Emma nodded, slower this time. “Yep.”
“Well, is he still looking for one?”
“I don’t know. I found two women that fit his ‘criteria,’” she said with air quotes. “And he sent them to his parents. And the weirdest thing is that I hallucinate seeing them everywhere. Like at the store or walking down the street.”
“Hmm . . . well, it’s not like he’s getting married next week, right? You all just hooked up this weekend? It feels too soon for the conversation, so see where it goes. Maybe it’s just a fling, or maybe it’s true wuv,” she said, mimicking The Princess Bride.
Jordana was right. Why was she panicking in the quiet moments she was away from Rishi? While it might have felt like a stronger bond than she’d had before, it had only been days; in a few weeks they could call it a fling, and maybe then he’d be on his way, and she’d be on hers.
She breathed deep, her lungs feeling heavy. The idea that it could have just been a fling seemed to make something ache inside her. Like she already missed him. But that was ridiculous. She’d had to force him out of her house last night, making excuses about needing to get some work done. Because in the past few days since they’d been back, it had been bliss. Days that had blinded her to what had come before. To the complexities of Rishi’s life and his marriage code.
“You’re right, Jordy. I don’t know why I’m freaking out. Who knows what the future holds?”
“Just take your time with it. God knows you did with Jeremy!”
She and Jeremy had taken their time, staying the night together on Saturdays and usually having methodical dates planned out during the week. It was nothing like this. The frantic desire to always have Rishi around. To make coffee with him in the mornings with his jokes and her hip bumping him. Hell, she didn’t even care when he teased her about her hair sprouting its own personality before she could put product in it.
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe we just take it slow.” But as she said the words, something inside her knew it was too late for that.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. If you want him around all the time, do it. That’s what Charlie and I did, and look where we’re at now. Just follow your heart.” As if on cue, Jordana’s front door opened behind her, and Charlie came into their living room. Jordana turned around and leaned up on her knees to kiss him. “Hey, babe, say hi to Emma!”
“Hi, Charlie!” Emma said. “Don’t make fun of my hair.”
He laughed. “Hey, how is India?”
“It’s good. Really good. I’ll let you go. But thanks for the pep talk.”
“Is that what that was? I thought you were just dishing out some gossip on your love life. Keep me posted!” She smiled big and looked off to the side. “OMG. Now Charlie wants in on your gossip. He’s like, ‘What love life?’ Bye, sweetie.” She blew an air kiss into the phone, and Emma waved back.
“Bye!”
She ended the call on her laptop and sank back into the couch. Maybe she was overthinking things. Per usual. If Jordana didn’t seem to think that Rishi’s need to get married was a huge deal, why should she? After all, you didn’t hook up with someone and then demand they devote themselves to you, right? That was a bit extreme. She’d just take her time and see where things went.
Her phone buzzed.
I missed you last night : ( Hope you got your work done.
I missed you too. See you soon.
And she meant it, even as she asked herself how it was possible to miss someone for a mere ten hours when she saw him literally all the rest of her time.
CHAPTER 29
Rishi hummed his favorite song and then sang the chorus out loud as he turned a corner, heading toward Emma’s house. The words bellowed from his lips. This world around us is unreal. The people around us are unreal. You and I are the only things that matter.
He didn’t care who heard him. Now he fully understood why movie heroes broke out into song for 100 percent legit reasons.
His heart was beating in his stomach again. If only the world around him were unreal. If only the world he and Emma created with their bodies, with their minds, were the real one. It felt the most real. But it was also the world where families didn’t exist, pressure was absent, and tradition didn’t matter.
His parents had called at least five times in the past week, and the last thing he was going to do was answer his phone when he was attempting to explore what was happening with Emma. He’d texted his mother today so she wouldn’t worry, telling her he was busy. He just needed some time to figure out what to do. And what was happening to him.
He’d never felt this constant need to be with someone. He’d tried to tell himself it was because he and Emma had spent so much time at work together already. They were practically joined at the hip anyway, so why not be physically joined at the hip? He could joke himself to death over it, try to rationalize it in a hundred different ways, but in the end, he’d never felt this way. He’d never met someone who, with one look, could know there was something rolling in the undercurrent under his skin. He’d be thinking about a problem with the code or with his parents, and she’d look at him. “Hey, what is it? Just tell me.” Like she just knew.
And she knew other things too. Like how to carefully trace patterns of desire on his skin. To carve out longing like a craving he never knew he could have. Or how, when they touched, their lips had entire conversations about the complex feelings between them. Push and pull. Fight or flight. Need and want.
When she’d asked him to stay at his own place the other night, he’d panicked. They’d moved too fast. She was sick of him. It was completely irrational. She’d held him tight, pushed him up against the wall, and as her hands slid down his chest, she’d whispered in his ear, almost with sorrow in her voice, “I’ll miss you.”
After that, he’d marched her over to the sofa, and they’d made up for being apart for mere hours. Hours!
He swerved into Emma’s driveway, trying to find comfort in the fact that they’d made up for it more times than he could count since then as well. Was this how addicts felt? Or was it something else? He used to call it lust, but now . . .
