He didn’t need this shit. He stalked into the kitchen and yanked the fridge open and wished he had picked up the six-pack that had been calling his name the last time he was at the store.
“I’ve asked Mummy and Daddy to wait until we get there before they take any action,” the newly minted, brave keeper of sisterly honor said behind him.
Samir spun around. “Hold on. Did you just say
we?
” That earned him another one of those non-planet Pluto looks from both of them, which he ignored. “Mili’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Of course I’m not, Samir.” She turned the full power of that sneaky innocence on him. “We both are.”
Mili had no idea what was wrong with Samir. But he had slipped into a full-on angry-young-man avatar straight out of an Amitabh Bachan film.
“Can I see you in the other room for a minute?
Now.
” His face thundered like a stormy night and that pulse in his neck was definitely going to pop.
“Sure. But first I need to get Ranvir another bag of ice for his face.”
Without a word, Samir snatched the bag of melted ice water from Ranvir’s hands and stormed to the fridge. He emptied it into the sink, yanked an ice tray out of the freezer, and dumped ice in the bag—amazingly it didn’t melt at his touch.
He thrust the bag at Ranvir. “Don’t move until we come back.” He gave the poor boy such an intimidating look he might never move again. Mili had no idea why he was being so rude to him.
“Anything else you need done before you give me a moment of your time?” When he looked at her like that, his eyes locked on her as if she were the only person in the room, in the world, she had the strangest sensation in the pit of her stomach.
She followed him into her bedroom.
“Are you crazy?”
So much for only person in the world. “My
naani
says I am, just a little bit. Why?” She tried to give him her sweetest smile but it didn’t work.
He looked like he wanted to shake her. “Because I thought the point was to keep your roommate’s family from finding her. Not to go off on a quest with them to hunt her down.”
“The point is to make sure Ridhi and Ravi end up together.”
“But they’re together now, Mili. And if you leave your long nose out of their business they might stay that way. Why can’t you just stay out of it?”
Because sometimes love needed a tiny push. A little help. Maybe if she’d had someone in her corner, someone to help her meet Virat just once, he’d have seen how much she loved him and she wouldn’t be here pining away for him and trying to make herself worthy of him.
“Because Ridhi is my friend and everyone deserves someone in their corner.” She touched her nose. Nobody had ever called it long before.
“And you’ve done great. You’ve stayed in her corner by not betraying her confidence. Hel—Heck, you jumped off a balcony for shi—God’s sake.”
“Samir, haven’t you ever needed help? Haven’t you ever wanted something so bad you wished the entire universe was in your corner? Haven’t you been in a place where you’ve done everything you possibly can and still it’s not enough? You need just that slightest bit more. Just that one helping hand?”
His face did that thing it did when he slipped behind his wall. It always reminded Mili of those photos of the Italian town of Pompeii when the volcano Mt. Vesuvius erupted. People in poses stuck in the middle of doing some everyday task—pouring water into a cup, stirring a pot on the stove. Frozen in the middle of life. She’d always imagined how the lava might have slipped over them, so fast they didn’t even pause in what they were doing. Samir’s face had a way of freezing over like that, as if a molten mask slid over his face so fast his very essence changed from human to stone in an instant.
“No. I always rely entirely on myself. At least I have ever since I became an adult. Ridhi and Ravi are adults. It’s between them and their families. Why should we get in the middle of it? Besides, don’t you have this thing called a job and this other thing called school?”
“It’s Friday today. I don’t work at the Institute on Mondays so I have the next three days off. I have school under control. And I don’t have to worry about Panda Kong.” She still couldn’t believe how well things had turned out at Panda Kong. She smiled. “Oh God, Samir, I just thought of something. It’s fate that we help Ridhi and Ravi. You won’t believe what happened today. I don’t have to go back to Panda Kong for two weeks. It’s a sign.”
Samir swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked like he might be sick.
“Are you okay, Samir?”
He didn’t respond, but he opened his eyes and looked at her with the strangest expression. He looked almost helpless.
