Dating Dr. Dil (If Shakespeare was an Auntie #1)(60)

He moved to get on the bed, to hold her close, to caress her tits and spend more attention on them before he tried to convince her to stay the night with him, when he heard the distinct buzzing of the doorbell.

The lazy dreamlike expression on Kareena’s face was gone in the blink of an eye. She vaulted to a sitting position, and her eyes widened in shock. “Oh my god, I’m naked.”

“It’s probably a delivery person who has the wrong apartment number,” Prem said quickly. He grabbed his briefs off the floor and pulled them on. “Stay right here. Seriously, don’t move. I’m just going to tell them to go away.”

She’d brought her knees up to her chest and remained on the bed, but she hadn’t agreed with him. Shit, he thought. It was going to be much harder, significantly harder for him to get her to stay the night now that they’ve been interrupted.

He marched down the hallway to the front door. He yanked it open, and before he could tell his intruders to fuck off, Bunty and Deepak were already talking.

“We brought Chinese,” Deepak said. He held up a brown bag inside a plastic bag with a yellow smiley face on it.

“I was back in town and decided to do dudes’ night in person,” Bunty added, and lifted the two six-packs of beer.

“Oh shit,” Prem said. He glanced over his shoulder then stepped outside and quickly pulled the door closed behind him. “You two cannot be here right now. You need to leave.”

Bunty and Deepak glanced at each other and back to him. Prem watched his idiot friends realize what was happening.

“You dumb son of a bitch,” Deepak hissed.

“Dude, I can’t believe you slept with her!” Bunty whispered. “You’re seriously Doctor Dick!”

Prem shoved his fingers through his hair. “Shh! She’s still in bed, and she’s a flight risk.”

“That’s because she’s smart,” Deepak whispered back. “What the hell are you doing with her? Seriously low of you to try to sex her into your plan. That really is a Doctor Dick move.”

Prem shoved him back a full stop. “You’re the dumb son of a bitch if you ever think I’d do something like that to Kareena. It’s not like that.”

“How the hell did this happen?” Bunty asked. He put the beer on the hallway floor, took one out, and popped the top with his cuff link in a move his father had taught both of them. Prem went to take it from him, but instead Bunty passed it to Deepak.

Prem, still itching for a beer, responded. “I-I honestly don’t know. One minute we’re fighting, and the next we’re at my apartment. Bunty, this is all your fucking fault.”

“Me? How the hell is this my fault?”

“Because I saw her at your bar! Because it was supposed to be one night where we hooked up in your office, but no. She had to come to my show, and we had to learn how different we both are when it comes to relationships, and then her aunties got involved and she’s the best kiss I’ve ever had. And I thought I was lucky with Gori in my life, but now there is Rina!”

“Did you get that?” Bunty asked Deepak, taking a beer for himself.

Deepak shook his head. “That makes no fucking sense to me.”

“You two aren’t helping,” Prem hissed.

“Well, you need to help yourself first!” Deepak said. “Being with Kareena is only supposed to get you your investor back. You want to prove to Gregory at LTD Financial that you’re a solid family kind of guy. That you’re trustworthy with his money and you’ll make a family community health center a success. This! This is not going to work if she bails on you before you can get the money for the down payment!”

Prem spun in a circle and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Okay,” he said, not believing the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “Okay, I hear what you’re saying, but I have a little bit of a problem with that.”

His friends waited patiently, drinking their beers in his hallway.

“What if,” he said, and then glanced at the door. “What if I kept her?” He immediately covered his mouth with a fist.

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Bunty said in his normal voice, then quieted after both Deepak and Prem hushed him into a whisper. “Prem, she’s not fucking chattel!”

“No, I know that, you idiot. It’s just that maybe I want our fake engagement to, to be more . . . real.”

Both Bunty’s and Deepak’s mouths dropped in unison.

“I know! I know,” Prem said, and pounded a fist to his chest again. God, he really needed to get one of coworkers to run some tests. He had some tightness in his chest whenever Kareena was in his head, and that had to be some glitch in his system. It wasn’t normal.

“Dude, you slept with her once and now you want to marry her?” Deepak asked. “Does she have a magic—”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence.”

Bunty held up his free hand like a stop sign. “You can’t blame the guy for asking. After Gori died, you wouldn’t even consider dating a woman more than two times. It’s been three years since your fiancée died, and—”

“And I’ve been busy!”

“You’re still busy,” Deepak said. “Nothing has changed from a year ago to now. If anything, you’re even busier now.”