Sleepless in Dubai, page 20
I rammed my finger into his armpit. “You’re not my mom.”
He jumped, grabbing my wrist, and tugged me into his chest.
That flutter? All-out raging. Maniacal thrashing. And in no uncertain terms, declaring, You are, indeed, crushing hard on Yash. In case you forgot.
He warned, “I will tickle the hell out of you, Nikki.”
I ducked my head into his chest to hide whatever telling look I had on my face. “You can’t. I don’t feel good, and you have to be nice,” I mumbled. “Can you order me a salad?”
He reached over to the bedside phone, ordered, and hung up, returning to the position we’d been in. Both of us were slouched against the headboard on many pillows. I was lying halfway down, and our legs were extended in front of us.
“You’re lucky,” he whispered in my ear; and dear lord, my breath hitched.
“Yash . . .”
“Yeah?” he asked, tilting his head so that we were staring into each other’s eyes.
I panicked and pulled the covers to my face. “Did you actually have fun skydiving?”
“Yeah, I did. I know. Don’t remind me. I freaked out beforehand,” he groaned, draping an arm across his eyes.
“I was freaking out, too.”
“Really?” he lowered his arm to look at me. “You seemed way cooler than I was.”
“I was scared, but I didn’t want you to regret not jumping when we’d made it that far. Are you glad you jumped?”
“Yeah. Thanks for that.”
“Why were you so insistent on skydiving in the first place?” He looked at the ceiling. “Uh. You know how you were accusing me of skydiving to impress some girl?”
My heart splintered. “Yeah . . .”
“Well, you were right.”
I frowned. I was about to barf all these crackers back up.
He pinched his lips together. “I was trying to impress you.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Why did you think that would impress me?” Wait. Was he trying to impress me because he was crushing on me? I wondered how long he’d felt this way about me, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask.
“Not the part about me jumping out of a plane, but the fact that we got to do something so amazing together.”
He was trying not to smile, and here I was grinning like a fool. “You coerced me into a moment of a lifetime.”
“Are you mad?” he asked.
I pulled the covers down from my face and shifted, propped up on my elbow so that I was on my side facing him, his chin at eye level. “I’m glad. Can I ask you a question?”
“Maybe.”
I clenched my fists to keep from shaking, but I had to know. “Do you like me?”
“I’ve always liked you.”
“No. Not as in friends. I mean, the way I like you.”
He swallowed and my gaze fell to his throat. “I’ve always like liked you, Nikki.”
Then he drew an arm back over his eyes and tamped down a smile. Yash was, for the first time ever, wholly embarrassed.
My entire body was trembling, but here went nothing and everything.
I leaned over, dipping beneath his arm, and kissed him. It was just a peck on his chin, partially on his jaw. But it was probably just as defining a moment as a kiss on the lips, bringing all the stomach flips with it.
Yash slid his arm off his eyes. I ducked down, tucking my face against his neck. His hand fell to my hip.
Yash nudged my forehead with his chin, and I looked up at him. He was watching me with a soft expression that could destroy a girl. His gaze dropped to my mouth. My breath hitched as he leaned down toward me.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Was this happening? My first kiss? With Yash?
Our lips met. Softly, delicately.
All the feels hit my gut like we were on one of Dubai’s many fastest/biggest/highest-in-the-world roller coasters. Forget Diwali fireworks. Sparks were going off in this tiny space between us.
He pulled back and I gasped. Why had he stopped?
His mouth came crashing down against mine. Guess he didn’t want it to end, either.
I’d never felt so warm, so volatile, but in the best, euphoric way. We parted, breathing heavily. My cheeks flushed as I buried my face against his arm, smiling and maybe laughing. His body convulsed beneath mine like maybe he was laughing, too.
I leaned back. “Wait. You liked me all that time?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shrugged. “Worried it would ruin our friendship. Sound familiar?”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I told you?”
“I dunno. I’m shy?”
I pinched his side and he flopped, chuckling. “Since when?” “Since this!”