“If you’re worried about my wrist and ankle, don’t be. I can hardly feel it anymore. I’m a really fast healer. I mean, in Balpur I was famous for it.”
Suddenly the helplessness was gone and he looked angry again.
“Oh no. You’re upset because I assumed you would go with us. See, this is what my
naani
says, that I get carried away. It’s just that I—I’m sorry. Of course, you don’t have to come. You have all that writing to do. I’ll just go with Ranvir.”
He grabbed her shoulders, took a step closer, and glared down at her. “You’re not going anywhere with that guy. You’ve known him all of two hours. What’s wrong with you, Mili? For all you know he might be a serial rapist.” His hands were as gentle as ever, but she felt the weight of his fingers as if they were brands on her skin.
“I had no idea you city boys were such drama queens.” She removed his hands and took a step away from him.
He narrowed his eyes at her, not so much drama queen as brooding film hero.
She hated seeing him this way. “I’ve known you all of twelve days, and you’ve done more for me than any friend I’ve ever had.” Suddenly she wished she hadn’t removed his hands.
Another tortured look flashed across his face. She wanted to reach out and wipe it off. “Samir, I should have said this sooner, but you have to know how much what you’ve done means.” She sniffed back the drop that trickled down her nose. “You took care of me when I had no one else.” Oh, forget it. She wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.”
She had meant to give him a quick hug. But his arms went around her, pulled her close and held on. One huge hand pressed her head against his chest. She had forgotten how hard and warm it was, how wild his heartbeat under her ear.
“Mili.” Her name rumbled in his chest. She felt the sound rather than heard it and warmth melted through her like molten gold filling a mold at the goldsmith’s. It slid into her heart and into the deep dark crevices of her body.
She pushed away from him with both hands. Her wrist hurt and she winced. He reached for her hand, but she took two quick steps and backed away from his touch. She couldn’t look at him. A loaded silence wrapped around them. She couldn’t let it stretch into awkwardness. “Seriously, Samir, you’ve done enough. You really don’t have to come along. Look at Ranvir. Do you really think he could hurt anyone?” Something else struck her and she smiled. “You can still use my apartment to write. Just make sure I have some dal to come home to.”
He didn’t respond and she was forced to look up at him.
Instead of his usual arrogant grin she found that his face had darkened again. With a golden face like that, with those honey eyes and that marble-light skin, he could get darker and stormier than anyone she knew.
“I told you you’re not going anywhere with him by yourself.”
“So you’ll come along?” She was an idiot for sounding so relieved, but at least it made his frown go away.
“Yes, but you owe me big time.”
“Yes. I owe you. Anything you want. All you have to do is ask. Good enough?” She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the door.
“Anything I want?” He stopped under the doorway and filled it up next to her. Something about the way he searched her face made more liquid warmth spread in her belly. She swallowed. “Anything I’m in a position to give,” she said carefully.
“So now there are conditions?” His arrogant grin was back. And her relief at seeing it made her touch the wooden door frame for luck. The thought of losing his friendship, of ever letting it go, made her heart ache.
She knew she should step away from him, but she couldn’t. “Not conditions. What is not mine to give, I cannot give, Samir.”
“Fair enough. But I’m warning you, you might regret having ever said those words.”
She already regretted them, and felt oddly wild for having issued the offer. What was it about Samir that made her want to take chances? She wasn’t in a position to take any chances. She had a mission and she had her
mangalsutra
marriage beads and her bright red
sindoor.
And the bonds in which she was tied were ancient and sacred and unbreakable. And above all else the love in her heart was forever pledged to her husband.
12
S
amir knew he should whip out those papers and finish this right now.
Mili looked like she already regretted her promise and it made her look so small, so trapped, his heart did that tight tugging thing again. When they were standing this close she had to lean her head all the way back to look up at him. Her curls cascaded down to her waist as she met his eyes.
