Bootie and the Beast Page 11

  “He did it!” he heard Diya yell as he tried to extricate himself from the tangle of angry bodies. “Will someone with a gun do me a huge favor and shoot his beastly heart?”

  Jesus, this was Texas. Someone always had a gun.

  He shoved his glasses back on his nose, swearing and apologizing alternatively, while Diya tried her best to instigate a riot. Krish had never experienced the kind of relief he felt when Miguel and Lovey materialized by his side.

  Lovey grabbed Diya’s arm and steered her away. “Come on. We’re taking a restroom break.”

  The madness seemed to settle as soon as Diya left.

  “What the hell happened?” Miguel asked, looking shocked.

  Krish shook his head. What always happened when Diya was around. She was a troublemaker.

  Fuck.

  “Lovers’ tiff, was it?” someone asked.

  He didn’t bother to correct the man.

  He bent and picked up the bottles of Perrier that had fallen from his hands. “Take these to her, will you? I need to clean up.” The front of his shirt was doused in some fruity cocktail by the smell of it, and he was pretty sure someone had flung ice cubes and whiskey at his back. He smelled like a brewery or like a shit-faced drunk. “Then, I’m leaving. Tell her I’m waiting outside.”

  In the restroom, he cleaned up as best as he could. He wrapped an iron fist around his temper and walked out of Bar-9, grabbing his leather coat and Diya’s pink suede jacket from the coat check as he went.

  Outside the club, Krish sucked in huge mouthfuls of cool air until he felt sane again. Then, he noticed that the rest of the party was already outside. Diya was at the edge of the pavement, bent over a gutter in the road, retching, while Lovey held up her hair. Miguel stood close by, holding out a bottle of Perrier for her.

  Krish’s first thought was that she was drunk. But that couldn’t be right. She’d only had one beer and half a glass of wine tonight. She’d barely eaten at dinner though. But that wasn’t unusual. Diya didn’t have big dinners to maintain her weight.

  A queen’s breakfast, a rich woman’s lunch, and a pauper’s dinner, was her mantra.

  The vomiting had nothing to do with an eating disorder either.

  Krish’s blood spiked hot as a third option occurred to him.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” he snarled, advancing on her. “Are you actually fucking pregnant?”

  “Krish! What is wrong with you?” Lovey stared at him as if he’d just grown a pair of horns on his forehead and a thick red tail on his backside.

  He knew he’d gone too far—he did not actually believe she was pregnant either—but he couldn’t take back his words. Sometimes, the beast lived inside oneself and not in a bottle.

  This was why he stayed away from Diya. She made him think awful things, say nasty things, feel things he could not control.

  “You hateful, odious man. Oh, how I loathe you!” With those words, Diya launched herself at him before he could begin to express his remorse. He was too shocked by his own reaction and hers to do anything but break their fall with his body, so she wouldn’t get hurt.

  Small mercy since he’d already hurt her beyond measure.

  DKM Journal #15

  August 24 – Dallas, Fort Worth

  I am twenty-one years old and officially an adult. KM and L have planned an evening of revelry in my honor, and I’m super excited. My fairy tale has come true. Prince Charming and I are getting married in December. It’s unbelievable. Like a dream. Oh, I hope I never wake up from it. I don’t want the realities of being married to fog my rose-colored glasses.

  I feel so much for him. Sometimes, when I look at him, I can’t breathe. My heart flutters, and my limbs ache. I feel as heavy and languid as the monsoon rains. And, the next second, I feel as light and fluffy as a cloud floating in the summer breeze. I’d float away but for KM who tethers me to him so completely.

  I want to kiss him so badly. I want us to make love, but he hasn’t made a move at all despite my hints. He’s so chivalrous. Or maybe he’s afraid of Daddy.

  I’m not going to give him a choice today. I’m going to kiss him myself. Properly. No more pecks on the cheek or forehead. No more excuses about how young I am. No more waiting until we are married. I won’t take no for an answer. Not on my birthday.

