Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)(81)

Aditi’s dimple popped out, his sister smiling in truth for the first time since their father’s heart attack. “Oh. Em. Gee!” she said. “You’re right! This is so Bollywood drama! The part where the dying father asks a couple to get married so he can see the event?” She shook her head and stuffed a fry into her mouth, talking around it. “All we need now is for Raj to be in love with someone else but feel forced to marry you because he doesn’t want to break his father’s heart.”

Aditi’s head swiveled toward Raj. “Nope, that plot point won’t work—he’s clearly crazy over you.” Another fry inhaled. “The good thing is the father always survives in those and there’s a big happily-ever-after.”

Catching the hitch in his sister’s voice, Raj brushed a fist against her cheek. “I spoke to Dr. Olivier while I was waiting for Nayna. He says Dad has a great outlook—he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t have diabetes, does have huge family support. A little care and he’ll be around to create a Bollywood drama when it’s your turn to get married.”

“Babita auntie’s husband had a quadruple bypass ten years ago,” Nayna added. “He’s in excellent health. Just complains a lot about how he can only smell ghee and not eat it.”

Dimple flashing again, Aditi relaxed. “I can totally see Dad doing that. Especially since Ma’s started a notebook full of heart-healthy vegetarian recipes. He’s already trying to bribe me to smuggle him sausages.”

Raj chuckled at his sister’s words, glad to see her spirit returning. Aditi wasn’t the quiet type, so to see her go so silent and hollow-eyed had been heartbreaking. Now he watched as Nayna drew her into a cheerful conversation about their favorite Bollywood movies, with Aditi nodding eagerly when Nayna suggested a movie date for a sweeping historical epic set to release in a month.

“Are you gonna make Raj bhaiya come?” Aditi asked, cheeky as a monkey. “Last time he took me, he fell asleep during the most amazing dance number by Hrithik.”

“Sacrilege.” Nayna gasped, her hand on her heart. “We’ll just have to work on him until he sees the beauty of lip-syncing in the Swiss Alps in the middle of winter while wearing a sari.”

Aditi snorted with laughter, and for the moment, Raj’s world was okay… on the surface at least. Because even as Nayna gently took care of his sister’s heart, he knew her mind had to be spinning, her thoughts a roar.

It was only when Aditi’s friend Harlow arrived that he and Nayna had time alone. First, however, he shook hands with the tall and lanky boy who had grown significantly in confidence over the summer and who was turning out to be a young man Raj liked. Even better, both Jitesh and Sangeeta Sen were warming up to him. It helped that Harlow Chan kept his stick-straight black hair cut with ruthless neatness, wore wire-rimmed spectacles, dressed in pants that actually fit instead of hanging halfway down his butt, and was unfailingly respectful.

Aditi had also let it slip that, while Harlow had a year of high school to go, he’d already been offered an academic scholarship to the city’s major university on the basis of his previous year’s exam results. The boy had deferred the scholarship because he wanted to have his senior year.

Jitesh Sen had thawed enough at that to grumble, “Well, I suppose it’s good he’s not an idiot.”

High praise from a protective Indian father on his seventeen-year-old daughter’s friend who happened to be a boy—and who might end up more if the two kept on hanging out.

“Nayna.” Harlow’s face cracked into a huge smile when Nayna walked back into the room, having left to wash off a bit of sauce that had dripped onto her top when she ate a few of Aditi’s fries.

“Hey, you. When did you get so tall?” Nayna hugged her best friend’s stepbrother; she’d told him that ísa was a huge reason why Harlow was so well-adjusted. ísa Rain had basically adopted Harlow when their parents divorced, making sure the young teen he’d been at the time wasn’t forgotten in the mess.

ísa, Raj suddenly realized, would always be in his life. She was going to marry one of his closest friends. Which meant that even if all this crashed and burned, Nayna too would always be in his life. It would be the worst private hell he could imagine. To see her and to know she wasn’t his. Perhaps to see her move on with another man?

His gut wrenched.

“We have to go now,” Aditi stage-whispered to Harlow after a few minutes. “Raj bhaiya and Nayna bh—” She cut herself off at the last minute, but Raj knew the word she’d almost said. The word for a big brother’s wife.

Recovering quickly, she said, “They have big deal stuff to talk about.”

Alone with Nayna at last, Raj said, “I’ll fix it.” He had no desire for Nayna to be manipulated into marriage with him when she’d fought so determinedly for freedom and when marriage was a topic she simply never raised on her own.

Eyes shining, Nayna looked up at him and brushed his hair off his forehead. “You’re right in what you said to Adi—your dad’s just come out of surgery,” she said. “The doctor said we’re not supposed to stress him. Just go along with it.”

“He’s a stubborn man. Can give a mule a run for its money when he wants to be pigheaded.”

Nayna’s lips twitched. “Like father, like son?”