Lakshmi lifted her chin and draped her arm over her knee, her dress flowing around her. The silver studs on her boots gleamed in the sunlight. “I am good. Also, hello Kettle. I am the Pot. Or, former Pot.”
Jia let out a shaky breath. It was like Lakshmi had peered into her soul and ripped out her deepest secret. “How did you do it? Stop caring what people thought?”
“Oh, years of therapy. Here is the secret.” She leaned closer, and so did Jia. “I stopped.”
“Wow,” Jia deadpanned. “Amazing.”
“No, really.” Lakshmi lifted a shoulder. “I decided I had two options: I could be miserable and live my life as others wanted me to, or I could be happy and do what I wanted. Boiled down to that, the choice was easy.”
“But how do I stop?”
“Be confident. Twist what others tell you are your weaknesses into strengths. What did I call you? Soft? You’re kind.”
Jia played with the napkin. “Flighty.”
“A dreamer.”
“Frivolous.”
“Lighthearted.”
“Impulsive.”
“Good at thinking on your feet.”
Jia swallowed. “Too much.”
Lakshmi waved her hand. “That’s not an insult. Would you rather be too little?”
Jia sat back, the gears in her brain turning. It couldn’t be that easy. It wouldn’t be that easy. It would take, as Lakshmi noted, years to unpack all her anxiety about others’, especially her family’s, opinions.
Yet, this could be a way to start?
“Put aside everyone else’s feelings. Do you want to get engaged to this guy?”
“Yes.” She didn’t even hesitate, which made her chest swell. Yes. She could be confident about this, and she’d stick to it. No matter what anyone else thought about them.
She wasn’t lonely right now, as she’d been when Arjun had found her. She wanted Dev in her life, she didn’t need him in her life, and that made all the difference. They might have taken a twisty road, but she liked the destination.
Lakshmi opened her laptop. “Then I guess we need to do some preliminary research on Shweta Dixit and come up with a plan.”
“We?”
“Sure.” Lakshmi’s smile was the first genuine one the woman had given to her. “I owe it to you. I judged you too quick, and I try not to do that. We probably have more in common than we don’t.”
“I didn’t make it easy on you,” Jia said magnanimously.
“You definitely did not. But I’m usually better at seeing through a tough act. So. Plan?”
“I’m not good at sticking to plans.”
“No one is. Remember that thing about being quick at thinking on your feet? Let’s make a couple of general plans, and you can twist those as you see fit.”
Her brisk no-nonsense approach calmed Jia. “I should text Dev.”
Lakshmi was already typing. “Go ahead.”
Told my family that we’re engaged. They’re coming in a few days to meet your grandma. The game is afoot, I repeat, the game is afoot.
Jia hit send and turned to her new friend. “Okay. Let’s make a plan.”
DEV ENTERED HIS apartment and dropped his keys on the table in the foyer. The noise of the metal hitting the wood punctuated the clatter of a pot in the kitchen. Dev followed the sound and winced when he found his uncle standing behind the stove. Every burner was on full blast, and the stove was on. The kitchen wasn’t small, but it was warm from the heat. Competing scents warred with one another, adding to the chaos.
Though he hadn’t lived with his uncle for long, Dev was quite aware that this cooking frenzy probably wasn’t a great sign.
Adil whirled around. “There you are. Young man, where have you been?”
Dev shifted from one foot to the other. He’d never had to deal with an elder catching him sneaking into the house, but he imagined it felt like this. “I told you, I got stuck a few hours east of here.”
“With your fiancée?” Adil Uncle drew himself up to his whole five feet and five inches and glared at Dev. “Imagine my surprise to find out you are engaged. You didn’t respond to my texts. I had no idea what to say to everyone calling me for information.”
Fuck. “I’m sorry, I had so many messages, I missed yours. I should have informed you what was going on.”
“What is going on, exactly, Dev? You told me you were simply meeting with her to atone for your brother and cousin’s behavior, as a friend.”
Dev rested his hands on the counter for support. “I know. Uncle, you must have seen the messages that were leaked. Those were the texts between Jia and Arjun. Chandu did the first thing he could to kill the gossip, and said we were engaged.”
Adil Uncle narrowed his gaze. “But . . . in that case, you could say your people made an error.”
“That’ll hurt Jia.”
His uncle waved the spatula he was holding. Something red spattered on the stove. “You can’t get married to save a reputation, Dev. This isn’t the twentieth century.”
“I’m getting married to her because I admire her greatly,” he said simply. “And I cannot imagine a better partner and coparent to Luna.”
Adil Uncle scrutinized Dev for a long moment, and slowly, he lowered his utensil. “You want this.”
“I do.” Dev controlled the quiver of his lips. Under the panic and the worry was pure excitement at the prospect of actually being married to Jia at some vague point in the future.
“You’re a romantic like your parents, I see. The rest of your father’s family couldn’t stifle that out of you.”
His cheeks grew warm. “I don’t know about romantic.”
“I do.” Adil dropped his spatula in the pot and stirred with vigor. “Well, now. This is a different story. I have been praying for you to find a good woman, and here she is. It calls for a celebration. We will invite her and her family over, and I will cook.”
“Actually . . .” He hesitated. “Aji has told me she is coming here to meet Jia.”
Adil’s head came up. “I see.”
Dev flinched at his uncle’s carefully neutral tone. Adil had never met his sister’s husband’s parents, and had only spoken with them on the phone when Dev and Rohan’s parents had died.
While his grandfather had sneered at any mention of his mother, Adil Uncle had been careful to never malign Dev’s father or his paternal family in his presence. Dev would never permit his uncle to feel left out of important family decisions. “Of course, you will be there as well. Jia has already met you, you will be a friendly face. You live with us, it is even more important you get along.”
Adil cleared his throat and dashed his arm over his eyes. “Yes, yes. I would like that very much. By the way, you should speak to Luna.”
Dev stilled. Oh no. That did not sound promising. “Did you tell her?”
“I didn’t have to. Her friends have been texting her all morning. She was deeply unhappy when I picked her up from her sleepover.”
He hadn’t gotten to Luna soon enough. “Unhappy how?”
“She wouldn’t talk to me or look me in the eye, only asked if it was true. I couldn’t tell her if it was or wasn’t.”