  * * *

  It’s over. He doesn’t love me or desire me. I’ll always be a child in his eyes. A troublemaker. A fool. An obligation. And that’s unacceptable.

  The dream, the fairy tale—I’m done with it all.

  I will survive this.

  I’ll show him.

  Chapter 9

  By Sunday morning, Diya’s wrath had cooled down to room temperature again. What remained was a tepid embarrassment at her spectacular loss of control outside Bar-9. But that was the Beast’s specialty—pushing her to the point of no return.

  She’d broken Krish’s spectacles—well, bent them out of shape—when she tried to gouge his eyes out. Miguel had had a difficult time with plucking her off Krish. Not trusting Beauty and the Beast alone in the closed confines of the Porsche, Lovey had ridden home with them and lectured them for the whole drive like a miniature jungle warden. She wanted them to take control of their prehistoric instincts and allow their inner Homo sapiens or “wise man” to shine. Last night, the anthropology lesson hadn’t sounded half as witty as it did this morning.

  Giving in to her prehistoric urge of purring like her feline roommates, Diya sat up in bed and stretched. Two of the cats prowled toward her, their golden-green eyes shining curiously. One cat butted her arm with its head, rubbing it up and down. The other cat crawled into her lap and started licking her hand. They were comforting her. They’d sensed her hurt.

  “Which one are you, kitty cat? Nora, Sam, or Europa?” She couldn’t tell them apart yet. Not even with their distinct coloring.

  The housebound three were named Asia, Gobi, and Susan, but she hadn’t seen them yet.

  After cuddling with the cats for a bit, Diya scooted off the bed and padded into the bathroom where she began her morning routine. She’d forgotten to floss last night and rectified the slip ASAP. Her mother would have a fit if she went home with a cavity or a gum infection on top of everything else.

  The urge to see her mother—to see both her parents—welled up inside her. She missed them so much. This publicity tour had been the longest she’d stayed out of Mumbai and away from home.

  Diya gargled with mouthwash and took stock of herself. Her face was swollen from crying, her eyes bloodshot and puffy—but nothing a cold gel couldn’t cure.

  No pity party, she decided, strengthening her resolve.

  Still, she couldn’t face the Beast yet. Last night had been … ugly.

  Back in the bedroom, she changed into her running gear, pulling her hair into a high ponytail. A crisp morning jog should keep her out of his way and improve her mood.

  After checking the time in Mumbai—it was early evening there—she called her parents. When they didn’t answer, she tried calling on their home phone and cell phones several times. Had Daddy actually listened to her and was even now honeymooning with his beloved wife in Goa? She called her sister to confirm her theory.

  “Can’t talk. Sid is throwing a fit,” Priya blurted out and disconnected the phone before Diya could even say hello.

  Since Sid was Pree’s three-year-old son, Diya forgave her sister’s rudeness. What with a thriving medical practice and expanding family, Dr. Priya Shroff had less and less time to spare for Diya.

  She wondered if Leesha would also become too busy for phone gossip once she and Aryan had kids? The thought was depressing.

  Diya called her BFF and got her voice mail. Thrice. Apparently, Leesha was already too busy for gossip. Diya tried Aryan’s cell next. No luck there either.

  She stood up, frowning at her phone. Was there a global ban on her phone now? Was she not allowed any regular Homo sapiens contact?

  She tucked her smartphone into
a pink-and-black armband and strapped it about her bicep. Chin up, shoulders back, abs in, butt tight, and attitude. Then, she took a deep breath and finally came out of hiding.

  Krish was at the six-burner stove, dressed in cargo shorts and a plain white shirt, preparing pancakes. He must have eyes at the back of his head because, the minute she catwalked into the kitchen, he turned around.

  He had a new pair of glasses perched on his nose. He looked so darn cute, all sleep-rumpled and grumpy.

  Gulp, why is life so complicated?

  They stared at each other for long moments. She felt a pang of regret when she spotted the angry red scratches on his throat. From her nails.

  This was stupid.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. For the scratches. For fighting. For not being able to let go of the hurt inside her heart.

