Raj didn’t want to ask why. He really didn’t. “The back door, Aji?” he said instead, after they were out of Mr. Hohepa’s house.
“Let’s walk to the park and back,” she said, and so they walked under the quiet night sky. “I wanted to talk to you,” Nayna’s grandmother told him on their journey back. “My Nayna, she’s flowering, but some things have always mattered to her. Family, love, a place to call home.”
Raj frowned but didn’t interrupt.
Aji patted his forearm again. “Before Madhuri did her silly running away, Nayna would talk about traveling and seeing wild places, but she also looked at bridal magazines and planned her own wedding as girls often do.”
“People change,” Raj said, thinking once again of Navin and Komal.
“Yes. Look at me with a boyfriend at my age.” Delight in every word. “But I’m still the Heera my husband married too. Just because we grow doesn’t mean we forget our old selves. We are all created of many skins.” Waving him down when they reached the back door, she kissed his cheek. “You love her as my Nayna deserves to be loved. Don’t lose faith in your own ability to grow.”
Raj stared down at the seamed lines of her face, feeling the sense of tightness around his chest snap. “Midnight walks and shared secrets?”
Aji’s smile was luminous. “See? You understand.” She opened the back door. “Love grows when it is tended.”
36
Aji Interference Is Good Interference
Nayna’s mouth fell open. She’d dropped by her parents’ early morning on Saturday to say hello before she went in to work for a few hours to wrap things up. Only Aji was up. “You called Raj?” she squeaked, wondering what her traditional lover had made of her grandmother having a boyfriend.
“Of course I did.” Having boiled up the milk and sugar, Aji added the rolled oats. Watery oatmeal was not the done thing in the Sharma household; it was proper milk porridge, thick and rich, or it was nothing. “I think I shocked him, but he walked me back and told me to call him anytime I needed him—he also said Tawhiri and I need to walk on better lit pathways.”
Nayna’s lips twitched and her heart, it expanded. She could just see solemn and serious Raj quietly pointing out the need for safety. “How is Mr. Hohepa?”
“I saw him earlier. He’s feeling much better. Here, have some breakfast.” Aji spooned her out some of the porridge, and Nayna saw she’d added plump raisins as well.
The two of them ate together, and it was as Nayna was rising to go that her grandmother said, “Nayna, he’s a strong man.” Her eyes held Nayna in place. “But even strong men need tending. Don’t forget that.”
Nayna’s heartbeat turned into a drum. “Did he say something?”
“Raj isn’t the kind of man to talk of his heart to anyone but the woman who holds it,” her grandmother chided her. “I’m just saying that love grows when it’s tended.”
Aji’s words swirled around in Nayna’s head all morning. The idea of marriage still made her chest constrict, and marriage, she knew, was Raj’s dream. But… being rooted mattered to him too. Knowing how things stood was important to him. And Nayna could do something about making sure he had zero doubts about her commitment to him.
She picked up the phone and called Aditi to find out Raj’s current whereabouts.
* * *
“Yo, boss!” Tino yelled out. “Courier just delivered flowers for you!”
Raj pushed back the earmuffs that protected his hearing from all the noise on a construction site. “What?” he asked, sure he’d misheard. “Did you say flowers?”
Tino held up a bunch of red roses. “Fancy schmancy romancey flowers.”
Skin a little hot and a smile weaving through his blood, Raj walked over to take the roses from Tino. The other man tried to peer over Raj’s shoulder as he opened the card tucked inside, but Raj blocked him with his shoulders. It helped that he was taller than Tino.
The message was typed, must’ve been sent through to the florist by email. But it was from Nayna: Sexy hunk, hot fling, my rock—and my grandmother’s rescuer—you’re the full package, Raj Sen. I’m crazy about you. ~ Nayna with the pretty nayna
He was grinning so wide that he probably looked like an idiot. Around him, his men were mouthing off about never getting flowers from their girls.
“Yeah well,” Gazza called out to a grumbling Tino, “at least you have a girl now! I told you the book would work.”
“Only now I have to read the next one!” Tino yelled back. “Sense and Shampoo or something.”
Raj’s shoulders shook as he took the roses into the site office. He found an old paint can, filled it with water, and put the roses in, but made sure to grab the card and hide it safely in his pocket. His crew was fully capable of peeking—and ribbing him endlessly about being called a sexy hunk.
He should’ve remembered that Tino had met the courier.
Sexy hunk and hot fling.
Midday, and that was what he found painted on a piece of tarp his crew had draped over the front of his truck. Raj laughed and took the ribbing in good humor. He’d called work to an end for the day, and everyone was off for the weekend. Including the man Nayna considered a sexy hunk and a hot fling.
Not just that, but her anchor.
He put the roses carefully in his truck for the ride home to shower off the grit and dust from the site. After which he messaged Nayna, signing off with: From the sexy hunk.
* * *
Less than an hour later, Raj brought his truck to a stop in front of Nayna’s unit to find her already waiting outside, together with the overnight bag he’d asked her to pack. Getting out, he walked over to steal a kiss, his cells parched for her, and his lips curved in a smile.
“My crew is never going to let me live down being called a sexy hunk and a hot fling.”
An unrepentant look from Nayna. “I only speak the truth.” The smile she gave him, possessive and delighted, twisted its way around his heart.
He’d do anything if she’d only look at him that way forever.
Lifting a hand, she rubbed at the sides of his mouth. “These look like stress lines. Is it the job?”
“No. We’re on track there.” Raj pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s Navin and Komal. I’m pretty sure a breakup is on the horizon.” Right now the two were frigidly ignoring one another.
“I’m sorry to hear that… but they seem pretty toxic together.”
Raj nodded. “I’m hoping the damage they’ve done one another isn’t permanent.” There were no winners in a situation like theirs. “But today’s not about them.” He kissed her again. “We need to get going if we’re going to be on time.”
“I’m trying not to ask where we’re going,” she said after she’d buckled into the passenger seat. “But it’s making me crazy.”
She tried to play twenty questions with him to get some clues, and, hoping he’d chosen the right thing for this woman who wanted to experience life in all its facets, Raj played along. When she asked if they’d be getting dirty, he said, “Highly likely, especially our hands.”
Frowning, she tapped her finger against her lip. “Our hands.” It was a murmuring thought. “We’re going to do pottery?”
Raj groaned.
She threw up her hands. “Pottery might be fun! You could make a pipe to smoke, and I’d make… also a pipe to smoke.”
Laughter rippled out of him. “What’s your next question now that you wasted that one?”
“Why are we wearing sweatpants and thick socks?”
“Part of the instructions. No jeans allowed. Something about the seams digging in.”
That had her thinking for a while. “Is it something scary?”
“Depends if you like heights.”