Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(104)

“So you’ll take care of it?”

He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “Oh, I’m definitely going to have to take care of it.”





Chapter Twenty-Nine


Carmel-by-the-Sea was beautiful in a way that made DJ crave coming back to it again and again. He couldn’t remember the last place he’d felt that pull from. Leaving London was tied up in too many painful mistakes and memories, and he had never had an interest in revisiting those. Paris had enchanted him, the way she did everyone. There was something about Paris that made you feel like you could forget who you were and become hers. But he was starting to realize that escaping who you were wasn’t the same as becoming who you wanted to be.

Here, in Carmel, in California, in America, asking who he wanted to be finally seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. Everything and everyone here seemed free to ask that question. Even the places here felt like they still hadn’t fully made up their mind about who they were. Even Carmel for all its old-world charm felt like it was aspiring to become something else from somewhere else.

“Why are you scowling at the ice cream?” His sister turned away from the sapphire-blue Pacific and mirrored his scowl.

It was stupid to let bad ice cream make you ponder the meaning of home. What was home anyway? Was it somewhere you could be just like everyone else, or was it where you could be whoever the hell you wanted to be?

When he didn’t answer, she elbowed him. “It’s supposed to be some of the best ice cream in the world.”

He handed it to her, begging to differ. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

Jane smiled from her perch on the beach chair where the sun shone off her mirrored rhinestone sunglasses. “Did you know that it was illegal to eat ice cream in public in Carmel until recently?”

“Until the late eighties when Clint Eastwood became mayor and freed the people from ice-cream jailing,” DJ said.

“My brother is a food-trivia enthusiast,” Emma said, when Jane looked impressed that he knew.

Naturally he’d done some research about what people ate when they came here. Didn’t everyone look that kind of thing up before they visited a place? “Although Mr. Eastwood might have saved us the torture.” He frowned at the cone that was fast disappearing in Emma’s hands. “Let’s go home and I’ll make you some real ice cream that doesn’t use sugar as a stand-in for flavor.”

“How does one go through life only ever wanting to eat food they’ve cooked themselves?” his sister asked, laughing at him. The salty sea air lifted the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail and framed her face in a cloud of curls, reminding him of a doll she had carried everywhere as a child.

“But going home sounds good. We might have to stop at the hospital first, though.” Words he’d been dying to hear. He tried to hold it in, but a relieved breath still escaped him.

They had spent the morning at Jane’s institute and Emma’s resolve, which had already taken a severe blow after Trisha had gone full-scale philosopher on her yesterday, had crumbled within minutes of meeting Jane and seeing her work.

On their drive to Monterey that morning he’d also finally laid out what was in his heart. “You’re all I have, Em, I can’t lose you.”

Emma being Emma had snorted. “Ship’s sailed, innit, bruh’?”

“No it hasn’t, you stubborn cow!” he’d said, finally losing it and yelling at his sick sister. “The ship is waiting for you back at the hospital. Don’t you see? Don’t you see the hole in our lives where Mum and Dad used to be? We’ve barely survived around that, and you want to do that to me again, because you’re too bloody selfish to care? How will I get past it, you think? Yes, I could have stopped Mum from dying. Yes, I could have used my brain and stayed away from Gulshan and the boys. I’m sorry, all right? Don’t punish me like this.”

Her attempt to roll her eyes hadn’t worked. “It’s my life, Darcy,” she’d said, sounding so very tired and terrified.

All the anger had drained from him. “Your life is never just yours, love. My life is tied to yours because I love you.”

She’d snorted out a laugh, but for the first time since he got here she had tears in her eyes. “America’s buggered with your head, hasn’t it? I like you well enough, but don’t get carried away with love and all.”

He’d tugged her ponytail. “Give this a chance. Of course, I’ll stand by whatever you choose, but just give it a fair shake, all right?”

Trisha had been right. Emma had needed to hear it almost as much as he’d needed to say it. She had walked into the tactile art center with her defenses down and walked out of there with all her resolve torn up to bits.

After their visit, they’d driven Jane to Carmel for an appointment on their way back to Palo Alto, and she had insisted they try the ice cream. DJ suspected that Emma had laid a wager with her new best friend about how DJ would pitch a “Skinner from Ratatouille fit” after tasting any ice cream not made by him. He’d walked right into that trap, gladly. Because his ice cream was, indeed, better than this overly sweet travesty.

“I’m so glad Trisha came to see me and that I got to meet you,” Jane said. “I’ve literally been looking for someone with art therapy experience to teach at the institute for two years now.”