Bad idea. Very, very bad idea. Samir turned around, starting to head back down the drive. Where was that taxi dude? Maybe if he walked quickly, he could catch up to him at that little cross street—
“Yo.” Something hit him on the head and bounced into a nearby rhododendron bush. He turned to see Pinky on the second-floor deck, squinting in the sun as she looked down at him, her elbows resting on the banister. She wore a blue tank top and bright pink shorts, her long brown legs ending in bare feet. And she’d rubbed lotion on them or something, because there was the slightest shimmer to her bronze skin—
“Getting a good look?”
Samir’s eyes snapped up to Pinky’s, and he felt a slow, hot flush creep up his neck and envelop his face. “Huh, uh, who?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Mm-hmm. Where are you going anyway?”
Samir felt his head with his free hand. It stung, he realized, somewhat belatedly. “Wait. Did you throw something at me?”
“It was just a baby carrot. Relax,” Pinky said. “Seriously, where the hell are you going?”
“Yeah, it’s nice to see you, too. And you’re welcome. You know, for coming all the way from DC to participate in your little deception—”
“Shh!” She put a finger to her lips and glanced behind her. Turning to face him again, she said, sotto voce, “Come around the side and I’ll meet you at the backyard gate.”
Samir finger combed his hair quickly and walked around the side of the house. The honeysuckle smell got stronger, and he noticed with consternation that there were quite a lot of bees humming busily around the white flowers. “Um…” Samir reached out for the gate and then pulled back, not wanting to anger the tiny terrors.
The gate swung open and Pinky stood before him, still barefoot. She was nearly as tall as him, even without shoes on. “Hey.” She looked him up and down slowly. “Nice.”
He felts his cheeks getting warm again. “Oh, thanks. You look nice too.”
Pinky rolled her eyes. Her eyebrow ring—a new addition; he hadn’t seen it yet—sparkled in the sun. Her bangs were all wavy on her forehead. “No, I mean you look exactly like the kind of guy my parents keep harping on me to date.”
Samir glanced down at his button-down shirt, which was tucked into his dark slacks—the sleeves rolled up—and his black shoes. His tie was slightly askew and he adjusted it. He didn’t normally wear ties, let alone expensive, designer silk ties, to visit friends, but he’d wanted to impress Veena Kumar with his maturity. “What kind of guy is that? Levelheaded? Sensible? Going places?”
Pinky turned around and walked into the yard, and he followed. “Prudish. Traditional. Pruditional.”
“I am not pruditional!”
“Mm-hmm. Nice cuff links.”
“My sleeves are rolled up!”
“Did you or did you not have cuff links on at some point this week, though?”
“Okay, but I took them out. Besides, it was just for the first day of my internship! I have other clothes in here. Weekend clothes.”
Pinky glanced at him as they walked to a small gazebo, tucked into a corner, away from the watchful windows of the house. The sun sizzled on the crown of Samir’s head. “Oh yeah? What are those? Wait, let me guess. Polo shirts, khaki pants. Loafers?”
“No,” Samir said. After a pause, he added in a half mumble, “They’re khaki shorts.” Annoyed, he added, “What about you? Did you fall into a vat of melted Jolly Ranchers, or is that something you paid someone to do to your hair?”
Pinky scoffed. “Nice comeback. For a third grader.” Then she climbed the steps into the gazebo. It smelled of wood and plants and sun, like summer was supposed to smell. Once they were both inside, she turned to face Samir. “Look, like I said, that’s totally fine with me. The entire point of this whole thing is for you to impress my parents.”
Samir set his suitcase down and then did a double take. Squinting past her at the far corner of the yard, he said, “What the hell?”
She turned to look over her shoulder. “Oh yeah. That.”
Samir walked toward the railing around the gazebo and leaned forward. “Did you have a fire?”
“Yeah… that was kind of the catalyst for you to be here.”
Samir spun around to face her. She wasn’t quite meeting his eye. “You didn’t say anything about a fire! Did you set the fire? What am I, your patsy? Listen, Pinky Kumar, I am not going down for arson—not for you, not for anyone.”
“Oh my God, will you relax?” Pinky stared at him. “I forgot how uptight you are. And who says ‘patsy’ in real life anyway?”
Samir narrowed his eyes. “Tell me about the fire.”
“All right, all right. My mom thought I’d set the fire and basically called me an arsonist. Well, I’m not. I didn’t set it, okay? Turns out D—someone else did it. But naturally, my mom immediately suspected me. Because hello, who else would do something as messed up as that, right?” She laughed, but the laugh was tinged with some real anger. Samir kept silent. “Anyway, then she said something about how I’d never had a boyfriend she approved of or something and I found myself telling her you were my boyfriend. So.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry.” Pinky rolled her eyes. “No one’s going to think you’re an arsonist, Mr. Khaki Shorts. They already know who did it.”
Samir relaxed a bit and leaned back against the gazebo’s narrow wooden pillar. “The entire reason I’m here is so you can show them you’re capable of dating someone they’d approve of? So they think you’re, what, a decent, upstanding citizen incapable of arson?”
Pinky glared at him. “I am a decent, upstanding citizen incapable of arson.”
Samir’s shirt was sticking to his back in the sweltering heat in this enclosed space and he was getting kind of annoyed. “Are you always so defensive?”
“Are you always so annoying?”
Samir crossed his arms. “You know, I can just call a cab and head back to the airport. I don’t need this.”
“Oh yeah? Head back where? To your nonexistent internship?”
They stared at each other. Out on the lake, there was a big splash and some dude whooped. “Fine,” Samir said finally. “I do need this. But so do you. So can we at least try to get along?”
Pinky smirked. A bird warbled in the trees, sweet and sad, in direct contrast to this baby shark he was stuck with in the gazebo. “What do you think this is, kindergarten? We don’t need to get along in the sandbox, Samir. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
Samir blinked. Whoa. “Wow. Okay.”
Sighing, Pinky ran a hand along the back of her neck. “Look,” she said, shrugging, “I just want my parents to like you and to see me as something other than a delinquent.”
Interesting. And why did that seem to get under her skin so much? But whatever. He wasn’t her therapist. Samir held up his hands. “Hey, that works for me. So what are the ground rules for this thing?”
Pinky frowned and leaned against the handrail. It seemed she had only three expressions: smirk like a jerk, frown in disdain, or glare with intent to maim. “What do you mean? You have to pretend to be my boyfriend. Why do we need rules?”