Dimple wondered if she’d missed something. “Guilty about what? I told you, I don’t care.”
Celia looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “It’s not all about you, you know. Remember Evan? The guy I’m dating?”
Dimple felt like she was in the twilight zone. “You feel guilty about letting Evan down. Evan, who was trying to force you to dance in a bikini with his cousin as the highlight of your part in the talent show?” Evan, who’s had a thousand hookups with other girls since you guys got together? she didn’t add.
Celia shrugged and fiddled with the thin gold bracelet on her wrist. “It’s complicated.”
Dimple opened her mouth to say that, yeah, in her opinion misogyny was complicated. Mainly because of the way it was integrated into the very fabric of society, which made it hard to see when a guy was being a total d-bag to you. But she closed her mouth again. “Mmm,” she said instead, hoping the lilt could be mistaken for sympathy instead of wryness. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Celia said. “I have a feeling . . . like, even last year, when Ashish and I spent time talking and stuff, I got the feeling that it was more than just a hookup thing for him. Like, maybe he had a crush on me. So it just makes me feel crappier, that I took advantage, you know? He’s just a high school kid.”
“Well, don’t make it sound like you’re robbing the cradle or something,” Dimple said. “You just graduated high school. You’re seventeen, he’s sixteen. That’s not such a big difference.”
“There’s still a big difference in where we are in life. I’m getting ready to start SFSU in the fall, and he’s going to go off and play on his high school basketball team.” She made a face.
Kind of unfair, Dimple thought. If Evan was the yardstick for what made a “man,” then she’d rather just meet boys the rest of her life. But she held her tongue. “Then just be honest with Ashish,” she said. “I mean, he’s a nice guy. He deserves to know he doesn’t have a shot with you at all. And then maybe you guys can move past the awkwardness.”
CHAPTER 45
“Avoid the topic at all costs, Ashish.” The boy was lucky he had a bhaiyya like Rishi, who was willing to look out for him. “Seriously. If she tries to bring it up, just change the topic. Walk away. I can run interference for you at the table too. It’ll blow over.”
“Really?” Ashish said a tad dubiously, which was pretty ungrateful, Rishi thought. “Wouldn’t it be better just to talk to her? See what she thinks about all of it?”
“Mistake.” Rishi shook his head. “Big mistake. Look, Ashish, you may be a player, but it sounds like you really like this girl.” His brother blushed—actually blushed—so Rishi continued. “And that’s where I know what I’m talking about.” He gestured to Dimple’s empty seat in a need I say more? way. “Girls don’t want to see a lot of neediness. They want to know you’re confident, secure in yourself. Celia will come around when she sees that. All of this awkwardness will be gone.” He saw a flash of fuchsia on the other side of the pillar in the center of the restaurant. “Okay, here they come. Remember what I said: Avoid the topic.”
Ashish sighed and looked upward, like he was asking the gods for guidance. He doesn’t need them, Rishi thought. He has me.
• • •
Rishi got up so Dimple could slide back into her old spot, and Ashish slid over so Celia could sit on the outer edge of the booth. Celia smiled hesitantly at Ashish, and he smiled coolly back. Rishi gave him a mental thumbs-up. He couldn’t believe the boy had texted Celia nonstop since she’d left his room. If Rishi had known he was being so uncool, he would’ve trashed his phone. It just went to show, you could be a player, but really connecting with a woman took smarts. Which, obviously, Rishi had. He squeezed Dimple’s hand under the table, and she stuck her tongue out at him and crossed her eyes.
“Um, so, I’m guessing everyone here knows what happened,” Celia said, looking from Ashish to Rishi. Rishi nodded. “Okay,” she said, turning back to Ashish. “Look, I’m sorry I ignored your texts. I was freaking out. Maybe we could talk about all of this later, after dinner?”
Ashish met Rishi’s eye, briefly, and Rishi lifted his eyebrows and surreptitiously shook his head. Ashish cleared his throat. Shredding the paper coaster, he said, “Ah well, maybe there’s no need for that.”
