Chapter Twenty-Eight
KIRAN
“It’s nice to see him make you so happy,” Payal remarked as she and Kiran sat across from each other at a coffee shop on the Lower East Side.
“You know, in the last month, a switch has turned on. I feel fuller, like I’m carrying more happiness inside of me. I didn’t know it was possible. It’s not like I was incomplete before I met him. But the addition of him has made life…so much more.” Kiran shrugged. She didn’t have the words.
It had been over a month since the night in Bryant Park when she and Nash had decided to be together—and Kiran couldn’t help but feel better for it, despite the nagging feeling that she was betraying her family.
“Have you told your parents yet?” Payal asked, as though she’d read the footnote at the end of Kiran’s thoughts.
“Get out of my head.”
“I can see it on your face,” Payal said, pointing with a finger while she sipped her coffee.
“There are some palpable differences between us. He doesn’t have a family. I can’t live without mine. And being Indian is enough of a difference sometimes—explaining what it feels like to be an immigrant, or the world I grew up with, or even certain foods…translating meanings of words to convey a specific emotion. Some of those aspects are tiring, though I’m happy to do it because he’s so special to me.”
“I think that’s the problem for anyone who straddles two cultures, Kiran. You’re from India so that’s a different experience. But for people like us, who grew up here, it’s both similar and different. There are always two worlds at play, and they sometimes clash.”
“Truth.” Kiran nodded.
“You’ll figure it out. You always do.” Payal tossed her hair over her shoulder before speaking again. “Want to go shopping?”
“Isn’t that what we did all afternoon?” Kiran said in disbelief. “We spent three hours walking around.”
“Well, that was for me, but now I have to style someone, so I have to shop for them.”
Kiran shook her head with a laugh. “I love you, but shopping for you is tiring enough.”
“Fine, fine. Don’t support my dreams.”
“Don’t even try and play that card, miss.”
Payal stuck her tongue out.
“So what is styling people about anyway? I thought you designed clothes, not used other brands’ clothing.”
“Styling people lets people know what my tastes and aesthetic is. It builds up a good profile as I design and begin working on my own stuff.”
“Are you nervous about this next step?” Kiran asked. “I would be terrified, if I’m honest.”
“You know…yes and no. On one hand, telling my parents I don’t want to take over the company they groomed me for will probably go terribly. But on the other hand, fashion makes me happy. I feel powerful. I don’t know if I want to give that up either.”
Kiran could relate.
“Then don’t let go. Take the advice you gave me, and take it step by step. It’ll work out.”
“Thanks, Kiran,” Payal said gratefully. “Are you meeting Nash soon?”
“Yes, he said he’d meet me around six.”
“Okay, well, it’s five now, and I know you wanted to pick up dinner, so I won’t keep you from your romantic outing. Have fun. Use protection.”
Kiran rolled her eyes but gave Payal a hug and left the coffee shop behind.
She strolled up Clinton Street to an Indian restaurant where she’d placed an order. She’d gotten Payal’s help in selecting the best chicken dishes they had and ordered a few of her own favorites, resulting in a plastic bag filled with enough takeout to feed a small army.
She lugged it for twenty minutes, winding back down Clinton Street, all the way to FDR Drive. The November air was chilly, and the beads of sweat on her brow from her walk cooled as soon as they formed.
Nash shared his location with her just as she was arriving, and she found him sitting on a high bench chair, facing the water.
“Wow, you nailed it on the seats and the view,” Kiran said.
“Hi, baby,” Nash said as he slid off the seat and gave her a quick peck. “What’d you get?”
“I brought Indian food for dinner! I figured it was time.”
“You’re not wrong. Between this water, the view, and you…trying Indian food sounds like the perfect combination.”
They settled into their chairs on the edge of a wooden platform that seemed to perch on top of the water as though they were floating in the middle of the waves.
The East River flowed quickly underneath the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge in front of them. In the evening dimness, they appeared as twinkling designs of light against a darkening sky, with a backdrop of Brooklyn and all its glimmering activity. The sound of the water was soothing, like a hum or a whisper in the background, serving as a soundtrack to their night.
“Okay, what am I eating?” Nash asked, examining the spread Kiran had laid out in front of them.
“Samosas and aloo tikki to start. Chicken makhani, naan, and bhindi masala—which, fun fact, my mom used to say would make me smart when I was little—kheer for dessert and raita to cool off your belly at the end.”
Nash stared at her. “Your appetite is simultaneously the sexiest and scariest thing about you.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment and start eating.”
She pulled out the disposable plates she’d requested from the restaurant and doled out a little bit of everything onto the plate.
“Here, you take it,” Nash offered.
“No, in India, guests are considered sacred. You get food first.”
“But we’re not at home…or in India.”