Our phones pinged and Yash reached over to the bedside table to check his messages. “Parents will be on their way back soon. You better eat something before they ask what I was doing all this time.”
Eeek! For the love of all that was good, my dad could not find out that we’d been locking lips!
I jumped out of bed, asking, “Where’s my salad?”
“Should be here any minute. We gotta get ready for dinner soon. You OK to eat dinner with us?”
“Yeah. Maybe another salad or soup with everyone?” I went through my clothes to find my outfit for our big family New Year dinner.
“Why are you grinning so hard?” he asked, sporting a grin of his own.
“Yash . . . you kissed me.”
He hopped off the bed. “So, what you’re saying is that if I ever want to make you smile, I just have to kiss you?”
“Oh my god.” I tried to control the flutters sweeping up and down my body and asked, “Oh. What was it that you were telling me when I fell asleep?”
“You didn’t hear anything I said?”
“No. Sorry. My headache got me and then I was out. Or were you trying to tell me how much you adore me?”
He smirked. “Adore, huh?”
“What else?”
His brows furrowed, pensive. “Um, we gotta fill out a follow-up for skydiving so that they know we’re alive and OK.”
“Sure,” I said. The way Yash had sounded had me thinking it was super important, but eh, guess a company making sure that they hadn’t killed us was sorta vital.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
My headache had completely vanished by the next day. But now it was also the last day of Diwali, and I was not looking forward to it. Not because I didn’t want our time in Dubai to end or for the festive season to wilt away, but because it was . . .
“Everyone almost ready for Bhai Beej? We were thinking about going to the park for this,” Papa said.
“What did you get Hetalben, again?” Mummie asked him.
“Surprise,” Papa said with a wag of his finger.
Mummie pulled his hand down. “Surprise for her, not me!”
“We’re sharing sweets?” he asked instead.
“Yes. I bought them for everyone.” She nodded at a red and gold box on the desk. Even though sisters fed one to their brothers, or in our case, people close enough to be siblings, Mummie must’ve gotten something for us girls, too.
Mummie would place a cashew-laden kaju katli to Pranav Uncle’s mouth and he would give her a gift in return.
Hetal Auntie would place a chocolate barfi to Papa’s mouth, and he would give her a gift.
Lilly and I would do the same with Yash, his flavor of sweets being the very popular bright orange jalebi soaked in sugary rose water with a hint of cardamon and topped off with saffron.
Meanwhile, I loved stuffed kala jamun and Lilly would trip for some rose-scented gulab jamun. Our parents didn’t usually eat much in the way of sweets, but here we were, with a big ole box full of them.
Our parents had their own siblings but couldn’t always go visit for Bhai Beej since they were spread out across the States. Since we were essentially one giant family, we just celebrated together. The parents seemed to love the fact that single-child Yash had “sisters” next door and that we brotherless girls had him in return.
It was a lot like Raksha Bhandan, except on that day sisters gave brothers sweets and tied threads around their wrist, and brothers gave sisters money and a promise of protection. Lilly and I exchanged threads, too, and did our own version because we decided that we didn’t need brothers to protect us. On the other hand, getting a lifetime’s worth of protection and money in a trade-off for decadent mithai seemed like a pretty sweet deal. Pun absolutely intended!
“Today is very important,” Papa reminded us.
I cringed. I couldn’t do a tradition with Yash that had us treating each other like brother and sister when we clearly weren’t. We saw one another as something entirely different, and going through with Bhai (which literally meant “brother”) Beej was about to get weird AF.
I wondered, if Yash had liked me all this time, whether this was why he took his duties with Lilly seriously but with me had always found ways to get around the more traditional steps. Why he refused to let me put a sweet to his mouth and always snatched the Raksha Bhandan thread before I could tie it on him. He refused to ever wear mine and instead had insisted that he liked to keep them intact in a journal instead. It was all symbolic anyway. Aside from meals during these times, we didn’t get much more into it than that.
“I don’t want to do this with Yash anymore,” I confessed, rubbing my arm and evading eye contact like it was a monster.
