Chapter Twenty-Seven
NASH
Nash’s runs were personal bests this week. He didn’t know if it was from last Saturday and seeing the look of sheer joy on Kiran’s face when she’d realized they were at a horse farm or from the simpler moments throughout the week, like Kiran knocking on his door and the two of them spending a few hours stealing kisses while binging on Netflix shows.
Either way, it was Kiran, the root of happiness for him. Add in a new city and exploring it in a fun way, a lot of laughter, Brandon nearby, and a job he loved… Well, Nash was pretty darn lucky.
Brandon: How goes it with Kiran?
Nash: She’s awesome. How’s Tasha?
Brandon: Also awesome. You doing anything today?
Nash: Yeah, I wanted to eat some good NY pizza. Kiran wanted to hang. Any suggestions?
Brandon: Di Fara in Brooklyn. Don’t ask questions. Just go.
Kiran knocked on the door around noon.
When Nash opened it, he couldn’t help but smile. She was wearing a pair of jeans with black flats and a pale-blue cardigan over a black tank top. Her hair, typically straightened and worn down, was up in a messy bun with tendrils framing her face.
“Hi,” she said.
He grabbed her and pulled her inside in response, pressing his lips to hers and hungrily running his tongue over her bottom lip. Kiran responded with the same enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing up against his chest.
“Hi,” he said when they pulled apart.
“Well, now I can’t remember what we were going to do all day, but we could do more of that.” She smirked.
“You’ll never hear me argue against it,” he responded before kissing her again.
A few minutes passed, with Kiran leaning against the door and Nash’s hands exploring the skin at her waist before her stomach gurgled.
“That was attractive,” she mumbled.
“I didn’t realize I was dating Godzilla!” Nash laughed.
“Watch yourself.”
“Okay, well, let’s fix that grumble.”
“Let’s get pizza. A proper New York pizza.”
Nash thought of Brandon’s text from the morning. “I have a place in mind.”
It was a short walk from the subway stop in Brooklyn to Di Fara Pizza, a tiny place with a window where a worker was serving pizza to the line stretching down the block.
“Wow, Brandon wasn’t lying,” Nash said. “This place has to be good if there’s a line, right?”
“Brooklyn’s got some of the best pizza places in New York,” Kiran said. “This will be worth it.”
“Can your belly handle the wait?”
“We just spent an hour on a train to get this pizza. A few more minutes won’t hurt.” Kiran gave an exaggerated sigh. “The things I do for you.”
Nash rolled his eyes and weaved his fingers through hers, leading her to the back of the line. It was silly how content he felt when Kiran’s small hands fit into his, but that cliché about puzzle pieces was true—Kiran and Nash fit together.
“How are your parents doing?”
“They’re good. My dad thinks he’s young enough to do more than he should, and my mom is a mother hen who likes to tell everyone what to do.” But the way Kiran softened when she spoke about them told Nash that her complaints were made with the utmost love.
“Have you thought about if you might want to tell them about us yet?”
“Oh. Um. Am I supposed to?” Her eyes darted away from him.
Nash felt a pang of something but couldn’t place his finger on it. “No, you don’t have to. We’ve only been dating a short while.”
“I’ll tell them,” she promised. “But I want to enjoy you first.”
Nash tried to ignore the unsettled feeling he had but reminded himself they’d been dating only a week and that while the intensity of what he felt was enormous, logic didn’t dictate going all in after such a short time. She wouldn’t leave—she just needed to do this on her time.
“Nash,” Kiran said gently, pulling on his arm. “Come back to me.”
He looked at her.
“I’ll tell them. It’s a promise.”
The earnestness in her expression erased any doubt, and he nodded his head, pacified. “I don’t want to force you. I know it sounds ridiculous mentioning it to them so soon. I know they’re important to you, that’s all.”
“They are. You’re right. And so are you.” Kiran kissed his cheek.
He gave her a quick peck on the forehead, breathing in her scent of sandalwood and roses, the lingering fragrance from the incense he knew she kept in the corner by some Hindu figurines.
As they stepped up to the service window, Nash paid ten dollars for two slices of cheese pizza for the two of them.
Kiran took a bite before he did, and her cheeks filled up like a chipmunk’s.
“Wow,” Nash managed, staring at her. He took a bite of his own and groaned loudly, in awe of the fresh taste of olive oil drizzled onto the top of the slice and how it brought the flavors together.
Kiran’s eyes widened; she blushed and looked away quickly.
“What? This pizza is like a slice of heaven.”
“I just…had a dirty thought when you made that noise,” Kiran mumbled.
Nash raised his eyebrows. “Look at your filthy mind, Kiran Mathur.”
“Oh, shhh. If I made the same sound, you’d think it too.”
“Hold on. I’m picturing that.”
“Don’t fantasize in public!”
“Too late.”
Kiran smacked his arm playfully before taking another bite.
They leaned against a wall around the corner from the shop, eating in contented silence. Kiran finished in half the time it took Nash.
“Now I feel terrible about making you wait to eat. You scarfed that down. Do you want another slice?”
“No…I have a better idea.”
“What?”
“Come with me.”
She grabbed his hand and began pulling him toward the Avenue J train station. They scanned their subway tickets and listened to the loud screeches on the rails from other trains as they passed before finally boarding the one meant for them.
Finally, when Nash was beginning to think they’d looped around Brooklyn somehow, they arrived in Carroll Gardens.
“That took forever. Also, I always thought public transportation was supposed to shorten a journey.”
