Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(69)

DJ nodded. He had met him just once on the day of the party at his parents’ house, for all of five minutes. In those five minutes, Yash Raje had gotten him to talk about Emma, his love for cooking, basically everything that mattered to DJ. The young candidate had this way of reaching out and making you feel like he saw you. Even though the meeting had lasted just minutes, DJ would remember it for the rest of his life.

“Then you know what I’m talking about. The world moved beneath my feet when he took a second look at me. Have you ever fallen in love, DJ? Everything they say in books, all the feelings and swooning and yearning—all of it happened at once. I never expected that he’d notice me. I never expected to know what it felt like when he returned my feelings, but he did.”

She had tears running down her face now. DJ didn’t know quite what to say, so he stroked his thumb across her hand. They weren’t long fingered and sure, but calloused from work and weary, like his.

“I don’t think I can explain to you how cold Trisha can be. And you have to see her when she gets mean and ruthless to know what that feels like. Before I knew what was happening to me, they had framed me for dealing drugs. They tied me to my mother’s boyfriends. Men who were dealers. All the things I had shared with her as a friend, she used against me. I was expelled from school, my record ruined. A record I had worked hard to keep clean despite where I came from. It was gone in a day. The man I loved never looked at me again. But you know what hurt the most? Being dropped by the only friend I’d ever had.

“I ended up on the street. I was homeless for a year. Homeless. Do you know what it feels like to be homeless, DJ? Just when you thought you were done with it?”

Oh, he knew only too well.

As he plucked out some napkins from the holder on the table, he saw his hands were shaking. He dabbed her tears. Mascara ran in black lines down her cheeks. He set her to rights.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump this on you. I’ve never talked about this to anyone.” She looked mortified.

He dragged his chair closer and pulled her against his shoulder. Sobs shuddered through her, all those awful memories making her breath stutter as she tried to calm herself. She pressed her face into his shoulder and he rubbed her back. All the things Trisha had said and done flashed in his mind.

Hired help.

Her words mixed with the slurs his father’s sister had shouted at his mother as they sat on the curb outside the home she had thrown them out of, all their possessions next to them in three meager suitcases. Ammaji opening the door to take them in. Walking up the steep stairway to the attic where one single bulb hung from the ceiling. Curry sweep. Filthy. Little. Curry. Sweep.

He ran his hand up and down Julia’s back, soothing his twelve-year-old self, soothing Mum, soothing Emma, soothing everyone who didn’t have the good fortune to be born into the right circumstances. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. But look at you now.” He attempted a smile. “A fancy journalist. Look at how you wield that camera. Look at all the people you help.”

“I’m pretty badass, ha?”

“Totally hundred-proof badass.”

She smiled through her tears. “All I want is for you to not get hurt. We—people like you and me—we’re playthings to the Rajes. We’re nothing to them.”

He knew.

“Thank you for trusting me with that,” he said, but it felt insufficient, because how did you thank someone who shared their darkest hurt with you, especially when they barely knew you?

“You’re welcome,” she said softly, smiling. Then even more softly she placed a kiss on his cheek.





Chapter Twenty-One


Trisha really should not have decided to stop over at the Anchorage. Not when she was late to meet DJ. But Aji had called complaining about a stomachache and Trisha couldn’t ignore that. She hadn’t told Nisha, because Nisha would kill her for going anywhere near Esha right now. As for DJ, they were going to San Francisco, so he could just hop off 280 and pick her up. It was barely a ten-minute detour. Plus, she’d been at the hospital most of last night and she hadn’t had a chance to charge her car. At least she’d stopped breaking into a panicky sweat every time she thought about the fund-raiser, thanks to DJ. Between being grateful to him for his competence and livid that she was going to have to confront him about Julia, she was dreading their meeting today.

“It’s been four days!” her grandmother said as soon as Trisha entered her room.

Trisha hugged her, rubbing her cheek on her soft Chanderi sari. “See, first you don’t see me for four days and then you act like this, how can I be upset with you?”

“How can you be upset with me no matter what? I thought ajis weren’t allowed to be upset with their granddaughters.”

“There is that,” Aji said. “Have you eaten? You know you have the kind of face that has a tendency to get all gaunt if you don’t eat.”

Esha smiled from the doorway, the sunlight behind her outlining her wispy, white-clad form. She had the slightly disoriented look that meant either she had just finished her meditation or she’d seen something. Trisha went to her but waited for Esha to hug her. Or not. They were all trained to let Esha follow her own emotional state. She always set the tone based on how she was feeling right then.