The Dating Plan(19)
“I’m not relationship material.” He pushed his glass across the table.
“You just told me you’re trying to find a wife.”
“A fake wife.”
She finished her drink in one gulp, a waste of good whiskey considering the cost. “I think I’ll get one of the bouncers to come over and pound some sense into you.”
“I thought you already did that.” He looked to Ethan again for help, but his cousin just held up his hands in mock surrender.
“I don’t even try to control her.”
“That was a just a love tap.” Rainey narrowed her eyes. “If you do something stupid, like propose to a woman who hates you to get a distillery you don’t need and have no time to run, that’s when things really get rough.”
? 8 ?
“GOOD morning, Mrs. Liam Murphy.”
Layla’s voice crackled over the speaker in Daisy’s Mini Cooper. They usually caught up in the mornings on the way to work if they hadn’t talked the night before. It made the drive from Bernal Heights to Organicare’s offices in SoMa almost bearable.
“That’s not funny.”
“You’re right. It’s not funny,” Layla said. “But now that the family knows you’re engaged, everyone wants to know who he is. Some of the aunties even tried to bribe me to divulge his last name—special jewelry for my wedding, snacks from India, saris they were keeping for their daughters . . .” Layla was engaged to Sam Mehta, and with the wedding only ten months away, they were well into wedding planning.
“I trust you,” Daisy said, laughing. “I know you won’t break.”
“I was tempted by Nira Auntie’s offer of a ten percent discount on a wedding lehenga at her store. You know how she overcharges.”
Daisy slowed the car for the usual traffic jam. She preferred taking the 280 for the occasional glimpse of the Bay, but her map app had shown the 101 route could get her to work in substantially less time.
“At least you’re free now,” Layla said. “Until you break up with your fictitious fiancé, they’ll leave you alone. You just better hope no one realizes that Liam is the same guy who stood you up for our senior prom.”
“I’m not totally free. I still have to go out on a date with Roshan.” Daisy sighed. “Dad guilted me into it. He thinks he knows me better than I know myself.” She lifted a hand to brush her hair back from her cheek and mentally checked herself. Her hair instantly frizzed if she touched it with anything other than her fingers at any time other than in the three seconds after she stepped out of her shower.
“You might want to go on that date,” Layla said. “My dad said he was the ‘real deal.’ And it would be good to have an accountant in the family.”
Daisy groaned. “I don’t want to get married, but if I ever did, it would be to someone interesting, someone who takes risks.”
“Accountants take risks.”
“Adding numbers by hand instead of using a calculator? I’m not talking about that kind of risk. I’m talking take-your-breath-away risks. Unexpected risks.” She popped a fluffy pav in her mouth. The delicious breakfast treat was one of her favorites, and no one made them like Layla’s mom, who often dropped by with food when her dad was away.
“You’re talking about Liam.” Layla knew all about Daisy’s recent encounters with Liam and had not been impressed.
“You should have seen him . . .” Daisy allowed herself a small smile. “He looks like Hrithik Roshan in Mohenjo Daro.”
“If I had seen him, especially when he showed up at your office after you told him you never wanted to see him again, he wouldn’t be standing.”
“The first time I saw him was straight out of Bollywood,” Daisy continued. “One minute I’m ordinary me, stressing because Tyler dragged me to the pitch session even though he knows I’m an introvert at heart, breaking the pad dispenser, watching my ex-boyfriend and my old boss going at it in the restroom, running through the conference center with an armload of pads, and the next I’m kissing the man I hate most in front of the man who broke my heart and the man I’m supposed to marry.”
“Orson didn’t break your heart,” Layla countered. “You weren’t into that relationship at all. You were just tired of bad dates and Orson was—”
“Nice.”
“I was going to say available. But ‘nice’ will do. Also the word ‘boring’ comes to mind. After our first double date, Sam said he couldn’t handle another. He said he wanted to shoot himself when Orson described his favorite art house film as a two-and-a-half-hour phantasmagoria of bourgeoisie misery, and then proceeded to outline it for us miserable scene by miserable scene.”
“It was a good film.” Daisy drummed her thumb on the steering wheel, willing the traffic to start.
“You texted me ‘help’ twenty times from the theater. You said you wanted to stick needles in your eyes.”
Daisy bristled. “We all have to make sacrifices in the name of love.”
“But that’s the point. You didn’t love Orson. If you did, you wouldn’t have come out with me to Larry’s Liquid Lounge the night after you broke up. You wouldn’t have hooked up with that dude who said he was about to be deployed and it was his last night in the city.”