The sleeplessness had come in handy in one respect. He’d come to a decision. He needed to tell Jia that he wanted to scrap this ridiculous arrangement of theirs. He didn’t want to be her pretend boyfriend. He wanted to be her real one. Possibly more. She made him happy and made him think, and each second he was in her company felt like a second too little.
You’re sounding like your scripts.
So what if he was acting out a serial? No, not a serial. A serial had foreboding moments and twists and turns. This felt more muted and warm, though it still retained an undercurrent of passion.
Dev leaned against the post at the front of the inn and thought about her possible reactions. She could say no, that despite their almost-kiss she wasn’t interested in him like that. Or she could jump in his arms and declare her affections as well. Or there were about ten other scenarios that could happen between those two extremes.
The sound of a car engine came from down the road and Dev straightened as his rental came into view, towed by a truck. The truck came to a stop in front of the inn, and a stoop-shouldered elderly man got out. “This your car?”
“It is, yes.”
The older man grunted, handed him a bill, and went around the truck to take the car down. A man of few words. That was fine.
Dev took out his wallet while the man unhooked his car. He really was running low on cash. He pulled out what was left and handed it to the man when he finished. The man counted it and nodded. “Thanks for paying in cash instead of asking if I take credit cards or have this app or that app.”
Dev didn’t have any apps for payment either. “No problem.” He accepted his keys from the guy and dropped them in his pocket. He turned around and jumped to find Jia standing right behind him, silent.
She was dressed in yesterday’s wilted clothes, carrying her camera and the sweats he’d bought her in the plastic bag they’d come in. This was the first time he’d ever seen her without makeup.
It was hard to look at her straight on, and not simply because she was so beautiful. He knew the names of each makeup tool she used to paint her face. There were layers of foundation and blush and highlighter and mascara and contour and eyeliner and shadow between them usually. Now, there was nothing.
His father used to tell him that he’d fallen in love with his mother within a few hours. She’d been a tailor’s daughter, someone he would have never even met if Adil Uncle hadn’t had a scholarship to the same private school his dad attended. They’d married within the month and had been happy together for the years they’d had.
But Dev had been skeptical of his parents’ claim of instant love. Until, perhaps, now.
This could be infatuation.
No. He’d never been a man given to infatuation or fantasy. He didn’t know what falling for someone felt like, but he imagined it was something like this. This calm certainty in their presence. Certainty, except for the part where he didn’t know how she felt about him.
She looked like she wanted to kiss you.
That could mean anything. Kissing wasn’t a declaration of love nowadays, if it had ever been.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
“Good morning.” He turned the car keys in a circle on his finger. “Do you want some breakfast or coffee before we leave?”
“No, I’m fine.” Her gaze skittered away, which made his stomach drop.
“Jia—”
“Should we head out then?” she asked brightly.
He nodded and went to the car to open her door. She slid in, placing the bag on the floorboard, and settled her hands in her lap.
They were silent for the first fifteen minutes after they left town, and Dev finally cleared his throat. There was no way they could stand this awkwardness for two and a half hours. At some point, they needed to address that almost-kiss.
His phone beeped with a message, but he ignored it. “Jia—” His phone started ringing, and he cursed and tapped it to silence it. “I suppose we have reception now.”
A chime came from her camera bag. “I suppose so,” she said, smiling ruefully.
“I think we should talk about—” Another beep, from her phone. “That is, I think of you very high—” Another beep.
“Ignore it.” Jia turned toward Dev, as much as the seat belt would allow. “Continue?”
Best to do this quick. “We almost kissed last night, didn’t we?”
She bit her lip, and nodded. “It’s okay. I don’t take it personally, that you didn’t want to.”
Except she’d gone rigid. He cast her an incredulous glance. “Of course I wanted to kiss you. I’ve wanted to do that since the minute I met you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. But we were in the middle of nowhere, we hadn’t had a discussion yet about our future or physical affection, there was only one bed . . .”
“Yes, yes, the one bed.”
“I only thought we should talk first. Away from the bed.”
“Probably a good thing you’re less impulsive than me,” she murmured. “I might have gone in for the kiss.”
He shifted in his seat, suddenly warm. “Ah.”
“I always planned on waiting for marriage to have sex, but that plan was a lot easier to stick to when there was no one I wanted to make out with.” Jia scratched her head. “Is this what teens feel like? No wonder they can be volatile.”
He nearly choked. “You, uh, want to . . . I see.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Was that answer too quick? “I mean, of course. But I am fine with waiting, as well.”
Jia interlinked her fingers. “So you, like, see that in our future? Marriage?”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Yes. The truth is, I like you. Very much. Romantically. I’m willing to wait as long as you like, but my end goal would be marriage. It doesn’t have to be right away. We could spend more time getting to know each other, see if we suit.” Dev didn’t need more time. He was frighteningly ready. But he wanted Jia to have the option of time.
She opened her mouth, but her phone started chiming in rapid succession. “Argh. Hang on. Let me just turn it off . . .” She leaned over and fumbled in her bag, then pulled out the phone and stopped, half hunched over.
“Jia?”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. She straightened and started scrolling through her phone. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“Jia? What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God.”
The car drifted into the shoulder for a second, before he corrected it. “What?”
She turned the phone toward him. He glanced at it, but he was too careful a driver to take his eyes off the road for very long. “I can’t read it. What does it say?”
“We’re engaged.”
Chapter Seventeen
“HOW COULD you do this,” Dev hissed into the phone.
Chandu was unfazed. “Dev, I had no choice.”
Dev ran his hand through his hair. He’d been trying to call Chandu for hours, for the whole drive back to Jia’s home in Santa Barbara.
His head ached from lack of sleep and the emotional roller coaster of the morning. While their phones continued to blow up from friends and her family, she’d read him the highlights.