An awful feeling of running down a path as it crumbled behind him swirled in Samir’s chest. What an idiot he had been to think this would be easy. If he weren’t this close with the script—if he weren’t terrified that the words would dry up without her. If this weren’t about Bhai and Rima, he would’ve laid everything out in front of her. Right here, right now. She trusted him, he had felt her trust in her body when she hugged him. But trust was the most fragile of things. And what he had to lose was too precious.
No. No matter what he wanted to believe, he knew she would throw him out on his ass if she knew who he was, what he wanted. Something twisted in his gut, and he pushed it away as nothing more than the fear of failing at what he had come for. What he needed was to find the right time to do this. To wait until he was sure she couldn’t refuse him. The time to do it any other way was gone.
He let her pull him out of the room. Ranvir’s slack baby jaw drooped even lower when he saw Mili clinging to Samir’s arm.
Samir pulled her down next to him on the mattress and Slack Jaw settled across from them with the awkwardness of someone who had never sat his princely butt down on a floor.
“So, Ridhi hasn’t called you even once since she left?” he asked, making puppy-dog eyes at Mili.
“No, she’ll call me when Ravi and she are safe from you people.”
Puppy Dog had the gall to look hurt and dial up the goo-goo eyes.
Mili didn’t smack him upside the head like Samir wanted to, but she looked angry enough to want to and it made him ridiculously happy. “Ridhi was really afraid you would hurt Ravi.”
Ranvir shrugged. Samir had no doubt they would throw Ravi under a speeding train and walk away without a backward glance if they thought they could get away with it. These bastards moved across continents and got all refined, but the veneer of civility was paper thin. When it came to their daughters, their special brand of family honor stripped their facades down in a jiffy and turned them into the Neanderthals they really were.
“It’s not like we want to hurt her. Mummy hasn’t eaten since Ridhi left. Daddy hasn’t been able to get out of bed, he’s been so sick. All we want is for her to come home. They are even willing to get them married off. There has to be a way to find out where she is. Can you call her from your cell phone? She won’t answer my calls.”
“I don’t have a cell phone,” Mili said without a whiff of self-consciousness.
Ranvir’s eyes virtually popped out of his head. The idea that human beings could survive without a cell phone seemed outside the grasp of his pea brain.
“So how do you call people?” This guy was a serious insult to dumbasses everywhere.
Instead of putting him in his place, Mili gave him her most patient look. “I have a phone in the office that I use to make calls and I use a calling card to call my
naani
in India. There really is no one else I need to call.”
“What about him?” Ranvir pointed to Samir.
Mili looked up at Samir. He watched her, waiting for her response.
“He’s always here, so I never really have to call him.” She gave Samir a cool I’m-so-glad-you’re-my-friend smile. But her fingers twisted together in her lap. She wasn’t quite as unaffected by him as she wanted to believe.
Bastard that he was, he pushed his advantage. He held her wide-eyed gaze and let the moment stretch. Mili colored. Ranvir shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Good. He didn’t need the bastard complicating the plot any further. Come to think of it, he didn’t want the bastard anywhere near Mili.
He stuck out his hand toward Ranvir without taking his eyes off Mili. “Give me your cell phone.”
Ranvir handed the phone over.
“Do you have your sister’s number in here?”
“Of course. But she’s not answering my calls.” He tried to give Samir a superior look but thought the better of it. The first smart thing he’d done since they’d met.
“Have you texted her?”
“Yes. But she’s not responding to my texts.”
Samir slid open the phone, punched in a message and read it aloud. “Ridhi, Mummy and Daddy have relented. They are willing to get you and Ravi married. I am with Mili. Please call her office phone at nine p.m.”
He hit send.
Ranvir looked at Mili. “You think she’ll call?”
But Mili had eyes only for Samir and a small fire burned in their onyx depths. “We’ll just have to go there and see, won’t we?”
The phone in Mili’s office rang at exactly nine o’clock. Samir was perched on her desk next to the phone and Ranvir was slumped in her chair.
“Ridhi? How are you?” Mili heard the breathless worry in her own voice. She still wasn’t entirely certain she hadn’t been sucked into setting up some sort of trap for Ridhi.