Rishi bit on the inside of his lip to keep from smiling with pride. His little brother—all elbows and knees and Adam’s apple, and still learning so much from his bhaiyya. Dimple shifted beside him, and Celia frowned at Ashish. “What? Why not? You texted me that you wanted to talk.”
“Well, yeah,” Ashish said. “But I was just worried about you. I’m over it now.”
Ha! Ha ha ha. Rishi was so proud of Ashish. And, to be honest, of himself.
“You’re . . . over it?” Celia looked a lot more hurt than someone who didn’t really want to be with a “high school boy,” Dimple thought. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright, like she might actually cry or was seriously considering it. She swallowed and looked at Dimple, who gave her a sympathetic nod. What the heck was wrong with Ashish? If he really liked Celia—and she’d read some of the texts; it seemed like he really did—why was he being so aloof? He kept darting these subtle glances at Rishi too. Dimple looked over at Rishi, frowning a little. He was nodding surreptitiously at Ashish, his eyebrows high. What . . .
“You wouldn’t have something to do with this, would you?” Dimple said, louder than she’d intended.
Rishi jumped and looked at her, the tips of his ears turning pink. He darted a glance at Ashish and then looked back at her. “Uh, what? With what? What are you talking about?”
Dimple raised an eyebrow and looked at Ashish, who looked back at her with an agonized expression on his face that pretty much yelled HELP. “Oh, for . . . Ashish, if you want to talk to Celia, you should. Right now. You should both go somewhere, by yourselves, without any interference”—here she looked sternly at Rishi, who hung his head and muttered something—“and just talk.” She felt maternal toward them, she realized, which was a shock. Dimple hadn’t felt maternal toward anybody in her life, except maybe Papa.
Gratefully, Celia and Ashish scrambled out of the booth and out the door.
When they were gone, Dimple turned to Rishi and tilted her head. “Really? You gave him dating advice?”
Rishi’s mouth fell open. “I resent that!”
She continued staring at him until he conceded with a “Yeah, okay. I really thought it’d work, though.”
Dimple laughed and rested her head on his shoulder, reveling in the hard musculature under his skin. “At least your intentions were good.”
The waiter came over, and Dimple ordered Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, salted cod with onions and potatoes, while Rishi asked for Caldo Verde without the sausage. When the waiter was gone, Rishi wrapped a hand around Dimple’s on the table. She heard the smile in his voice even though he kept his face turned away, his gaze locked on their enmeshed hands. “I can’t believe we’re going to make this work long-distance.”
Dimple snorted. “Why? Because I’m such a pain in the butt?”
He looked at her, his eyes shining. “No, because I . . .”
The pause went on.
Oh my God. He . . . what? Was he going to say . . . that? Those three little words? “You . . .” Dimple stared at him, urging him with her mind. Poke, poke, poke. Say it, dummy. Because I . . . do too.
I do too, she thought again, her world exploding in color at the sudden realization. I really, really do. It took everything Dimple had to not burst into a grin and launch herself into Rishi’s arms.
But Rishi cleared his throat, took a sip of water. When he spoke again, he said, “I’m just really happy we’re going to make it work.”
Dimple smiled halfheartedly, disappointed but eager not to show it. Maybe it was for the best that he hadn’t said it. That just complicated things, didn’t it? Made them so much more serious? It was crazy enough they were g
oing to do this long-distance after knowing each other six weeks. “Me too. It’s going to be hard, though, you know.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know. But we can do it. I mean, we started out this whole thing with you determined to hate me.”
She laughed. “True. I totally thought you were going to hold me back from winning.”
“But now?” He looked at her from under his lashes, smiling crookedly, and her heart skipped several beats.
“Now I know how lucky I am to have you on my team.”
His smile turned full force then, like he knew she was talking about more than just the web development aspect of it all. “Your papa is going to be so impressed when you win.”
She took a shaky breath. “I hope so. I really want him to be able to use it, you know? I want him to know how much it means to me, all the sacrifices he’s made.”
