by Sara Desai
“What about Daisy?” Lauren’s voice was muffled in the background. “The article said he saved her.”
“Is Daisy okay?”
“She had a more serious concussion,” Liam said as his heart squeezed in his chest. “But she’s good.”
“She’s okay,” Brendan called out. Then to Liam, he said, “So, you’re still together?”
Ah, now the truth came out. As he had suspected, it was about the distillery after all. “Don’t worry, Bren,” he snapped, his blood heating to a boil. “You can have the damn distillery. I’ve been offered partnership at Evolution so I’ll be staying in New York. There’s nothing for me in San Francisco.” He had to force the words out. “Daisy and I aren’t together anymore. So, I can’t meet the terms of the trust.”
Silence.
“It was real.” A statement. Not a question.
Part of Liam wanted to just hang up the phone and be done with the whole damned conversation, but another part, a pathetic, sad, and lonely part, still wanted to believe that Brendan cared, that he’d called because he had genuinely been worried about his brother. Liam hadn’t talked to anyone about Daisy, or the accident, or how badly he had messed things up. The temptation to open his heart to someone who actually knew him was almost overwhelming.
“It’s complicated, but yes, in the end it was very real.”
“I’m sorry,” Brendan said. “I’m sorry about Daisy, and the accident, and the fight at Grandpa’s house, and . . . fuck . . .” He cleared his throat. “I thought you were dead. It kind of puts things in perspective.”
Still trying to process the unexpected show of emotion from his brother, Liam had no words.
“When you’re in town again, maybe you could come over for dinner,” Brendan said. “Jaxon would love to see you.”
“Brendan!” Lauren’s voice was louder this time, her admonishing tone clear.
“Christ,” Brendan muttered. “At least now you know who wears the pants in this family.” And then louder. “We’d like to see you.”
They chuckled together, and Liam realized for the first time that they shared the same laugh. He didn’t really know the man his brother had become. What else did they have in common, other than the secrets they’d kept about their family?
“Come home,” Brendan said, his voice laced with amusement. “Please. She won’t leave me alone until you do. That story was one hell of a wake-up call.”
Home. He’d never thought of San Francisco as home, but everything that truly mattered was there.
• 28 •
“SURPRISE!”
Daisy froze in the hallway. She’d just picked Layla up from work to have a quiet dinner at home with Priya and her dad. Forty relatives, Bollywood music blaring through the house, kids running everywhere, and the scents of an Indian banquet weren’t what she’d had in mind.
“Your father invited us over,” Mehar Auntie said. “And look who is here! Roshan!”
Daisy smiled at the pleasant-looking man beside her auntie. She barely remembered Roshan from the conference. He was a few inches taller than her, his hair dark, thick, and glossy, curling into the collar of his blue shirt. He had a neatly trimmed beard, and his eyes, rich chocolate brown behind designer glasses, were warm and sympathetic.
“For the record, I was opposed to another sneak attack,” Roshan whispered under his breath. “But your aunties are very persuasive.”
Daisy smiled. “I have a feeling you’re being overly kind. Knowing my aunties, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d knocked you unconscious and dragged you here against your will.”
Max came running over to her and she lifted him for a cuddle. He sniffed at Roshan and turned away, burying his head in her arms.
“This is Max. He’s usually a bit friendlier. Do you like dogs?”
“My family is allergic so we’ve never had one.” He gave Max an awkward pat. Max sniffed and gave him the doggie equivalent of a cold shoulder. Quite right. Roshan wasn’t even a candidate if Max couldn’t be around his family. Not that she was looking. There was only one man she wanted, and she’d pushed him away.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the conference.” Daisy put Max down so he could charm her relatives into giving him treats.
“No problem.” His lips turned up at the corners. “I could see you were otherwise occupied. Are you still together?”
Her first kiss with Liam. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Daisy sighed. “No. It didn’t work out. My dad didn’t approve.”
“When it comes to marriage, family knows best.”
Daisy didn’t know if family always knew best, but a few days in the office with hardly anyone around had made her realize she didn’t truly want to be alone. She missed the chatter around her, the chance to use her family connections to help people out, and the support that she got from her friends. There was no way she could go back to a job where she congratulated herself every day for the number of hours she’d gone without human interaction. She needed people. And she liked being needed in return.
“Why don’t you help yourself to some food?” she suggested. “I’m just going to find my dad and see what’s going on. This was supposed to be a quiet family dinner.” She left Roshan with Layla and pushed her way through the crowd until she found her dad stirring dal in the kitchen with Priya.
“Beta! We were waiting for you and Layla to get back. Now, everyone is here and the announcement can begin!”
“Why is Roshan here?” she asked bluntly, agitated past being polite. If he planned to announce her engagement to a man she barely knew . . .
“The family talked it over. We thought, since you are clearly interested in a relationship, you should meet Roshan properly, and since we organized this party to announce our engagement, it was the perfect time.”
“Wait . . . what?” Her eyes widened. “You and Priya are getting married?”
“I just popped the question,” her father said, grinning. “All this talk of marriage made me realize there was no time to waste. I was going to propose either on a sailing holiday from Florida to the Azores, or during a deserted island survival adventure in Panama, but then this morning, I was eating leftover samosas for breakfast, and I had the idea.”
