“I’m in too,” Dolly said, giving her another hug. “Let’s do this together. Let’s help the town save its butterfly habitat!”
Smiling, Pinky linked her arms with the both of theirs, her blood pumping fast and furiously, the way it did when she knew she was going to help with a cause and win. Behind them, DQ, finally awake, chirped happily.
CHAPTER 12 Pinky
The next night, after dinner, Pinky sat out on the deck with the lights out, looking up at the stars. The cicadas chirped and sang in the cool air, which held the tang of lake water. Sitting here felt as comfortable to her as sitting in her room back home in Atherton. Pinky couldn’t remember a summer when she hadn’t felt the warm wooden floorboards under her bare feet, when she hadn’t lain back in a deck chair and gazed up at the crystal-clear Cape Cod sky, knowing that sometimes home is more than one solitary place.
Everyone else was indoors or otherwise occupied—the adults were playing a game of poker, Dolly was at Cash’s (though her cover was that she was walking DQ, who was with her), and Samir was… well, Pinky didn’t know where he was. She was kind of avoiding him. That was the whole reason she was out on the porch right now under the cover of darkness.
She leaned back in the chaise lounge and closed her eyes, feeling the stillness of the night pressing down like a warm hand on her skin. Practice kissing Samir… Why had she responded the way she had? The wave of desire that had overtaken her had been incredible; she’d never felt a tsunami like that before. It was as if her body had been a dam, filled to bursting with wanting and lust. All it had taken was one touch from him and she’d opened the gates, letting it all out.
Cringing, she remembered how she’d told him she needed more practice sessions. Arrrgh. If she were him, she’d be totally turned off by the sheer desperation.
Except…
Pinky opened her eyes again, her thoughts churning, going over details she’d already gone over thousands of times in her mind. She remembered how he’d gazed at her for a long moment before asking her to practice kiss him. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t been into it too. Something about his kiss hadn’t felt very practice-like. In fact, it had felt pretty… genuine. It had felt like the real thing for him, too.
And the way he’d extolled her virtues to Gloria and Dolores and then volunteered to help her with the butterfly habitat, even though she knew going against authority must be anathema for him. It would be like Pinky wearing a T-shirt advertising a credit card company or something—totally out of character. And the heartfelt appreciation he’d shown for the one place that meant so much to her. That wasn’t something you did for someone you barely liked or considered a business acquaintance.
Pinky stared off into the darkness at the tree line, her pulse thumping at her throat. And what if Samir was developing feelings for her? What did that mean for her, for them?
Nothing, she told herself firmly. It meant nothing. It could never mean anything because they were completely different. What was she doing, fantasizing about a guy like Samir? They were too different. She’d spent her entire life thinking about who she wanted to be, and she’d very carefully realized this is exactly who she was, whether her mother liked it or approved of it or not: Pinky Kumar was, to her core, a wild and free spirit, a puff of dandelion seed on the wind, someone who would never, ever, ever be with a guy whose big dream was to become a corporate lawyer. A guy who made detailed notes in his planner, whose life was scheduled and organized down to the last minute. Because if she went out with someone like that, she may as well call herself Veena Kumar and begin wearing cardigans with pearl buttons.
She heard the sound of the French doors opening and called out, “Yeah, I’m out here, Dad.” He always got worried when he couldn’t see her for more than twenty minutes. She’d once overheard him telling someone that Pinky was like a toddler; the longer she was silent, the more worried you got about what she was up to.
“Hey.”
A wave of feeling rippled through her at the honeyed male voice. She turned to see Samir walking over to her in that casually confident way he had. “Oh.” She adjusted the hem of her shorts, which had ridden way up high on her thighs. “Hi.”
“You mind if I sit out here with you for a bit?” he asked, gesturing to the empty chaise lounge next to hers.
“Not at all.” Pinky found herself sitting very stiffly and artificially as he kicked off his sandals and made himself comfortable next to her.
Folding his hands behind his head, he said, after a moment, “This is nice. Really peaceful. The burned-out husk of a barn in the corner really adds to the ambience.”
“Oh, um, yes. I think so too.” Her mind was whirring again, wondering if he’d try to take her hand here in the darkness, or if he’d come out here to talk about them or—
“Are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, why?” She turned to him. His face glowed in the softly filtered light coming from the house through the curtains at the French doors.
“You look…” He frowned. “Like you’re in pain or something.”
“Oh. I was just thinking.”
He laughed. “And it’s that agonizing, huh?”
She whacked him on his chest with the back of her hand. His really nicely muscled chest. “Shut up.” After a pause, she asked, “Did you really mean it? You want to help me with whatever Gloria has planned for the habitat?”
Samir nodded. “I do. I really want to help you.”
“But… why?” she forced herself to ask. It was important to her that he tell her. She felt like she’d been going back and forth in her head all day, thinking about the kiss, the things he’d said to Gloria about her, how he’d wanted to visit the habitat in the first place and how he’d volunteered to help with it. She needed to know what Samir’s agenda was. Did he really like her? It didn’t make any sense; the two of them together made zero sense. So, really, she was hoping he’d tell her what she wanted to hear, something that would make all of this less complicated. She was hoping he’d tell her she was full of herself like he had before. She was hoping he’d give her an out.
Samir looked a little confused. “Do you not want me to?”
“No, I do. I just… This is really out of character for you, right?” He nodded his assent. “So why are you doing it? It wasn’t part of our original deal.”
In the dim lights of the deck, Samir’s face was frozen and shadowed for a moment, unreadable. And then he smiled.
Samir
It was funny; she was asking him the same question he’d spent all day asking himself. Why had he agreed to help her with the habitat in a city he had absolutely no ties to? They were bound to lose; of this Samir had no doubt. So then… why?
He gazed into her softly shining brown eyes and ran a hand through his hair, feeling discombobulated. “Why? I don’t know. You’re loud and obnoxious and pigheaded and sometimes you make absolutely no sense. Most times, actually.”
Her eyes turned flinty. “Oh, really.”
“Yeah, really. You yell at me and needle me and you make fun of just about every single thing I do. You’re a walking ball of chaos; you’re practically my biggest fear.”