“Well, we’ll pretend since it’s the food of my people.”
Nash laughed. “Sounds good. But I’ll wait until you’ve served yourself too.”
“Okay, first bite of the samosa on three. One. Two. Three!”
Nash took a bite, and Kiran watched his face as she chewed on the fluffy breaded crust surrounding a spicy potato-and-pea mixture. Nash closed his eyes and smacked his lips together.
“Keep it coming. This is already an amazing meal.”
Kiran couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.
Something about Nash loving Indian food was as though he loved a part of her that the rest of the world didn’t quite understand. It sounded silly, really, to think that way, but her roots were so embedded in the fiber of who she was that Nash loving that side of her was like he entwined himself in them too.
They devoured the fried goodness of the tikki next. Kiran showed Nash how to scoop bhindi masala into torn pieces of naan, feeding it to him and trying not to gasp as he licked the tips of her fingers when she fed him. She waited to observe how he responded to the chicken makhani and lost herself in the way he described it and inhaled the entire container full of it. They dug into the raita as Nash marveled over the slightly sour yogurt mixed with veggies. When they both dived into the kheer, the sweetness of the milk and rice was the perfect ending.
“I surrender,” Nash said, putting his napkin down after they’d finished most of the kheer.
“Me. Too.” Kiran shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“That might have been the best meal I’ve had in this city. Thank you again for sharing it with me.”
“I’ll share everything with you,” she said softly.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
They both stood, still moving heavily, as though their bellies had physically grown from eating so much.
Nash gestured toward the lighted pathway on the pier, heading farther into the middle of the river. A building on the left side had a white ceiling that swept upward above a wooden platform. The stairs leading up to the platform lit up in the night, and at the top, hanging from the perch of the white ceiling, were giant swings that remained unoccupied.
Kiran held Nash’s hand, throwing away their bag of trash as they made their way to the swings and sat next to each other, still gazing out at the lights and the water.
“Favorite playground equipment when you were a kid?” Nash asked.
“The jungle gym. What about you?”
“The swings. Brandon and I were swinging champions.”
“Please don’t try that here.” Kiran giggled. “I don’t know if these swings could handle it.”
“I stopped being wild about it when we were eight,” Nash confessed.
“Because you grew out of it?”
“Because Brandon tried to convince me he could fly, and he landed on his arm and broke it.”
Kiran winced. “Yikes.”
“I know. He ruined Superman for me for life.”
“You know, you kind of are like Superman.”
“How so?”
“A little bit of a loner…smart. Kind. Quietly saving people.”
“Well, that might be the greatest compliment of all time.”
“I mean it,” she said, lightly tracing his fingers with her own. “Except I don’t think you have kryptonite.”
“I do.”
“What is it?”
He remained thoughtful for a moment, his eyes drifting across the landscape before he finally spoke, his expression pained. “I’m afraid of being left.”
When she frowned, he went on.
“Why else do you think I only have Brandon and Kate? It’s not because I’m a mean guy—or at least I hope I’m not. But I tend not to form relationships unless I’m certain they’ll last. I’ve been abandoned before. It also gives me less chance to screw up or hurt people.”
Kiran put her head on his shoulder, taking his hand. “You wouldn’t screw up.”
“I don’t want to take the chance.”
“So…outside of the fact that we’re dating, why did you tell me that?” Kiran searched his eyes.
“Because I connected with you. I’m in a relationship with you. And that means something to me and…I wanted you to know that. You. This. Us. It means so much to me.”
A siren sounded in Kiran’s chest, both warning her and indicating that she had lost control.
“You mean so much to me too,” she whispered back before leaning in to brush his lips with hers.
They sat for minutes, maybe even hours, in contented silence—two people who began as strangers and ended up becoming so much more.
As Kiran climbed the stairs to her apartment after they’d taken an Uber for the short drive back to their apartment building, Nash followed close behind.
“Thank you for being vulnerable with me tonight,” she murmured, leaning against her door. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
“I meant it. You’re worth it…and I trust you.”
She wanted to tell him he shouldn’t. That the world was a scary place that had expectations of her that she wasn’t sure she could measure up to. That she didn’t want to try to meet them. That she wanted him and only him.
Instead, she kissed him. Slowly. Gently. And then harder.
And with each tiny gasp of hers and the quiet sighs he allowed to escape him, Kiran lost herself, and every thought about what would happen in the future evaporated in the space between them.
Her lips parted, and his tongue left tingles across her bottom lip as he trailed across it.
Nash kissed the corner of her mouth, his soft lips leaving pressure behind as he moved from her cheekbones, to her lips again, to her jawline, to her neck, and to her earlobe.
“Come inside,” she gasped against his ear.
When he followed her in, she knew she’d never felt so alive.