Emma appeared at the door before he’d even gotten his helmet off, bouncing on her bare feet in the entryway. “Hurry!”
Either she had something she needed to talk to him about with work, since he’d vowed to stay away from her all afternoon, or she was as impatient as he was. All he wanted to do was clutch her to his chest and join his mouth with hers. And other parts of their bodies as well. He dislodged the helmet from his head as he walked toward her door.
She pulled him in, ran her fingers through his hair, slammed the door, and pushed him against it. Her mouth searched his, exploring with her tongue. She pulled on his hair, slid her hands down his chest, pulled his shirt over his head, and buried her head below his breastbone. Rishi couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve had a rough day, I take it?”
“Don’t laugh at me. I feel like an addict.” She looked up at him, eyes glistening with want and mirth. “You’re my fix. You’ll just have to take it while I satiate my need.” She lunged into his neck, her tongue tracing the tendons under his skin.
Rishi put his arms against the door in surrender. She could have whatever she wanted. “I’m yours.”
He wasn’t the only person who apparently felt like he was addicted. He laughed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I was also just contemplating whether I was addicted to you. It’s comforting to know the feeling is mutual.”
She hummed into his neck. “Why do you always smell so good? Maybe that’s what I’m addicted to.”
“Maybe I’m addicted to having women boss me around. You were very assertive in our team meeting today.” Her eyes narrowed as he paused. “I liked it. And of course you were right. I think even Kaushik agreed.”
“Then the world very well may be on the verge of collapse,” she scoffed as she headed into the kitchen. “Do you want some tea?”
/> “Sure.” Rishi’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket.
We met Radhika’s parents today and bragged on you so much. When can you meet them?
His mother. Maybe the world was on the verge of collapse. He sighed and put the phone back in his pocket. He would deal with her later. They’d waited this long; they could keep waiting a little longer for him to get married. He had to understand what was happening with Emma first.
He walked into the kitchen and eyed Emma’s chai-making skills. “So you conquered South Indian coffee and figured you’d take over her sister, masala chai?”
“Oh yeah. Actually, I went over to Preeti’s house after work today, and she and her mom taught me. So I got all the things, and you’re my guinea pig.” She held a cup out to him. “If it sucks, you know, just tell me.”
He took a sip. “It’s actually pretty good.”
She held up her phone. “Well, I might have recorded step-by-step instructions so I wouldn’t mess it up.”
“Of course you did.” That was such an Emma thing to do. “So how was her family?”
“So nice. Her mom even gave me a hug when I left! And told me she’d gladly teach me how to cook anything I want to learn. Isn’t that sweet? Their family is vegetarian too.”
Rishi’s parents had never even hugged him. He had to wonder, if he brought Emma home, what would happen. His mom possibly wouldn’t even allow her in the kitchen, but if she did and somehow helped Emma cook something, would she eat it? His sister of course wouldn’t care and would likely give Emma a big hug goodbye, because he knew they’d get along. His dad, maybe, wouldn’t care. But his mother. With all her hopes and dreams and visions for the future, she would view any woman Rishi brought home with a critical eye, and with one look she’d know that Emma was not the daughter-in-law she’d hoped for.
But was it crazy to even start thinking like that? It had been two weeks since they’d gotten together.
“Rishi, I’ve been thinking . . .”
“Uh-oh.” Rishi smiled at her. Sometimes he just said these things to watch her do the cute thing where half her face seemed to squint at him.
“Can we go somewhere next weekend? Like continue our real tour of India, just not with food. Kerala was so fun, and there’s a lot of country to explore.”
As much as Rishi wanted to go jetting around the country with Emma, they just had the weekend, really, if they didn’t want to raise any suspicions at work. He could already hear Kaushik starting some rumors. Well, they both were off the Monday after the Kerala conference. And now they’re both off again?
“What about going to Mysore? It’s a few hours away, and there’s a famous temple and a palace and, oh, a famous dosa named after the place.”
“You know the way to a girl’s heart, Rishi.” Emma put her arms around his neck. “Through a dosa.”
He laughed and kissed her, the sweet spice of the tea on her lips.
A trip away was exactly what he needed too. A place where he and Emma could explore more of who they were together.
CHAPTER 30
Emma flipped through the tourist book she hadn’t opened since the first day she’d landed in Bangalore and researched Mysore. A place where she could be free with Rishi and not worry that her coworkers would see them having coffee or dinner. “Mysore has a famous temple, a palace, and what else can we do there?”
“I’m sure we’ll find lots of things to do.” Rishi half smiled at her, the things in his mind obviously involving a hotel bed, and reached for her hand on the seat between them.
Working side by side with someone you constantly imagined straddling on their desk chair was hard. Even though it had been a few weeks, her mind volleyed between Rishi’s body, code iterations, Rishi’s hands, tweaks to the app, and the upcoming alpha version launching soon. An actual working version with her bugs fixed and new shiny additions.
