Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(12)

Nayna’s mouth fell open. Mr. Hohepa was their new neighbor, having moved in only six months earlier. He and his dog, Pixie, had become firm friends with Aji. The two elders often went for walks together, Pixie bounding between them.

Mr. Hohepa, however, was at least eight years her grandmother’s junior.

Nayna narrowed her eyes as she realized her grandmother had started getting the velour tracksuits around then too—with the excuse that her sari wasn’t convenient for walking. “How good of a friend is Mr. Hohepa,” she asked suspiciously; if that Lothario was leading her grandmother along…

A very un-aji-like giggle. “We don’t do the sex things, beta,” her grandmother said, turning Nayna’s ears red. “But I’m not dead and he’s a fit young man. I’m going to buy him the leopard cologne.”

Nayna sat staring at her phone a long time after her grandmother hung up. “Aji has a boyfriend.” She wrote it down on her notepad, stared at it, wrote it again, and still couldn’t get it to settle in her brain.

“Nayna?” One of her more senior colleagues stuck his head inside. “I’m doing a coffee run,” Douglas said. “You want your usual?”

“I think my seventy-five-year-old grandmother has a boytoy boyfriend.”

“Well, dayum! Good on your grandma!”

Yes, Nayna thought after her workmate had left, good on Aji. She’d loved Nayna’s grandfather, of that Nayna had not a single doubt, but she’d also been widowed for ten long years. She deserved fun and joy and romance.

How about you, Nayna?

The voice came from deep inside her, and it was of the fourteen-year-old who hadn’t been allowed to go to dances, or to wear makeup, or to be anything less than perfect. That fourteen-year-old looked at her grandmother, living life more joyously and wickedly than she ever had, and it could be that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Or it could be it was the most recent evidence of Madhuri’s carefree life that pushed her over the edge. Highly likely it also involved the reason for her semi-breakdown last night: realizing on Monday morning as her father laughed at something her sister had said that Madhuri would always be his favorite. It didn’t matter what Nayna did—she’d never be good enough, perfect enough. Her family would be fine if Nayna was no longer around; it was Nayna who had to be ready to suffer the repudiation.

Then there was Raj.

The idea of allowing a shadowy “suitable match” to put his hands and mouth on her as Raj had done, it made her shudder. “No more introductions, no more trying to impress assholes and idiots,” she said in a strangely calm tone.

Nayna was done.



* * *



She had the words to her bombshell decision all worked out by the time she left the converted villa that functioned as their offices that night. An urgent client request had come in, and Nayna had volunteered to handle it just to give herself a couple more hours to build up to the confrontation. It was as she was packing up that her father called and asked her to be home by eight thirty for a surprise.

“I’m almost done,” she told him and was about to ask about the surprise when he hung up.

Most likely they had an unexpected guest from Fiji. Many of their extended family still called the tiny island nation home, and while her parents had left it more than three decades earlier, they remained deeply connected to people there. Nayna had last visited two years ago, when she’d taken Aji over for a catch-up with her younger sister.

The two older women had laughed and told her stories deep into the humid tropical night as they sat on a porch screened against the mosquitos. Nayna had seen small fruit bats take off from the breadfruit trees during the dark orange of sunset, heard the sounds of the frogs croaking their courtship songs, and felt her skin settle into the easy rhythm of life in a rural town far from Fiji’s cosmopolitan resorts and hotels.

That night she’d been in charge of keeping up the supply of tea and snacks, those snacks mostly consisting of mango slices cut before the fruit was fully ripe, then rubbed with a little fresh chili pepper before being sprinkled with salt. It was rare to find unripe mangos in New Zealand, since the fruit didn’t grow here, but the rare times she did, the taste immediately brought back the memory of that hazy, lazy night.

Smiling, she wondered if Aji would like to go in the new year sometime. Her grandmother had decided not to accompany Nayna’s parents on their upcoming trip, saying “husbands and wives should have time alone.” Everyone had scratched their heads over that, as Aji usually chose to stay with her sister while Gaurav and Shilpa went around on their own, doing as they pleased, but Aji had been adamant.

“Old age,” Nayna’s mother had whispered to Nayna. “It happens to all of us.”

Yeah, right. Nayna had a feeling her grandmother’s odd decision had far more to do with being free from watchful eyes while she carried on with Mr. Hohepa. “I can’t believe my grandmother has a more scandalous love life than I do,” she muttered as she left the office, but her lips curved.

She’d cyberstalked Mr. Hohepa after her grandmother’s call, and it appeared he was exactly who he said: a widower who had four children and three grandchildren. Still, Nayna was going to keep a close eye on the situation, just in case Mr. Hohepa was a gray-haired Don Juan with a woman in every neighborhood.

The light mood fostered by thoughts of her grandmother’s romance was long gone by the time she arrived home. She’d practiced how she’d tell her parents of her decision to pull out of the marriage deal over and over again in the car, the words a heavy rock in her gut. If the surprise wasn’t a guest, she was going to tell them straightaway.