Rishi stopped thrashing abruptly. “What’s wrong?”
Dimple gripped the edge of his desk. The corners of the room swam. Her voice came from a million galaxies away. “That’s . . . that’s how you dance?”
Rishi looked down at his body, as if to check something. “Yeah?” He looked back at her, confused.
Dimple clutched her head. “But you said—you said you were a good dancer!”
“I did not! I barely agreed that I was ‘decent’!”
Dimple glared at him, her temper flaring. She spoke slowly, enunciating the words. “That. Was not. Anywhere near decent.”
They stared at each other for a minute, Rishi’s deep honey eyes boring into hers. And then he burst out laughing. Geysers of “ha ha ha” burst out of him, and watching him guffaw like that, helpless, actually slapping his knee, Dimple began to laugh too, just slightly hysterically.
Finally, Rishi sank down on the floor, holding his stomach, alternating groans with laughter. Dimple sat beside him and wiped her eyes, her laughter subsiding to a few hiccups. “Okay, seriously, what are we going to do?”
Rishi looked at her from where he was sprawled on the floor, his arms and legs askew. “Well, do you still want to win the talent show?”
She nodded. “Obviously.”
“Then we keep practicing. We have six and a half days to get this down.” Rishi hopped up, lithe as a lion. Why couldn’t he use that grace in his dancing? He held out a hand to Dimple and pulled her up. Bending down so they were nose to nose, he said, “Show me what you got, Priyanka.”
? ? ?
Priyanka Chopra—Hrithik Roshan’s partner in “Dil Na Diya”—was equally as good as him. Thankfully, since her part was so minuscule in that song, Dimple didn’t have the intense pressure that Rishi had on him. They practiced the part where both Hrithik and Priyanka danced together. Dimple moved her arms around and hoped to God she didn’t look like she was convulsing. Like Rishi looked right then.
Panting, Rishi grabbed her arm so she’d stop. “Hey, what about at this part if you, like, hopped up in my arms?”
“What?” Dimple wiped her forehead and went over to pause the laptop. In the silence she said, “Rishi, I don’t think hopping into your arms is going to improve this routine. Let’s just stick with what the Bollywood choreographers, in all their wisdom and experience, deemed good enough for Hrithik and Priyanka.”
“No, wait, just hear me out. Here, rewind it a bit? Like, to the part where he points at her?” Dimple did what he asked in spite of her intense misgivings. “Okay, now hit play and come back here.”
She did.
“Now, when I point to you, instead of beginning your dance move, what about if you just jump up on me and I’ll catch you?”
“Are you serious? I’m not going to just jump—”
“I won’t let you fall, I promise. Oh, look, it’s coming up, come on!” Rishi held his arms open, and Dimple, giving in to peer pressure in spite of every instinct screaming at her not to, leaped into his arms.
Or rather, she tried to, but her jeans wouldn’t allow her the flexibility she needed. So, instead, she kneed Rishi in the ribs, hard.
He yelled out “Ow!” and instead of catching Dimple, used his arms to fend her off with a deftly executed karate chop. Suddenly realizing what he was doing, Rishi scrambled to help her, apparently consumed by a vortex of regret. But Dimple, feeling spiteful, grabbed him around the neck on the way down to take him with her.
They lay in a silent, shocked heap on the floor, arms and legs so tangled Dimple had no idea whose limbs were whose.
She was in too much pain to say anything for a full ten seconds, so she just lay there staring at the ceiling as the merry tunes of “Dil Na Diya” blared into the room. And then Rishi began to laugh again. Dimple wasn’t sure she cared anymore for his penchant for finding humor in every situation.
He turned his head, groaning, and said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dimple managed, pushing his thigh off her stomach so she could breathe better. “Ouch.”
Rishi tried pulling his arm out from under her, but since she was still partially pinned under him, she just rolled toward him. He was looking down at her, their noses almost touching, both her legs under his left one. “Hi,” he said, his eyes warm and liquid. “I’m sorry.”
She wanted to punch him in the ribs. She wanted to bite his nose. But looking into those eyes, Dimple realized she wanted something else even more. So she lifted her head and kissed him.
And that’s when a male voice said, loudly, “Well, well, WELL. What have we here?”
CHAPTER 39
They flew apart, struggling to sit up, Dimple’s head swimming. Oh my God. They hadn’t even heard the door opening, they’d been so deep into their kiss. Dimple blinked and then frowned. Wait. Rishi didn’t have a roommate. So who was this boy, with his curly black hair and seemingly never-ending, muscled legs, dressed in athletic shorts and dirty sneakers, standing there with that annoying smirk on his face?
“Ashish?”
What the heck? What was his idiot brother doing here, ruining this perfectly amazing moment? Rishi struggled to his feet and held out a hand to Dimple, but she hopped up herself, her eyes wild, looking from him to Ashish and back. Like they’d been caught smuggling diamonds instead of just kissing. It would be comical if Rishi weren’t so irritated. “What are you doing here?”
Ashish breezed into the room and, like he owned it, pushed pause on Rishi’s laptop. “Okay, what is going on here?” He dumped his gym bag on the floor and sprawled on Rishi’s chair, his gigantic praying-mantis legs encroaching into Rishi’s space. The stench of Axe body spray was enough to strangle anyone within fifty feet of the boy.
Rishi stepped back and crossed his arms. “Answer my question first.”
Ashish rolled his eyes. “I thought Ma and Pappa told you. I wanted to see the campus.”
Rishi held out his arms. Were all little brothers this annoying, or was he just blessed with an especially potent member of the species? “And? How’d you get here? Why didn’t Ma or Pappa call me first? And how the heck did you open my locked door?”
Ashish reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out a key. “I told the desk attendant that I was Rishi Patel in room 406.” He looked at Dimple and said, as an aside, “My mom and dad told me which room he was in.” Then, looking back at Rishi, he added, “I said I’d been locked out of my room and needed to borrow the spare.” He grinned. “Good thing people think all Indians look alike, huh?”
Dimple cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at Rishi. He pushed a hand through his hair. “Sorry. Dimple, this is my brother, Ashish. Ashish, this is Dimple Shah.”