“Like what?” Rishi said, and it was clear he wasn’t just being polite. He really wanted to know more about her papa.
Dimple leaned back in her booth. With her free hand, she played with her napkin. “He had a tough start to his life, but he never talks about it. Mamma told me that apparently his dad used to drink and go into these rages. His mom, my daadi, would purposely anger him so that he’d beat her and spare Papa. When Papa was older, he tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn’t. And when he got married and he and my mom decided to come to the States, he tried to get Daadi to go with them, but she refused. He didn’t make very much money at first, but he still sent about half of it home to her. I guess he was hoping she’d sock it away and finally find the courage to leave his dad. But Daadi died when I was a baby. No one would tell him for sure how, though. The party line was that she slipped down some stairs.” Dimple shook her head. “Papa is this soft, gentle soul, you know? The exact opposite of me and Mamma. I could see how an experience like that could change you, harden you, make you into the monster you hated. But not Papa. If anything, I bet he used it to become a better husband and father.”
Rishi raised her hand to his lips. “He sounds incredible.”
Dimple smiled at him, reveling in the delicious shiver rolling up her spine at the touch of Rishi’s lips. “He is.”
“And what about your mamma?”
Dimple shrugged, the shiver winking out instantly. “She’s . . . Mamma. She believes my worth is directly tied to my beauty and my ability to land a husband. She doesn’t give a crap about my personality or my brains.”
“That can’t be right. There’s no way she sees what I see and thinks that about you.”
Dimple smirked. “Maybe you need to have a talk with her. I’m sure I’m in for an earful when I go back home.”
“Because we’re not getting married, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Dimple sighed, her mood darkening at the thought of that conversation.
“I’ll bet there’s a part of her you haven’t seen yet.”
Dimple looked up, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Rishi rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I don’t know; she’s your mom, you know. I feel like if you were really hurting or really needed her, she’d be there for you without question. And maybe there’s a part of her she hasn’t shared with you yet that’s totally not what you expect.”
Dimple thought that was likely utter BS, but instead she said, “Yeah, maybe. But tell me about your parents now.”
The waiter set down Dimple’s steaming, fragrant plate of cod and potatoes, garnished with halved boiled eggs. Rishi’s soup looked delicious, too, though Dimple thought she might’ve preferred it with sausage. Keeping their hands clasped between them in silent agreement, Dimple and Rishi began to eat.
“Hmm, let’s see. My dad, Pappa, he had a tough start too. His parents died in an accident when he was six or seven, so he was raised by this series of relatives who treated him badly. He basically put himself through college, and when he saw Ma, he knew he wanted to marry her. He didn’t have parents to go ask her parents for her hand in marriage, so he had to do it himself. And he knew it was unlikely that her parents would go for him—poor, with no family to speak of—so he just went in there and told her dad how much he cared for her. He promised to one day make enough money to give her the lifestyle she deserved.” Rishi smiled and ate a bite of potato. “Her dad, my nana, became Pappa’s biggest fan after that speech. He’s the one who helped them come to the States. He even gave them seed money to get Pappa’s first business started. It went bust, but the relationships he made there led to him coming in on the ground floor of Global Comm.”
“A true story of the American dream,” Dimple said, smiling and taking a sip of her water.
“And the Indian dream,” Rishi said. “Pappa gained a real family, which is what he’d wanted. They stood by him from the beginning. He and Ma have this fairy-tale marriage.”
“Is that what you want?” Dimple said softly, her palms going sweaty. “A fairy tale?”
He glanced at her, his ears pink. “I’d originally wanted a practical partnership, but now I think I’m getting the fairy tale anyway.”
Dimple felt the heat bloom in her cheeks. When she smiled up from under her eyelashes at Rishi, she found him pink-cheeked and grinning too.
• • •
The waiter tried to foist Toucinho do Céu and Mousse de Chocolate on them, but Dimple declined for the both of them. “I have something for us instead,” she said after Rishi had paid the bill. (He’d insisted, even though she’d tried her best to split it evenly.)