“Mill, Oh God, Mill, are you safe? Did they hurt you?” Ridhi said loud enough for everyone to hear even without a speaker phone. She was in full-on Drama Queen mode. It was so good to hear her voice.
“I’m fine, Ridhi. Are you and Ravi okay?”
“Oh God, Mill, it’s been fantastic. We’ve been doing it like bunnies. Everywhere. I’m in heaven, girl!”
Mili’s cheeks burned. She turned away from Samir’s grin, unable to hold his gaze. She wanted to tell Ridhi to keep her voice down, instead she said, “Ridhi, I have your brother here with me.”
Ridhi sniffed into the phone. “Very good. I hope he heard me. Just so he knows there’s no
honor
left to save.”
Samir gave the phone a thumbs-up.
“Ridhi, I think he’s really worried about you.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why he’s been leaving me threatening messages. He’s not threatened you or anything, has he? I swear I’ll kill him if he has.”
Mili glared at Ranvir. With his chubby, dimpled face he looked like he barely even knew what the word
threaten
meant.
“I’m sorry. I was desperate to get her to come home,” Ranvir said, hanging his head in shame.
Samir rolled his eyes.
“He says he’s sorry,” Mili said into the phone, and Ridhi sniffed again. “Ridhi, I think he’s worried about you. So are your parents. I don’t think they are going to hurt Ravi. They want you to come back.”
“Have you talked to my parents?” Ridhi tried to sound scoffing but Mili heard a thread of hope in her voice and her heart twisted.
“No, but I can if you want me to.” She turned to Ranvir. “I need to talk to your parents.”
It took Ranvir two seconds to get his mother on his cell phone and hand it over to Mili.
Loud sobbing exploded from the phone even before Mili could get it to her ear. “Oh God,
beta,
bless you, bless you. You have no idea what we have gone through. Oh, my Ridhika. Oh, my baby. Is she okay?” No wonder Ridhi was so dramatic.
“Auntie, she’s fine. She’s just scared.”
“What ‘scared’? What does she think we will do? What did I do to deserve this from my own daughter? Tell her to come home. Tell her Mummy will die without her.”
In the other ear, Ridhi spoke. “Is she on? Is she shrieking in your ear?”
Samir made a noose with his hands and pretended to hang himself. He looked so amused with himself Mili whacked his thigh with Ranvir’s phone, then pressed it against her jeans. She spoke into the office phone. “Ridhi, your mother is really very upset.”
“Mill, Mummy is always upset. Tell her I won’t marry anyone else.”
Mili moved the cell phone back to her ear. Ridhi’s mom’s sobbing had taken on a note of hysteria. “Auntie. Please calm down. Ridhi is okay.”
“Don’t”—Ridhi’s mom shouted into her right ear before making the effort to lower her voice—“tell me to calm down. My pride and joy has run away with some boy.”
“Is she calling Ravi names? If she calls Ravi names, I’m never coming home.” This was Ridhi in her left ear.
“Auntie, Ridhi says she won’t marry anyone else.”
“Oh God, but Dr. Mehra’s boy is a cardiologist.” She said the word
cardiologist
with such reverence she forgot to cry. “
And
he’s Punjabi.”
“Ravi is a software engineer,” Mili said into the phone.
“I know what Ravi is. Why are you telling me that? What did she say about Ravi? How dare she? I’m hanging up.”
“Ridhi, wait, please don’t hang up.”
It was taking all of Samir’s strength not to take both phones and toss them out the window. It had been amusing for the first five minutes. But now these two were killing Mili. She was wound as tight as his Breitling. If the conversation ended badly, and how could it not, he had no doubt she would blame the entire debacle on herself.
Ranvir was opening and closing his mouth like a hapless fish and doing absolutely nothing to help the poor girl out. So much for “Ranvir.” It meant “the victorious warrior.” Who the fuck had named him that?