“Well, Nashville, sometimes it doesn’t. Stop whining. It’s not like you have anywhere better to be.”
“That’s true. I’d rather be with you than anywhere else anyway.”
Kiran lit up at his remark.
“Okay, so where are we going?”
“To one of my favorite streets in Brooklyn for a treat!”
Smith Street was like seeing multiple eras come crashing together in an eclectic explosion. The architecture contrasted between turn of the century, industrial, and modern, with boutiques, niche stores, and chains all at once. It was so unique in comparison to their East Village neighborhood that Nash spent most of their walk gazing at all the details.
“This neighborhood is so up your alley,” Kiran commented.
“I agree. It’s a little hipster. A little quirky. Lots of personality.”
“Exactly. Just like you.”
They stopped in front of a white building with projecting glass windows, seating placed on the inside so that visitors could watch those passing by on the street. Pink mehndi patterns decorated the windows, and a door in the same pink led inside.
“Ice cream?” Nash asked. “We couldn’t go to a place nearby?”
“Not just any ice cream. It’s all Indian-inspired,” Kiran said, her voice bubbling with excitement.
“All right, I’m sold. Let’s do this,” Nash said.
The inside of the store was as minimal as the outside. The white stucco walls had a subtle, white mehndi pattern rising from them, a tiny detail that added culture into a minimal space. The hardwood gray floors added neutrality, while the pink back wall was the only major pop of color. The menu hung behind a white counter with pink designs on it, another splash of pink.
As Kiran and Nash neared the counter to place their order, his hand on her waist, he could sense Kiran’s energy rise and a tiny bounce appeared in her step in excitement.
“What can I get you?” asked the girl behind the counter.
“Can I sample the masala chai?” Kiran answered before she’d even finished the question, her gigantic grin giving away how happy she was.
“You can take the girl out of the CMC but can’t take the chai out of her, apparently,” Nash said, remembering the nickname for her crew of best friends.
“This isn’t for me, silly. Actually.” She turned to the girl again. “Can I have two of those samples? Now he’s making me want some too.”
She turned back to Nash.
“It’s for us. Chai is what bonded us when we met after all.”
Nash gently rubbed her lower back in response, warmed to her sentimentality. “Then that sounds perfect.”
The cool taste of cardamom, vanilla, sugar, cream, cloves, and ginger flooded his senses.
“Okay, I take back all the cynicism about coming this far for ice cream. This is amazing.”
“I told you!”
They tried a few more samples of mango and cream, rose with cinnamon-roasted almonds, and sweet roti and ghee. Nash had never tasted so many rich flavors in desserts before, and he was eager to keep going, certain he’d try everything on the menu.
Eventually, he settled on a cup of carrot halwa, a flavor he had been dubious about because who puts carrots in ice cream? But he’d been so shocked at the pleasant sweetness of it that he’d found himself wanting a giant two-scoop cup of it.
Kiran ordered two scoops of rose with cinnamon-roasted almonds, in a cone made of jaggery.
“So what is jaggery, exactly?” Nash asked, staring at the cone Kiran was holding, when they sat at a gold table on pink chairs.
“It’s a brown sugar. You can use it as a base in a lot of Indian sweets when you melt it with water or ghee.”
“That sounds awesome.” Nash took a lick of his ice cream, relishing it.
“It is. My mom used to make this sweet with jaggery for my birthday. She’d toast cashews in butter and mix them with a little cardamom, then mix rice with jaggery and put the nuts on top. She used to offer it at the temple first, as prashad, or an offering. I swear that only made it taste better,” Kiran said fondly.
“Do you know how to make it yourself?”
“I do…but it’s different when your mom makes it and it’s infused with some sort of magic that you can never capture on your own.”
Nash nodded, giving a small smile and feeling a small pang in his chest.
“Oh my gosh.” Kiran paled. “I’m so sorry, Nash. I blanked. I didn’t mean to be so insensitive.”
“No, it’s okay.” Nash was honest. “I don’t know what that feels like, but it doesn’t mean I can’t imagine it. And I imagine you must miss her when you don’t get that sweet on your birthday now.”
Kiran nodded. “That’s something we’ll have to learn, right? The sides of each other we don’t immediately understand.”
Nash gazed at her, earnestly looking back at him—with a giant blob of ice cream on her upper lip. He stifled a laugh.
“What?”
“You’ve got ice cream on your face… I’ll get it.”
And he leaned in and kissed it off her.
“That was such a Bollywood hokey move.” She laughed.
“Would you rather I not kiss you?”
“Don’t you dare. Get over here,” she said before leaning in again.
A cool drip of ice cream hit Nash’s hand, which rested on the table.
“You realize you’re dripping everywhere, right?”
Kiran looked down. Lines of ice cream had begun to trail down her hand, and she frantically licked up her wrist, trying to prevent it from continuing to make a mess. Nash tried to ignore the sight of her tongue moving gently.
“I didn’t catch that I was dating a toddler. Haven’t you ever eaten an ice cream cone before?”
“Shut up! You distracted me!”
Nash got up and picked up some napkins from the counter. He wrapped his hands around her wrist, wiping down the stickiness, and when he touched her skin, Kiran locked eyes with him. He slowed for a second, allowing his insides to fill up with happiness.
And even when she pulled her hand away and playfully pushed her ice cream cone into his face, he was certain there was nowhere he’d rather be but in Brooklyn, at a tiny Indian ice cream shop, with a girl who made his world turn.