Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(129)

“Really?” She turned around and dropped a kiss on his cheek.

“These are seriously insane,” Nisha said, placing the box on her rather rotund belly. She looked too adorable for words, but it was entirely misleading because she snarled and swatted Yash’s hand away when he tried to reach for one. Neel quickly withdrew the hand that had been snaking toward the box and both Yash and he went back to their beers.

“Do you girls want some ladoos?” Trisha called to Mishka and Emma, who sat cross-legged on the grass, bent over some clay they were molding.

“They’re busy,” Nisha said, hugging the box, but she handed one over when Emma stood and came up the patio steps with the help of her white cane, which she wielded like a boss. She was teaching full-time with Jane now and also living full-time with her. Naturally, she held out her hand until Nisha coughed up two more ladoos.

They had retrieved all the money from Julia and Emma had returned the online donations to the donors they could trace. The anonymous donations had gone to Jane’s institute. The good news was that the film had caused Emma’s art sales to skyrocket, which had brought in way more money than the donations had and taken care of her medical bills a few times over. Which meant DJ had been able to use the profits from his business to rent Ashi’s kitchen.

“There’s moussaka in the oven. Don’t ruin your appetites,” Ashi said and they all laughed. Yeah, there would be no leftovers. Not with DJ and Ashi here.

“Are we waiting for HRH and Ma for dinner?” Trisha asked. “I’m hungry.”

“They’re at Congressman Wood’s wife’s book reading. If the wife is half as long-winded as the husband, I think they might come home in time for breakfast tomorrow,” Yash said.

DJ seemed to relax under her. They had been together for four months and it was like he’d known the siblings and the cousins all his life, but HRH’s presence still made him act like he was a cadet in a military academy and HRH was a visiting four-star general. He stood up really straight and his speech got really clipped and he tried to avoid touching Trisha, which she was happy to report seemed as hard for him as not touching him was for her.

“I’m shagging the man’s daughter,” he had said when she tried to talk him into relaxing around her father. “It’s the strangest thing, but every time he’s around, my brain kind of fixates on that fact.”

She was A-okay with him fixating on shagging her. It was mutual. Especially because, well . . . suffice to say, cooking wasn’t the only thing the man did as though his existence depended on it. Actually, shagging wasn’t either. He loved that way too.

For his part, HRH was being HRH and still feeling DJ out. Then again, he was still doing that with Neel, and he had known Neel his whole life. Ma, dreamer that she was, insisted he was getting there.

Aji had bonded with DJ over his eagerness to learn every one of her signature dishes—something she hadn’t even shared with Ashna. This might have something to do with the fact that the first time DJ met Esha he had learned all the things she enjoyed eating, then he’d researched nutrition that aided the control of epilepsy, and then he’d set up special menus for J-Auntie to cook for her. Aji was almost as much in love with him as Trisha was.

DJ had taken advantage of this fact and made Aji tell him the story of Trisha being burned in eighth grade. Trisha had threatened the siblings and cousins with death if they let it slip. But DJ, the sneak, had gone straight to the source. Aji had been showing Trisha how to temper hot oil with mustard seeds. It was the basis of almost all Indian cooking and apparently, the mustard seeds always popped open and splattered all over the place. In Trisha’s opinion this was something all little children should be warned about before they were lulled into being taught to cook this particularly barbaric preparation.

“So Shasha got sprinkled with a few microscopic dots of oil and refused to enter the kitchen ever again.” Every one of the siblings told DJ once Aji had let the story out of the bag.

To DJ’s credit he didn’t laugh. Well, didn’t laugh too loudly. Also to his credit he only rarely brought it up.

“Is this the book in which the congressman’s wife claims the war in Afghanistan is the longest war in history?” Neel said, rubbing the feet Nisha had rested on his lap.

“Yup. Evidently the woman has never heard of the war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Sicily!” Only Yash could look so genuinely perplexed when saying something like that.

“Nobody but you has ever heard of that.” This from Vansh, who had been drinking from everyone’s bottles and glasses and still hadn’t decided what he wanted.

“How long did that one last?” This from the love of her life as he took his ale back from Vansh, who had the gall to make a face at it.

“Dude!” Every one of them yelled in unison. “Please do not get Yash started. What is wrong with you?”

Yash ignored everyone and addressed DJ. “Well, it was the longest war in history. It lasted from 1651 to 1986. Not a single person died.”

“I’m impressed.”

That sent up a chorus of groans. “You never, ever say that to Yash.” Ashna poked DJ. Because, gosh, you really did not. Had the man learned nothing in four months?

“Have you learned nothing in four months?” Vansh asked.

“The shortest one was the Anglo-Zanzibar war, lasting a very dramatic thirty-eight minutes.” That started a history lesson of all the wars ever fought.