  At the same time, Krish held out his hand to her. “Truce?”

  They froze together for several heartbeats, and then they burst out laughing. Together.

  And, just like that, they were friends again.

  * * *

  Diya’s pink-and-black sneakers pounded down Hemingway Drive, keeping pace with the beats of her all-time favorite Bollywood remix playlist. Being Sunday and early enough that even the birds weren’t looking for worms yet, there were zero cars about, and Diya ran freely along the looping path created by the double yellow lines in the middle of the smooth graphite road.

  The air was fresh enough to sparkle. It was a tad chilly, but the sun had broken past the horizon of roofs and trees and thawed her epidermis while her workout heated her blood. She’d set off at a moderate jogging pace of three and a half miles per hour as a warm-up. In ten minutes, she was up to five-point-five.

  She hadn’t asked Krish to join her, nor had he volunteered. The truce was too fresh to prod the Beast’s belly when he clearly wasn’t a morning person. But the day was yet young, and prod she would. She’d drag him to the gym. Or they could hike to the woods and around the lake behind the house. Consuming the Eiffel Tower of pancakes he’d made for breakfast was bound to make him horrendously guilty of gluttony and therefore desperate to burn off the calories.

  The curved road straightened ahead with a slight incline, and Diya kicked up her pace.

  She couldn’t get the mountain of pancakes out of her mind. Who on earth had he made so many pancakes for? He didn’t expect her to consume even one, surely. He knew her special diet. That meant someone was coming over for breakfast. Someone other than Mr. Suitable from Houston, who wasn’t due until that evening.

  Neil Upadhyay was Daddy’s patient, Prakash Upadhyay’s grandson. He had a PhD in biomedical engineering and a job as a researcher in some government-funded institution. The man was visibly brilliant, well settled, and smart-looking, according to her father, who had not met the man in person, mind you, but had only heard of him from none other than the proud grandfather himself. The blah-sounding Neil was scheduled to make an appearance sometime that evening.

  Diya would meet him—she had to, as she had no other option—ply him with food—leftover pancakes maybe?—and encourage him out the door with a couple of Scheherazade shirts as compensation for a futile trip. The shirts were for Krish, but he’d balked at their color—electric blue, pistachio green, and royal purple—and refused to accept them.

  An image popped into her head. Of a faceless man with flat hair with his cheeks stuffed with pancakes and the buttons of his pistachio-green shirt exploding everywhere.

  Diya didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her life had become a Shakespearean comedy. Or was it a tragedy?

  Heroine loves hero but has to settle for a friendship. Hero has a closet full of issues he’s nurturing instead of the pets he so obviously should. Hero’s love interest is a shrew from hell.

  Hmm. That was the twist in the story.

  Krish had admitted that Aya was no longer his GF. And yet, he’d gone on a V-Day date with her … which made no sense.

  What else?

  Oh, yeah, the hero was about to become neighbors with a herd of cattle.

  Then, there was the backup hero, Sheikh Hasaan, with his own set of problems and frantic proposals. Diya had half a mind of calling Hasaan’s bluff just to shut him up. And last but not least in the roster of men starring in the Comedy of Grooms was Mr. Suitable Man himself, who was most assuredly nerdy, possibly rotund, and probably tongue-tied around women, making him totally unsuitable for her.

  What else? Dear Lord, wasn’t that enough?

  Ah, no, there was more. Last night, as Diya had lain awake, seesawing between mortification and despair, she’d conceded a couple of hard truths to herself. Primarily, she was nothing but a tall, thin wimp, hiding behind her love-hate friendship with Krish.

  She loved a man who didn’t love her. She was hung up on a man who did not desire her. And she was doing nothing—not one thing—to change her situation.

  India’s press corps—the real news media and not the tabloids—often wrote about Diya Mathur in terms of being a role model for Indian women. In those articles, she was a powerful, modern female who fearlessly tore down societal stigmas and male-dominated mores. She was a rule-breaker, a rule-maker.

  So, where was that Wonder Woman now? Where was her boldness, her Embrace the Change attitude when it came to Krish Menon?

