Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(39)

What kept the fuse on his temper from igniting was that Nayna’s quiet beauty and inner warmth continued to shine despite Madhuri’s flash. Aditi floated back to Nayna, and his parents smiled huge smiles at her as she kept the evening flowing, making sure the music was just right and speaking to everyone with a natural warmth.

Everyone but him. Him, she avoided.

Raj narrowed his eyes and waited for his chance. This was New Year’s Eve, and he intended to start the coming year as he intended to end it: kissing Nayna.



* * *



Raj’s bubbly little sister chatted to Nayna while Nayna refilled a snack plate in the kitchen—and hid from Raj. She was feeling very raw at the moment, having caught sight of Madhuri and her father laughing uproariously at something earlier that afternoon. After which Gaurav Sharma had hugged his older daughter.

It was stupid, but Nayna had felt so left out, so second-best.

Never good enough.

Rebellion had stirred, slammed up against who Raj was becoming to her. If she walked away from him to prove a point to her father, she would be stupid. But the idea of falling in with her parents’ plans, of being good little Nayna, it grated.

Hence the hiding.

Torn in two directions, she’d taken the mature stance of avoidance.

Aditi, meanwhile, was being very cute, subtly grilling Nayna. She played along. Raj must be a good brother if his baby sister was so protective of him. “Your brother Navin and his wife couldn’t come?” she asked during a break in the questioning.

“Yeah, his friends do a party every year.” Aditi wandered over to the end of the counter near the fruit bowl.

“You can look if you like,” Nayna said, spotting Aditi’s curious eyes on a pack of photographs she’d had printed the other day. “It’s only photos of family and friends.” She turned to find the rest of the sweet chili dip. “We still like to do albums.”

“Ma does the same,” Aditi murmured, opening the pack.

Aha! There was the dip, shoved behind a giant head of lettuce. Grabbing it, Nayna went to scoop it out into the serving bowl.

“Hey!” Aditi held up a photograph. “Why do you have a photo of Harlow?”

Nayna smiled, remembering the day at ísa’s apartment when she’d snapped the shot. “He’s my best friend’s brother—stepbrother, technically.” ísa just called Harlow her brother because that was who ísa was, a woman with an incredible ability to love. “Do you know him?”

Aditi nodded, a shy smile curving her lips. “We met at this thing our schools did together.”

“He’s lovely, isn’t he?” One of the sweetest teenage boys Nayna had ever met.

Aditi’s cheeks pinked and she bit down on her lower lip. After glancing out the door as if to check if anyone else was nearby, she said, “We’re going to the movies together next week, when he has a little time off from his internship. Just, you know, as friends,” she added quickly.

“Do your parents know?” She didn’t want this spunky girl in trouble.

But Aditi nodded. “Raj bhaiya spoke to them,” she said, using the word for brother after Raj’s name—a normal thing for such a younger sibling. To simply say her older brother’s name would sound wrong, a harsh scratch on a record.

Aditi gave Nayna a measuring look. “He’s always been as strict as them, really overprotective. But… he’s changed.”

Nayna had to fight not to show her reaction, but the warmth uncurling inside her felt like a living thing. “Has he?” she asked, and it came out husky.

“Yeah,” Aditi said. “I mean he’s still bhaiya.” A roll of the eyes. “So bossy and wants to know every detail of where Harlow and I will be, but it’s like he really thinks about what I ask him before he gives an answer instead of just saying no to stuff like this.”

Nayna finished preparing the tray, a tightness in her chest. “He sounds like a wonderful brother.”

“The best,” Aditi said at once. “Even before. Shall I take that tray? And can I keep the photo of Harlow?”

“Thank you, and yes, you can.” Nayna handed over the tray, then reached out to fix one of Aditi’s curls so that it was no longer bouncing in her eye.

She waited to let out a shaky exhale until after the girl had disappeared into the backyard, where everyone was gathered under colorful lights Madhuri had strung up. Aditi’s words, what they implied… they cut her knees out from under her. Raj had listened to Nayna. Not only had he listened, he’d understood.

Confusion reigned in her, crashing against the need to break the shackles and a compulsion to shackle herself to Raj.



* * *



Raj slipped into the house five minutes after he saw Aditi come out and realized everyone aside from Nayna was out on the lawn. He tracked her down in a hallway inside the house. Pinning her between the hands he’d braced on the wall on either side of her, he said, “It’s nearly midnight.”

“Raj.” She pushed at his chest while casting frantic looks around him. “They’ll notice!”

“No they won’t. Our parents are involved in a heated discussion about that Indian soap opera they all watch, and our sisters are playing a game on Madhuri’s phone.” He nuzzled her, taking her scent into his lungs, settling the tension wrapped around his gut. “I’ve never kissed anyone at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”