“What idea?”
He grinned. “The proposal idea.”
“Day-old samosas in the kitchen are better than proposing in the middle of the ocean?” Daisy stared at him, incredulous. “Or on a tropical island full of white sandy beaches and coral reefs?”
“Priya doesn’t need those things,” he said. “She’s a modern woman and I’m a traditional man. I wanted something that would bring the two together.”
Priya gave him a dreamy smile and kissed him on the cheek. “He’s so romantic.”
Daisy liked samosas, but had never thought of them in a romantic way. Maybe she’d been missing out. “So, what happened?”
“I bit into the samosa,” her father continued. “And I knew. It was a sign.”
“A sign that you were hungry?”
He laughed. “No, beta. A sign that this was it—the idea I’d been waiting for. So I shoved the ring into the samosa and I called Priya downstairs and I said . . .” He trailed off and turned to Priya. “Tell her what I said.”
“He said, ‘Taste this samosa.’”
“Those are exactly the words I used.” Her father grinned. “She remembers them.” He put his free arm around Priya and gave her a squeeze. “Tell her what I did next.”
“He sat down,” Priya said.
Daisy frowned. “Were you not feeling well?”
Her father grimaced. “I wanted to get on one knee but I twisted it when we were cave tubing down the Caves River in Belize.”
“You twisted it when we were on the ATV jungle tour and you went too fast around the corner and the A
TV fell on you,” Priya said gently. “You knocked yourself out when we were cave tubing because you took off your helmet after they told you not to.”
“I had to take it off,” he protested. “I felt a sting. I thought it was a scorpion.”
“Did you scream?” Daisy asked.
“No.”
“Collapse? Have a seizure? Swelling? Did the guide give you antivenom?”
“No. I just had a small itch right here.” He tapped his right temple.
“Then it wasn’t a scorpion,” Daisy said dryly. “And also, you are banned from any more extreme holidays. Next year you’re going to sit on a beach in Maui.”
“Actually, we just signed up for a training camp because we’re going to tackle Mount Everest,” Priya said. “It’s for our honeymoon.”
“You two are made for each other.” Daisy shook her head. “But please don’t encourage him. He gets into enough trouble as it is.” Daisy looked from Priya to her father and back to Priya. “Or . . . did you guys maybe bring something back that you weren’t supposed to? Something you might have been smoking this morning?”
“She thinks we’re high,” her father said to Priya. “And we are. High on life. Tell her the rest of what I did when I proposed.”
“He told me to take a big bite of the samosa,” Priya said. “But I guess the bite was too big, because I swallowed the ring and almost choked to death.”
“I Heimliched her,” Daisy’s father said. “Grabbed her around the waist and almost broke her ribs, but we saved the ring. She coughed it up on the floor. And the samosa, too.”
Priya sighed. “Such a waste of a good samosa.”
Daisy’s father’s eyes misted. “Then I brushed off the peas and the potato filling and—”
“He told me he’d been waiting twenty years to find love again and he’d found it with me.” Priya wiped away a tear. “And he asked me to marry him.”
“And she said yes!” Daisy’s father pumped his fist in the air. “Can you imagine? She wants to be with an old man like me.”
“You’re not old, Dad.”
“Not anymore. Priya makes me feel young again.”
Daisy shot Priya a sideways glance. She didn’t look like she felt she’d been shortchanged on her proposal. She was smiling and leaning against her dad’s shoulder like almost choking to death on a ring-stuffed samosa had been the best moment of her life.
“We’re getting married next Friday,” he said. “Just something small. Maybe five hundred people or so. Salena is organizing it all. We’re not getting any younger so we didn’t want to waste time. Then Layla’s wedding is next, and you and Roshan can get married after that. We will have a year of weddings!”
“I’m not marrying Roshan,” Daisy said. “I’m happy being single. I tried the dating thing and it didn’t work out for me. I’m the kind of person who does better on my own.” They were the same words she’d always said, but for the first time they didn’t ring true.
“Get to know him.” Her father patted her back. “He’s a good boy. He’ll look after you. And if you don’t like him, I have a file of marriage résumés for you to see. Lots to choose from. Tall, small, intellectual, sporty, beard or no beard, glasses or no glasses, likes dosas, hates dosas . . . You tell your old dad what you want and I’ll get him for you.”
“We’re talking husbands, Dad. Not takeout.”
Her father handed the spoon to Priya and pulled out his phone. “How about this one: Jamil. Age forty-two. Fitness trainer. Paleo. Gardener. Entrepreneur. Inventor. Breeds ocelots. Cat lover . . . Seeks fit, healthy, garden-loving meat-eating woman who is not squeamish.”
Daisy leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “Is this a joke?”
“Which part didn’t you like, beta?”
“He’s a cat person. Max would hate him.” She bent down and lifted Max into her arms. “You hate him, don’t you Max?”
Max barked his disapproval of the aging ocelot-breeder who had failed the basic test of loving dogs.