  The bitter truth was that Diya Mathur was a fraud.

  Embrace the Change had been the debut ad campaign of her career. Lili Jaanu, one of India’s iconic fashion designers and a mother to an openly gay daughter, designed unique unisex couture. Her campaigns touted slogans like Embrace the Change, Out of the Closet, Love Strips All and were as much about fashion as about LGBTQ propaganda. Nine years ago, freshly rejected by the Beast and with a brand-new career goal to tweak, Diya had jumped at the chance to work with Lili Jaanu and her then-controversial cause. Fashion magazines had alliterated about Diya, calling her the “flamboyant, freethinking fashionista” and “the ideal New Age woman.”

  After that, modeling assignments had inundated her. She’d become the Gay Straight Woman and Beauty Mathur and so on. She hadn’t sought out the labels—personal or professional. She didn’t want to be anyone’s role model. It was an outrageous responsibility. She had only ever wanted to be Krish’s wife. All those things she’d done—was doing—was to prove to him that she was a capable, functioning adult. Someone he could be proud of and not have to constantly bail out of trouble. And, yes, to show him what he was missing. What exactly he’d rejected all those years ago. That she had broken their engagement was of no consequence. She’d only done what he hadn’t had the courage to do himself.

  The road narrowed and forked into two lanes around a triangular picketed garden wet with morning sunlight. Diya took the right path, wondering if she’d done the right thing by breaking the engagement.

  Right from the beginning, she’d handled Krish the wrong way, aggressive when they were at odds and hero-worshipping him when not. One harsh refusal to kiss her on her birthday, and she’d leaped back from him like a scalded cat. Too afraid to expose her heart to hurt and ridicule, she’d taken the higher buddy road with him. The drama of the last few nights and this morning’s truce had shown her that her heart might forever ache and bruise, but it wouldn’t fall apart like a rusted old car on the first speed bump. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

  Now, all she had to do was figure out how to permanently switch lanes on their relationship. Krish would not make it easy. He would fight dirty to keep things as they were. He’d bring up the past and throw their polar opposite personalities in her face. He would play on her fears, the works, as he’d done the first time around. Jeez, was she ready for that triathlon?

  Hopefully, alien Krish wouldn’t be difficult to handle. Still, Diya begged for divine intervention. Oh, benevolent beings in heaven, bless the Beast with compassion and a new brain. Please.

  The Menon and Mathur families would be surprised, even exasperated, when she told them she’d changed her
mind again. But she could handle them.

  Diya flat-out sprinted for the final stretch, her pulse fast and strong.

  She hoped both families would stand behind the spectator lines this time—especially her father—and cheer the triathletes on. If they wanted to hand out bottles of water and glucose biscuits, she was fine with it. What she didn’t want them to do was pick sides.

  The giant hardwoods protecting the storybook house from the road were the marker. Diya slowed to a jog and then a walk. At the mailbox, she removed her headphones and let her brain empty of everything. She began a series of cool-down stretches, after which she scooped up the water bottle she’d left on the mailbox and began to slowly drain it while making her way to the house. She passed two sedans, two minivans, and a Volkswagen that had miraculously appeared along the cobblestone driveway.

  The pancake-eating guests have arrived, she surmised.

  Diya took her last unhurried gulp of her lemon-flavored water and mentally shook her head at Krish. He could’ve told her he’d invited people over for breakfast. She’d have helped him make something tastier, definitely more nutritious than out-of-a-box pancakes.

  Another Menon quirk: a mile-wide streak of independence. The Menons never asked for help, not even if they fell into an open manhole and had no way of crawling out of the sludge. And, if help was forced upon them, they held themselves in the person’s debt forever.

  Diya flipped open the door alarm riveted into the wall by the garage and keyed in the code Krish had made her memorize.

  “Khul ja sim sim,” she rumbled in a low voice like Alibaba as the garage door shuddered open.

  Alibaba and the Forty Thieves had been one of her favorite bedtime stories because it had been one of Krish’s favorites.