She’d rented an apartment for the next six months in Melbourne’s tallest residential building, Eureka Tower, for one reason: when she’d lived in Melbourne, she hadn’t visited it with Avi. It had the added bonus of being near the one woman guaranteed to join her in a drink and make her laugh enough to forget her mother’s meddling matchmaking.
Pia strode into the bar, and heads turned. At five ten, with a rocking body and cascades of black hair falling to her waist, she looked like an Indian supermodel. The elegant emerald salwar kameez added to her air of mystery. Samira had shunned her mom’s choice of Indian clothing from childhood, and Pia had done the same, but once she’d married Dev, an Indian engineer from Bengaluru, she’d chosen to revert to tradition. It made her stand out in all the right ways.
“Hey, babe, do you come here often?” Pia opened her arms when she reached the bar, and Samira stepped into them, hugging her cousin and best friend tight.
“Lame,” she said, gently shoving her away. “Now sit your gorgeous ass down and let’s order a drink.”
“Perfect.” Pia wrinkled her nose and pointed at Samira’s glass. “Is that bourbon?”
“Don’t judge. I needed it.” She downed the rest of her bourbon and gestured at the bartender. “Vodkatini okay?”
“Better than okay.” Pia unwound the silk scarf from around her neck and slid onto the barstool next to her. “I take it dinner with your mom was a bit of a trial?”
“It was fine,” she said, her gaze darting toward the bottles lining the back of the bar, unable to sustain contact with Pia’s astute stare.
“Let me guess; it went something like this: Samira, my girl, I have a nice Indian boy for you to meet. He’s a doctor. Tall. Handsome. Fair and all.”
Her mimicry of Samira’s mother was so accurate she couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not funny. Even after the Avi disaster, she wants to poke her nose into my love life.”
“She’s getting old. She’s alone. And she’s Indian.” Pia shrugged. “What else is she going to do?”
“She could butt the hell out,” Samira said, but her chest tightened. Her mom was aging; Kushi would be seventy this year. She’d been widowed five years ago, and that had been the last time Samira visited Melbourne, for her dad’s funeral. Kushi had no family in Melbourne except her sister, Sindhu, Pia’s mother, and during their intermittent phone calls, she never failed to make Samira feel guilty for abandoning her and moving to “that horrible, godforsaken place.”
“It’s tough being back here,” she said, hating the defensive edge in her voice. “I need time.”
The bitterness of her divorce should’ve faded twelve years later. But the moment her plane had touched down on the tarmac at Tullamarine Airport, she’d been swamped with an unwanted blend of regret and anger and sadness, tinged with the faintest hope. Hope that she could move past this and mend the breach with her mom once and for all.
“She cares about you.” Pia patted her cheek in the same way her mom had done to Samira many times growing up. “We all do.”
“I know.” Blinking back tears, Samira nodded her thanks when the bartender placed two vodkatinis in front of them.
“Moving on to more important matters.” Pia leaned in close, her exaggerated whisper conspiratorial. “Did you pack condoms?”
Samira elbowed her away. “I’m here on business, not a Samira-does-Down-Under jaunt.”
“You’re here for six months, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’ve seen the kind of guys Australia produces? Chris Hemsworth. Hugh Jackman. Sam Worthington. Eric Bana. Hello?”
Personally, Samira was a Shahid Kapoor kind of gal. She may only be half Indian, but her love affair with Bollywood couldn’t be denied.
“And you’re single after a dead-end relationship I warned you about?” Pia smirked and nudged her.
“Hamlyn was a nice guy.”
Pia snorted. “Nice is pink tutus and octogenarians and a white Christmas. Nice should not be used to describe the man of your dreams.”
Samira ran a finger around the rim of her glass, a small part of her agreeing but not willing to acknowledge it. “Hamlyn was a nice guy. He treated me well, he didn’t leave the toilet seat up, and he always recapped the toothpaste.”
“That’s awfully nice of him, but did he rock your world?”
Heat seeped into Samira’s cheeks as she silently cursed the girls’ night out they’d had when Pia last visited LA three months ago, when she’d consumed too many margaritas and blurted the sorry tale of her lackluster sex life.
She loved her cousin, and despite living on different continents, they were closer than ever. They Skyped and emailed several times a week, and Pia made an annual pilgrimage to LA. Yet another thing Samira felt guilty about: not reciprocating.
“Whatever.” Samira shrugged. “Besides, Hamlyn is history.”
She’d made sure of it when he suggested they move in together after only dating four months. He’d been her longest relationship post-divorce, but familiarity bred comfort, and to her that meant one thing: trouble.
“Uh-oh.” Pia’s eyes widened before she shook her head. “You’re not still pining for Avi?”
“Hell no.” Bitterness clogged her throat. “I got over that prick a long time ago.”
She hadn’t loved Avi, not at the start. That had come later, after she’d allowed herself to be swept into the Bollywood fantasy she’d always craved. Avi was handsome, suave, and charming, and she’d been sucked in, marrying him within nine months. Over a year later, she’d discovered he’d had an affair, got some nineteen-year-old kuthi pregnant, and was leaving her because that bitch could give him something she couldn’t: a baby.
Since then, she’d vowed to find love her way. Twelve years later, she was still looking.
Pia’s smile waned, and something soft and warm flickered in her coal black eyes. Samira loved that about her. As hard as Pia pushed her, she always knew when to back down. “Fine. You’re over Avi, the Hamster’s history, and you’ve got a smorgasbord of hot Aussie guys waiting for you.”
“I don’t need a fling.”
Samira gestured to the barman for another round of drinks and reached for a strand of hair to twirl around her finger, a lifelong habit, and came up empty. Maybe getting a layered bob the day after she’d dumped Hamlyn hadn’t been such a great idea.
“You’re in denial.” Pia’s plucked eyebrows shot high. “We both know Wham-Bam-Ham was a three-minute wonder. He was a fuddy-duddy stuck in his ways and boring as bat shit.” She snapped her fingers. “You know what you need? A boy toy. Some hot younger guy to give you a damn good screwing to get rid of the cobwebs.”