him. It wasn’t his fault that he cared about his family. In fact, that made him admirable.
And just like that, we drove back to the dock. When he went to return the boat, I disappeared.
Chapter Nineteen
Jay
Kaajal wove in and out of chattering groups of people after the program that Sunday at mandir. She was pleasant, full of cheer, bursting with respect and earning just as much. She was a respectable woman. I saw why some would match us, but she wasn’t Liya.
“She’s pretty, huh, beta?” Ma asked, standing beside me in a constantly moving crowd.
“She is.”
“What do you think of her?”
I shrugged. “She’s nice.”
Ma gave me a studious glance and pres
sed her lips together in her usual I-know-what-you’re-thinking manner. “But you like Liya,” she said point-blank.
I couldn’t even manage a stutter. How did Ma know me so well? It wasn’t as if I’d been gushing over Liya.
Ma nodded once and left to take prayer. Kaajal caught my eye before moving through crowds to get to me.
“You look lovely today,” I told her.
“Thank you. I’ve had this sari for a while, but I don’t usually wear them. Guess I have to get used to it.”
“Well, you wear it well.”
She blushed.
I cleared my throat. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, but what else could she think? Her parents wanted us to get together and Ma liked her, and here I was giving her compliments.
We made small talk: work, plans for the year, etc. Conversing with her was as free-flowing as chatting with my brother.
I laughed.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Uh, getting along with people here is such a relief after the hectic week I dealt with.” And the agonizingly few days since Liya bolted.
Her smile dazzled, big and bright, as she suggested, “Maybe we could get coffee sometime?”
Liya’s face streaked across my vision. Fiery, distrustful, unwilling to lower her guard.
“Are you there, Jay? I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” Kaajal said.
“No. No. Distracted. Sorry. No, I’d like to get coffee.”
She beamed. In the distance behind her, her father nodded, and several eyes casually glanced over us as if the entire mandir knew our conversation. Including Liya’s friends. They immediately walked over, and suddenly we were thrown into some Indian soap opera.
Reema and Sana squeezed in between us to say hello. Kaajal, undeterred, greeted them and kept the conversation going.
“Have you spoken with Liya lately?” Reema asked, boldly giving Kaajal shade. Kaajal’s perfect demeanor cracked with hints of annoyance.
I answered, “Not in a while. I saw her at the office for a second or two. Why?”
“We haven’t heard from her, either,” Reema replied, her voice laden with worry, a concern that quickly wove through me.