But her personal life bugs weren’t fixed. Her feelings for him had not crumpled up into something she could sweep under a rug. Emma knew from his search, his talk of his family, and her Indian friends back in Seattle that marriage was a complex thing here. There were traditions and family and hierarchies. Everyone expected children, and dating was something that was only done for short bursts of time before marriage was inevitable.
All this was coming down on a woman who had just refused her boyfriend in Seattle on the same terms. Could she accept them now, from Rishi? And would he even want her to?
Perhaps there was a reason she’d imagined what their children would look like. She rolled her eyes. Thinking way too much about something, as usual.
Jordana was right about “the talk” a few weeks ago, but now it was staring Emma down. It was likely one of the items on her Mysore itinerary.
As they entered Mysore, the city reminded her of the older areas in Bangalore she had driven through. The buildings were stained auburn from years of industrial growth and pollution, and the shop signs bore fading paint and water stains. Men announcing their wares pushed carts filled with vegetables, fruits, or plastic jugs and toys. The ever-present billboards for diamonds and gold and silk presided over the scene. Emma wondered if the models in these advertisements had some kind of super upper-body strength from the sheer weight of the jewelry on their heads and necks.
First on their itinerary was to visit Chamundi Temple. The driver they’d hired parked the car, and Emma and Rishi walked up a huge staircase to the top of the temple complex. The entrance to the temple was guarded by a mustachioed statue, twenty feet tall, wielding a curved sword.
“Who’s this pirate guy?” Emma asked, staring up at the statue.
“Oh, Emma, that is not a pirate but a buffalo demon. A shape-shifter.”
“Shape-shifter? I’m intrigued.”
“I’m not. You shift in as many shapes as I’ll ever need.”
She shook her head at him, even though she could feel the grin stretching across her face.
They wove through the crowds of humans, ice cream carts, toy shops, and piles of sour green mango with chili powder and salt. Rishi stopped at one of the stalls to buy flowers and fruit for the temple to give as an offering.
As they rounded the corner and the temple came into view, Emma stopped midstep. People talked about the Pyramids of Egypt as being spectacular, but this was amazing. The temple was a pyramid of carvings upon carvings that rose a hundred feet toward the sky. Each row of stones had elaborate sculpted gods and goddesses lining the center. The top of the temple was painted a dusky gold. Someone must have climbed the temple and cleaned the spaces between the carvings with a tiny broom to clear the dust from the countless deep grooves.
“Did someone make all those carvings by hand?” she asked as Rishi pulled at her elbow to get in line, joining the hundreds of other tourists in a maze of rails.
“Yes. As my mother would say, doing anything unless it is for God is not worth doing.”
Emma looked up at his face, which was set in a sneer as he examined the temple. She followed his gaze. Around twenty monkeys climbed around its sloping tiled roof, eyeing the food people held tight as offerings.
All those things Rishi had said about his family, how traditional they were, how religious, his priestly background—it all came back to her.
“Are you religious, Rishi?” Religion seemed to be embedded in life here, and they’d never even discussed it.
“Yes. I mean, I pray and follow our customs. For the most part. I believe in God, but I’m not a zealot. More of a practical follower who enjoys a good drink and a good chicken kebab.” The corner of his lip tugged up. “What about you?”
For some reason the question hit Emma in her chest. It was a topic she rarely discussed, but when she saw a monument like this, it made her question everything. “I’ve never gone to church or anything. After my parents died, my grandmother stopped going.”
Rishi nodded slowly. “I can see that. Some people lose faith when traumatic things happen.”
“And other
people cling to it like it’s all they’ve got.” Emma wasn’t wired that way. Apparently neither was her grandmother. She remembered sitting down at dinner with her grandmother a few years after her parents had died. Emma had asked then why she’d stopped going to church. Her grandma had said, “When a freak accident like that takes away your daughter, praying to the God that makes the universe function like clockwork just doesn’t make sense. And fate doesn’t make sense. And the world doesn’t make sense.”
And here Emma was now, fifteen years later, questioning God, fate, and the world. All over again.
Once they’d entered the temple, Emma studied the stained grayish-brown brick walls, so plain compared to the extravagance of the temple’s outward appearance. It was like a sacred cave, the darkness lit only by tiny oil lamps and the cool dampness calming her hot skin. The smell was waxy and moist, edged with musky incense. Emma hesitated at the entrance, not knowing what to do inside.
“Rishi, what am I supposed to do in here? Pray?”
“Yeah. Pray for what you wish for.” They walked toward a crowd of people who stood outside a roped-off pathway and squeezed their way to the rope. Rishi pressed his hands together in front of his chest and closed his eyes.
She was following his gesture, placing her palms together, when a priest approached the rail they were standing behind. As the priest walked in front of the line of people, he carried a small tray with a lamp, and the crowd placed flowers or money on it in exchange for him saying a prayer and hovering a brass dome over their heads.
World peace. Her family’s happiness in the afterlife. Jordana’s success. Rishi’s family. Rishi. The app’s success. Poverty vanquished. All the things she could pray for. But who would listen to her? A woman who hadn’t prayed since she was a child. Sure, she’d thrown her hopes out to the universe in times of stress and hoped they’d stick somewhere, but this was something completely different.
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