Samir pulled the landline phone out of Mili’s hand. “Okay, listen, Ridhika,” he said in the voice he used on his junior artists when he needed them to take him seriously, fast. “Your parents want you to come home. They are going to pay for your wedding—in full Yash Chopra splendor. Then they are going to send you on a honeymoon to Switzerland, just like in Bollywood movies. All they want in return is that you come home and act like all this nonsense never happened. Either you take the offer, or you go to the registrar’s office, sign on a ledger, and act like you don’t have a family. It’s your call.”
“Who the hell are you?” this Ridhi person asked in a terrifyingly nasal American accent, completely ignoring the real question at hand.
He said a little prayer for the poor fuck who had signed up for this for the rest of his life. “It doesn’t matter. We’re calling you from this number in ten minutes. Have your answer ready.” And with that he clicked off the phone.
Mili stared at him, openmouthed, as if he had sprouted a third eye. Shrill shouting came from the cell phone hanging from her hand.
“Tell Auntieji her daughter’s coming home and to start making wedding arrangements.”
Mili pulled the phone to her ear. “Hello, Auntie?” The shrieking stopped instantly. “Ridhi is willing to come home if you promise to treat Ravi with respect and if you give them your blessings.”
“So she’ll come home and get married at home?” The hysteria evaporated from the voice like magic.
Mili’s shoulders dropped a good two inches. “Yes, and she’ll even let you plan the wedding and invite as many people as you want. As long as she’s the bride and Ravi’s the groom.”
Nicely done, Mili.
There was some excited shrieking over the phone and Mili couldn’t stop grinning. Then Ridhi’s mom said something and Mili’s face fell. Great, now the woman chose to speak in human decibels.
“Thanks,” Mili said in a small voice. “Yes, I’ll try.”
When she hung up she was smiling again but the joy was gone from her smile and Samir wanted to strangle the woman.
He redialed Ridhi’s number and handed Mili the phone. At least the ear-splitter roommate would bring her smile back. It did.
As expected the runaway couple was all set to go home to Ohio and let Mummy and Daddy get them married. There was much sobbing and laughter and then the nasal voice dropped to a whisper. Color slid over Mili’s cheeks and she looked away from him.
“We’ll talk later,” she mumbled into the phone.
And Samir knew without a doubt that Ridhi had asked Mili about him.
Three days after Samir had pulled off that incredible phone rescue Mili waited outside Pierce Hall for him. The yellow convertible screeched to a halt in front of her and Samir sprang out of the car in his usual style, like Ali Baba springing from his earthen urn. He ran around the car and let her in, then he waited until she was settled in her seat before jumping in next to her. She could get around without her cane now but Samir refused to let her walk back and forth from the university. He dropped her off at Pierce Hall in the afternoon and then picked her up and took her home in the evening after class.
“Did you speak to the crazy roomie today? Is she back at her parents’ house?”
Mili nodded. Ridhi hadn’t been able to stop talking about the wedding. Her mother and she had flown to New York for a day to shop for Ridhi’s wedding
lehenga
and jewelry. “Yup, auntie and she are trying to plan the wedding of the century in one week.”
Samir groaned. “That sounds painful. So when do you leave for the wedding?”
“I’m not going.”
“What do you mean you’re not going?”
For obvious reasons Mili didn’t exactly love weddings, but that didn’t stop her from being heartbroken that she couldn’t go to Ridhi’s wedding that weekend. For one, she had no way of getting from Ypsilanti to Columbus. As of today she was three days behind on her rent and she felt like a full-fledged criminal, living in a home she wasn’t paying for. So buying a bus ticket was out of the question.
“Mili?” Samir made his signature screeching turn into their parking lot and she grabbed the dashboard and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I have schoolwork to finish.”
“You told me that you had school under control when you were all set to go traipsing off with Ranvir.”
“What are you, some sort of wedding-guest policeman?”
“Far from it. I find weddings hideous. But I thought Ridhi was your best friend. And I thought weddings meant more to you girls than the air you breathe.”
“I think air is definitely more important than weddings.” Unlike marriage, which was definitely more important than the air you breathed.