Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(29)

Ashna narrowed her eyes stubbornly, but entirely predictably she backed away from the confrontation. “You need food for this date or what?” she asked, her mood switching easily to amusement. “Come on, let’s get it packed up.” She stood.

Trisha pulled her back into the chair. “Shhh. I don’t need your boyfriend—” Ashna glared and Trisha raised her hands. “Fine, I don’t need your just-good-friend to know that I mooch off you when I’m pretending to cook for my date.”

Trisha had met Harry last month, when he’d been the plastic surgeon on one of her surgeries. He had walked into her office for a consult and seen her eating some of Ashna’s pakoras. She’d offered him one and he’d assumed that she had made them herself. He’d been so impressed that she hadn’t corrected him. The man was cuteish and recently divorced. He’d asked her out after tasting those pakoras. No one had asked Trisha out in a really long time.

After their first date, he’d thrown caution to the wind and asked if she would cook more of that delicious Indian food for him. There had been something vulnerable about him asking, plus he kissed halfway decently and she hadn’t been kissed in an embarrassingly long time, so she’d said yes.

Enter the chef cousin.

Once she’d fed him Ashna’s food, Harry had practically worshiped Trisha in bed. So, here she was. This was only the third time—two surgeons trying to hook up was a scheduling nightmare—and she refused to feel guilty about the food.

“You deserve better than to have to pretend to be someone you’re not.” Ashna’s hand went to her hip. It was her protective sister pose.

“I thought you guys said my problem was that I don’t care enough about the men I go out with, and that I needed to try harder.”

Ashna gave a giant sigh. “We didn’t mean that you should lie! We just meant . . . never mind. When the right person comes along, you’ll know what we mean.”

Like that was ever going to happen.

This is how Trisha’s dating life had worked since college: every now and again some guy came along and they confused the heck out of each other until he disappeared, leaving her more relieved than sad, and embarrassed as hell about her inability to know what was going on when it came to men.

Why were men such complicated beasts anyway? Relationships felt like full-time babysitting jobs crossed with high-level code cracking.

“Hey, I’m here stealing your food and pretending to be a domestic goddess just to get some. I think that qualifies as actively working on it. You don’t even have to steal food, you can literally have them eating out of your hands once they taste your cooking. And you’ve got someone who looks like that in your kitchen and you’re calling ‘just good friends’ on him? Come on, Ashi!”

“Aw, Trisha thinks DJ is cute,” Ashi singsonged as though they were still in middle school.

He wasn’t cute. No, most certainly nothing as mild as cute. Whatever he was, he hit you on the head with it. “Um . . . not the point. Come on, one of us has to figure out how this entire long-term relationship thing is done without selling out.”

“You’re such a romantic, Trisha.”

“What I am is a surgeon.”

“And how could anyone ever forget it?” Ashi pursed her lips, half amused, half reprimanding.

“Very funny. My point is that with neurosurgery there are always fifty things that could go wrong and often you have to choose the least damaging damage. So analyzing risk is what I do best.”

Ashi relaxed into her chair, grinning like a loon. “Trisha Raje giving relationship advice. I should totally record this.”

Trisha ignored her and went on. “He’s a chef, you’re a chef, you’ve known him for years. So the psychopath possibility is minimal. I say the odds of him being someone you can seriously consider are pretty high.”

“Wow! Those poor men you date.”

“Gah, let’s please not talk about the men I date.” How she hated that term. “What does dating even mean? What are the requirements?” Harry was nice enough. Maybe. They hadn’t ever really talked about anything but surgery. In that department, he was fabulous. As long as she didn’t compare him to herself.

He’d just gotten out of a bad marriage and all he wanted was to make up for lost time in the sack and be fed some good food. Fill the two big holes his marriage had left in his life. So she was lying to him about where the food was coming from. But at least she was helping him heal from his marriage, and wasn’t she a healer?

Dear God, she was a terrible person.

Ashi was laughing now and looking at Trisha as though she were the most adorable thing since Minnie Mouse. This was the other problem. When you had so much love in your life, why would you waste your time on decoding men?

“Look at what we’re working with here. Look at the men in our family. Yash, Neel, Vansh.” Her little brother was an annoying know-it-all, like the youngest of any brood, but probably the best human being she knew. “How on earth do we have any chance at all of finding men who match up? You have to take your chances on the ones that aren’t half bad.”

At this point Ashi’s laugh got so loud she let out one of her little midlaugh hyena screams. “I’m sure DJ would love to know that he passes your not-half-bad test.”