The Dating Plan(55)
“All clear.” Mehar Auntie joined them in the kitchen, smiling as if she hadn’t just been upstairs checking under beds and in closets for a hidden man. “I haven’t been upstairs for a long time. Daisy’s room looks just like it did when she was a little girl . . .”
Ugh. Why had she never bothered to redecorate? She was twenty-seven and still living at home in the same room and following the same rules her father had laid down when she was a teenager. If her aunties had their way, she would marry a nice desi boy selected by the family and go straight from her house to her married home.
Daisy grabbed a bedmi puri and dipped the crispy Indian bread made of urad dal into the raseele aloo. Jana Auntie always made it with the perfect combination of spice and tang.
“If things don’t work out, Roshan is a lovely boy,” Lakshmi Auntie said. “I had your horoscopes done and you’re a perfect match. He comes from a good family, and he is an engineer . . .”
Daisy shoved another bedmi puri in her mouth as her aunt extolled Roshan’s virtues. Usually she just switched off when her aunties played matchmaker, but today everything they said grated on her nerves. She was a professional with two degrees and a good job. Why did no one even consider that she might be capable of picking a man for herself?
Maybe her perfect match was the kind of man who would propose a marriage of convenience to get her aunties off her back? Or give her a passionate kiss in the middle of the office? Or show up at an animal hospital in the middle of the night after he’d been emotionally flayed by his family?
Maybe she’d stuffed her emotions so deep inside, hidden beneath her lists and rules and lines of code, that she hadn’t realized there was a “bad Daisy” waiting to get free.
? 20 ?
Thursday, 8:07 A.M.
DAISY: Confirming Date #4, Thursday 6 p.m. Hockey Game. SAP Center. San Jose Sharks vs. Toronto Maple Leafs. Objective: Meet Taara Auntie, Ashok Uncle, and their boys, Nihan and Imran.
LIAM: Go Sharks!!!!
* * *
? ? ?
AFTER messaging Liam, it took Daisy a full thirty minutes to get into her flow state. Even then, a part of her brain was still mulling over their encounter from the past weekend and all the things that could have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. What if they’d actually had sex? How could they continue to have a fake engagement after crossing that line? And what if once wasn’t enough? Was she betraying her family by sleeping with the enemy? Or was she putting the past behind her and moving forward?
Only a few short minutes into her flow, Rochelle interrupted with a pop-up message on her screen.
TYLER WANTS TO SEE YOU IN HIS OFFICE.
With a sigh, she pulled off her headphones. Despite the cutbacks, Tyler still wanted to go ahead with their new monthly subscription boxes and a revamped website to reflect the new branding, which meant a whole new level of code.
“What’s up?” Mia looked over from her desk. “I thought this was flow time. I’ve been trying to keep quiet.”
“Tyler wants to see me.”
“Shh.” Josh ripped off his headphones. “It’s like you’re just sitting there waiting for any excuse to talk, or rip open a foil packet, or sigh, or rustle papers, or . . .”
“Have a donut.” Mia offered him a box of fresh crullers from the bakery down the street.
“I know what you’re doing,” Josh grumbled as he took a donut. “But it’s not going to work. I can’t be bought with donuts and smiles.”
“What about gossip?” Zoe asked, looking up from her computer. “I know something you don’t know.”
“Is this middle school?” Sarcasm dripped off Josh’s tongue. “Are we taunting each other now? Am I going to come to work tomorrow and find a frog on my chair?”
“Fine.” Zoe turned back to her computer. “I won’t share that Andrew’s leaving. Brad is going to hear our branding pitch. Oh, and Hunter asked Rochelle about Daisy. I guess he missed the meeting where Tyler announced she was engaged.”
“Hunter asked about me?” Daisy’s mouth went dry. If she’d known all she had to do was turn a laptop off and on to get noticed by a guy like Hunter, she would have spent more time volunteering with the Help Desk team.
Josh sniffed. “He probably forgot which end of his laptop was up.”
“Or maybe he realized a brilliant, sexy software engineer, who is so awesome she got us an audience with Brooding Brad, has been hiding on the third floor, and he wanted to make his move before anyone else snatched her away,” Mia said, snatching the box away. “I can’t believe you’re jealous.”
Josh huffed his derision. “I’m not jealous. I just don’t understand why he would ask about her and not me.” He flexed both skinny arms, puffing out his chest beneath his Coding Is Life T-shirt. “Who could resist this?”
“You’re right.” Sarcasm dripped from Mia’s tone. “Even I can barely hold myself back. How did Hunter manage to resist the siren call of your fabulous bod?”
“Exactly.” Josh gave a smug smile. “And she’s engaged. I’m not.”
“Fake engaged.” Zoe grinned. “Who wants to let Hunter know?”