“Right.” He swallowed, his hand still loosely clasped around hers. He didn’t want to be the first to pull away, but was he making things weirder for her? “So you . . . you’re saying . . .”
“I’m saying they’re on opposite coasts.” Dimple looked at him full on, her eyes searching behind her glasses even as she kept walking. “So it’d be stupid, right? To attempt to continue this?” The way she said it, like she wanted him to argue, made his heart lift. The stomach/chest rock shrunk hopefully. She turned back toward the street. “I mean, everyone says long-distance relationships are the worst. Like, it’s just an idiotic way to go into your freshman year at college—attached to someone.”
“Right, right,” Rishi said, as if he were seriously considering her points. “But, I mean, people say all kinds of stupid crap about college. Like, you’ve heard about the Freshman 15, right?”
She snorted. “Yeah. Dumb.”
“Exactly. Exactly.” Rishi grinned. “And what about the whole fraternity/sorority thing? People actually think joining one of those is the only way to go through college.”
“That’s true,” Dimple said thoughtfully. “Like paying to make friends really deepens the college experience.”
“Right!” Rishi laughed and looked at Dimple until she glanced at him, too. She was smiling. The rock turned into a blob of warm, gooey honey. He tugged gently on her hand. “So . . . ?”
She shrugged. “I guess, um . . . I guess we can try to make it work or something.” But she was smiling so big she couldn’t finish her sentence as nonchalantly as she’d started it.
Rishi grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him, lifting her up by the waist while she shrieked indignantly. He set her down again and cupped her cold face in his hands, aware that Ashish was now watching them, most likely with a judgy expression on his face. “So we’re doing it? We’re making a serious go of this thing?”
“As long as ‘this thing’ doesn’t involve shaadi for the next decade,” Dimple said, pushing a finger into his chest.
He laughed and kissed her softly, breathing in jasmine and coconut. “Dimple Shah,” he said, his mouth still against hers, “if I get to do this with any regularity, I’ll gladly put marriage on the back burner for the next century.”
Rios was a cozy restaurant with blue and white ceramic tiles lining the walls, cork floors, and windows that looked out over the city streets. Lamps were lit on all the wooden tables, and Dimple sighed happily in the warmth as she fluffed out her damp hair and sank into the velvet booth. Rishi sat beside her, and Ashish plonked into the seat opposite.
A small, almost hysterical thrill ran through Dimple as she looked at Rishi’s and her hands on the table, side by side. They’d agreed to date long-distance. Long-distance. She’d come to San Francisco so relieved to get away from it all—Mamma and Ritu auntie’s constant prattle about makeup and clothes and the I.I.H.—and now she was leaving with a serious boyfriend. One her parents had actually chosen for her. One whom she’d flung a cold beverage at the first time they’d met. It felt like forever ago, but really, it had been less than a month.
Are you sure about this? a tiny, annoying voice asked, slithering around in the back of her head.
Of course I am, she thought, smiling at Rishi in the flickering lamplight. This is good. This is perfect.
You just lied to him. That’s not what I’d call “perfect,” the voice said, with a definite passive-aggressive edge this time.
But she hadn’t really lied so much as withheld information. Sending those drawings to Leo Tilden was a good thing. Rishi would thank her later, when Leo wrote back to confirm what Dimple already knew—that Rishi was a genius.
Even if we put aside the lie—which I don’t think we should—there’s still the matter of this relationship, which you never wanted in the first place. Do you honestly think this is ever going to be a casual thing? For you or for Rishi? Are you ready for this? Really ready?
Dimple wished the voice would choke on its own spit and die.
“You okay?” Rishi asked, tucking a damp curl behind her ear.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, sitting up straighter and forcing herself to smile. “Why?”
“You just seem a million miles away. You have, since we left the dorm.” He frowned, thick eyebrows knitting together, and turned to Ashish. “As have you. What—is it something in the water? Something I’m doing?”
Ashish glanced at his phone and then drummed his fingers on the table. “What?” he asked suddenly, snapping his head up to look at them. He obviously hadn’t heard a single word Rishi had said.
CHAPTER 44
Now that Rishi mentioned it, Ashish did seem weirdly out of sorts. Dimple might assume it had something to do with the fact that Rishi and he were fighting and he might have to go back home when he clearly didn’t want to, but he hadn’t really started with the weirdness till they were walking to Rios. She frowned and watched him check his phone again.
Dimple’s phone beeped.
Where are you?
“Celia, finally!” she said to Rishi as she typed back:
At Rios. Where have YOU been??
Her phone beeped again.
Long story.
Dimple waited, but there didn’t seem to be more forthcoming. Curiouser and curiouser.
Come join us, she typed. Rishi’s brother is here too. Warning: He’s very . . . teenagery.
Be there in 5.
Five minutes? Had Celia been walking around the neighborhood? Dimple set her phone facedown and turned to Rishi. “She’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“Oh.” He took a sip of his water. “Was she already out with the Aberzombies? Everything okay?”
Dimple shrugged. A small part of her was glad to have this mystery to distract her from the tiny, annoying voice. “I have no idea, but I guess we’ll find out.”
Ashish was watching them intently from across the table, but when she met his eye, he looked away.
The door dinged and Celia walked in, looking harried. Her face was flushed from the damp cold, her hair unkempt. She still looked fabulous as ever, in a long fuchsia trench coat and wedge peep-toe booties. Huge beaded hoop earrings sparkled at her ears. She smiled when she saw Dimple and Rishi and made her way over, unbuttoning the trench coat. She looked so effortlessly “movie star,” Dimple wanted to hate her. But she looked so on edge—her eyes darting every which way, landing on Ashish for a brief second, and then on Rishi, and then lifting off—that Dimple couldn’t bring herself to. “Hey,” she said instead. “There you are!”
Celia hovered by the booth instead of sitting next to Ashish. She walked a step forward and then half turned back toward Dimple. “Um, can you—can you meet me in the bathroom?”
Dimple frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Just . . .” Celia pointed in the general direction of the bathrooms, a pained smile on her face. “Please?”
Dimple nodded and watched her scurry off.