“How about someone younger,” her father suggested. “Chetan. Age thirty-six. Grew up in the Bay Area. Two masters degrees and two Ph.D.’s. Enjoys art house films, walks in the park, electronics-free dates . . .”
“Yawn.”
Her father lifted an eyebrow. “Is that a no?”
“I’ve never seen an art house film that I actually enjoyed. And four degrees means he’s spent his life in school and knows nothing about the real world. I’ll bet he’s never ridden a motorcycle or been to a hockey game.”
“One more,” her father said. “Sunny. Age thirty-two. Dog lover. Go Sharks. Appeared on Dancing with the Stars in 2019. Loves dosas. Male model. Marvel producer . . .”
“Marvel?” Daisy flew across the kitchen. “He produces Marvel films? Are you serious? Let me see his CV.”
Her father shook his head. “You’re right. He’s not a serious prospect. He has no degrees. He didn’t even finish high school because he went into the movie industry. I’ll just delete that one.”
“No! Dad!” She grabbed for the phone, only to see a smile spread across his face.
“Gotcha.” He grinned. “I knew you didn’t want to be alone. You are just waiting for the right man.”
“You’re not funny,” she huffed.
He scooped some dal from the pot and put it into a bowl. “But I’m right.”
Daisy pressed her lips together and glared. “Maybe I’ve already met the right man and no one else measures up.”
“What man is that?” Priya asked.
“Someone who makes me laugh,” she said. “Someone who can enjoy himself and doesn’t care what people think. Someone who can take me out of myself and make me do wild and crazy things, but who needs me to make sure the boat doesn’t capsize.”
“Roshan is wild and crazy,” her father said. “Did you see his pants? I didn’t think they made corduroy anymore. And he has a big nose. You can laugh at him.”
“I don’t think that’s what she meant,” Priya said gently. “I think she wants to laugh with him.”
“You want a clown?”
“I want Liam.” There. She’d said it. And she could tell right away her father didn’t approve.
“There are so many men out there, beta. Men who will stay and deal with a problem instead of taking the easy path and running away.”
“I don’t know if that’s always true,” Daisy countered. “In the developer world, we say ‘disconnect to reconnect.’ It means that sometimes you have to walk away to figure out a problem so you can come back and solve it.”
He tasted the dal and frowned. “You think he’ll come back?”
“I don’t know, Dad. When he told me he’d been offered a position in New York, I panicked. I said all the wrong things and none of the right ones. But in the end, I told him I loved him. I told him I wanted what we had to be real.”
“What wasn’t real about it?”
Daisy twisted her skirt in her hand and told him everything from the moment she’d seen Orson and Madison together at the conference to the day Liam had walked away—minus the R-rated moments, of course. “I fell in love with him,” she said finally. “And then the accident happened, and . . . well . . . now he’s gone.”
“I think you should sit down, Nadal.” Priya took the spoon from her father’s unnaturally still hand and gently helped Daisy’s silent father to a chair.
“Too much,” he mumbled.
“I know.” She patted his hand. “I’ll get you a cup of chai.”
“He was like a son to me, and then poof, he was gone.” He swallowed hard. “Just like your mom.”
“She left because she didn’t want us,” Daisy said tightly, sitting in the chair beside him. “He left the night of the prom because he thought he wasn’t good enough, because he thought I would have a better life if h
e wasn’t around to drag me down.”
“Ah, then they are not the same.” He hugged himself, rubbing his arms. “Your mother said we were holding her back from the life she wanted to live. She was a free spirit. I think I always knew she would leave, but it didn’t hurt less when she did.”
Daisy bit her bottom lip. “I thought she left because I wasn’t normal, because I wanted to do math puzzles and science experiments instead of playing dress up and dolls. When she came back, she asked if I was still ‘weirdly smart.’ I thought that was the reason she didn’t want me.”
“Who is the normal one?” He was agitated now, hands waving in the air. “The mother who leaves her family to find herself, or the woman who works hard, achieves success, finds love, and stays to look after her father so he isn’t alone?”
Priya handed him a cup of chai and he kissed her hand. “I always thought I’d done something wrong, too,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t tell her I loved her enough. Maybe I wasn’t kind enough. Maybe I spent too much time at work . . . She told me it had nothing to do with me—or you or Sanjay. She said she just wasn’t cut out for marriage and motherhood, but I refused to believe her. All those years I wasted, blaming myself, afraid to love again, and every day I was going into the bakery café near my office, and I would see Priya. I would have my treat and my coffee, and her smile would make my heart sing, and I wasn’t listening to the song.”
“Tell her about the rappelling,” Priya said. “I love that story.”
Daisy’s father grinned. “Do you remember the day I rappelled down the Hilton in Union Square? Forty-six stories! An old man like me.”
“I remember begging you not to go,” Daisy said dryly.
“Well, I went, and when I got to the bottom—”
“You had an epiphany?”
“No, beta. I had a hunger pain. All that adrenaline used up the sugar in my body and I craved a pastry from Priya’s bakery, the chocolate ones with the chocolate inside and swirls of chocolate on the top.” He licked his lips. “I drove all the way there, and when I walked in the door, I almost slipped in a puddle of spilled coffee.”