They walked out into the fog, Dimple’s belly heavy and full of hot food. She zipped up her hoodie just as Rishi buttoned up his coat, both of them retreating a little farther into the warmth of fleece and heavy cotton. Dimple reached into her bag and pulled out a red cardboard box.
“What’s that?” Rishi asked, squinting to see in the haze of streetlights the fog had smeared.
“These, my friend, are Pocky sticks.” Dimple smiled as she opened the box and the foil package inside, sliding three of the chocolate-covered sticks onto Rishi’s palm. “Delicious, just the right amount of biscuit and chocolate, light as air.”
She watched as Rishi bit into one, her gaze automatically riveted on his mouth, her cheeks heating. Blinking, she forced herself to look away. That had been happening more and more now, her noticing the sheer physicality of him, how he was so different from her, how his jaw had that beautiful smattering of stubble on it, how rough his skin was compared to hers. . . .
“Wow, these are good!” Rishi ate the remaining sticks in a couple of bites.
Dimple smiled, swallowing to dispel the warm, liquidy feeling in her bones, and handed him the box. He ate three more before holding it out to her. “Oops, sorry. Want some?”
“No.” She waved a hand. There was no way she could eat now, not when her stomach was so flippy and her eyes kept latching on to details like how much bigger Rishi’s feet were than hers, or how broad his shoulders were beneath that coat. You’d think she’d never even seen a boy before.
“Hey, you okay?” Rishi asked, dropping the box into a trash can they were passing.
She looked up to see him frowning slightly, watching her face. “Yeah, fine. Why?” She was still having trouble meeting his eye. She felt shy suddenly, like . . . like there was something new between them, something different. Now that they’d agreed to make this work long-term, it felt heavier, more serious. And she was allowing her brain to go places it hadn’t quite gone before.
Rishi reached over, grabbed her hand, and pulled her into the darkened alley between a shuttered jewelry shop and clothing store. Dimple leaned back against the wall, and he braced his palms on either side of her. Her heart thundered in the best way, her breath quickening.
“What’s wrong?” Rishi asked, searching her face. “Is it . . . because of what we talked about before? Doing this long-distance?”
Dimple started to shake her head and then stopped. “Um, sort of.” She was having trouble getting the words out with his w
oodsy smell swirling all around her, with his heat pressing closer to her than the fog.
“So, what is it?” Rishi reached out and casually tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, and without meaning to, she sucked in a breath and leaned in to his touch.
His brow cleared, and his eyes turned to honeyed fire as they drifted down to her lips, which, she noted, were now parted. It was like her body was this traitor, acting without her brain’s permission. Especially considering what you were thinking earlier, that annoying voice tried to interject. Are you seriously going to let hormones get the best of you when there are important things to consider?
But when Rishi dipped his head down and pressed his mouth to hers, his rough stubble scratching against her chin in the most delicious way, her brain shut up entirely. His arms wrapped around her waist, cinching her to him, and she put her hands in his hair, feeling the silken strands between her fingers.
When his hands slipped under her hoodie and shirt to rest against her bare back, her blood caught on fire. She did the same to him, reaching up under his coat and his shirt, to feel the muscled firmness of his lower back. Rishi made a sound deep in his throat, and she pushed herself closer to him, feeling the way he definitely, desperately wanted her. . . .
And then he stepped back, panting. “We . . . uh, we shouldn’t, can’t, do this.”
Dimple stopped, blinking, wanting him to come back and pick up where they’d left off. Her knees felt weak, like they might buckle. She wanted to sit. On his lap. Or lie down. With him. “What? You mean here? We can’t do it here?”
“Yeah, well, here.” Rishi pushed a hand through his hair. “But also, we need to stop and think about what we’re doing. Where this is leading. We don’t want to go too far, right?”
Dimple stared at him. “Too far. Meaning . . .”
Rishi nodded, his ears and cheeks pink. He was still panting a bit, clearly trying to calm his body down. She wanted to jump on him. “Sex. We need to talk before we go further.”
When Dimple Met Rishi Page 22