“Why not? Don’t tell me that you haven’t taken Diwali seriously and put things behind you. Have you only been pretending to get along with him?” Mummie scolded.
“No.”
“Not doing this might offend Yash.”
“We’re on the same page. He won’t be offended.”
“Then explain why,” she pressed. “So that we’re all on the same page.”
“Um . . . because . . .”
Papa lifted his hand in a gesture for me to continue, and Mummie tilted her head and cocked her brows as if saying I’d better hurry up because she didn’t have all day.
My skin flared hot. If confessing my feelings to Yash had been mortifying, then this took the cake. I’d been so worried about losing Yash as a friend, but what about our parents? Would mine no longer see him as their son, but like any other boy they wanted me to retain boundaries with, creating a rift with his parents? Would they no longer trust us together? Would we stop hanging out as a giant family with our random meals?
How could I say this without telling them the truth but also offer enough of an excuse to get away with it and—
“Because they like each other,” Lilly interjected, rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. “They like like each other and it’s so weird to treat a boy like your brother when you’re crushing on him. God. How does no one else see what’s happening? I saw this miles away, like from Austin miles away.”
She took off her glasses and held them out in an offering. “Maybe y’all need glasses?”
Heat obliterated my face. It was on fire.
“Oh . . .” Papa breathed, his jaw hanging open.
“Hmm . . .” Mummie hummed, pressing her lips together and looking me up and down like she wanted to say, “Get it, girl!”
No! Mother of mine, do not be like that. She was probably planning out our entire future, thinking how wonderful it would be for her best friends to become her in-laws.
“Please don’t tell his parents or say anything to Yash,” I grumbled.
“Aha!” Lilly said, pointing at me. “You confess! I called it.”
Mummie blew out a breath and looked to Papa. “How are we going to handle this? They’ll want to know the reason. They deserve to know.”
“Please don’t tell them!” I exclaimed, clutching onto Mummie’s arm and trembling. Yash and I hadn’t even figured out what we were doing and where we were heading with our relationship, and maybe he didn’t want his parents to know. It seemed like something he should tell them when he was ready.
She clucked her tongue and hugged me. “Are you scared that you like him?”
“Um, yes. Duh. But, also, this is mortifying. Why do parents have to know about everything? Crushes are supposed to be private, but also this might be cosmic karma for how mean I was, and I totally accept it.”
Papa chuckled and rubbed my back. “Oh, beta. Any boy is nuts not to like you. Doesn’t mean I want you two—”
“Oh my god, no,” I interrupted. “Don’t finish that sentence. This is why you shouldn’t know if I like him. Don’t be weird around him, OK? Don’t give him evil eyes or smirks. Don’t go either way. Everything has to be the same.”
He ignored me and said, “How about this? We just celebrate together. No official sweet offering and present giving for pictures? We do our thing with his parents. You and Lilly do your thing with Yash.”
I nodded.
“I’ll still participate,” Lilly said, hugging me. “He’s still like a brother to me. And I want a gift from him because he gives the best ones.”
So here I was, between my parents and against my sister, all willing to slyly conceal this from Yash’s parents. But Yash himself? I’d have to tell him that my parents knew. My feelings for him, which should’ve been private, were snowballing, gathering more and more people.
* * *
We’d packed our things and got ready to check out. The hotel let us leave our bags in their holding room until we returned, since our flight wasn’t scheduled until much later.
In the meantime, we’d picked up lunch to head out to the park, and by lunch, I meant we’d gathered loads of food from vendors and cafés and hauled everything out to a nice, shady area. We first exchanged gifts and sweets, and true to their word, my parents took Yash’s parents aside and did their exchange away from us. They didn’t seem to mind once Papa started cracking jokes. We were far enough away to have some privacy when talking but close enough that our parents could watch us.
Lilly fed Yash a jalebi first and he plucked a flower from beside him and handed it to her.
She was delighted and didn’t care one iota when I said, “Lame. That’s not a gift.”
“My presence is a gift,” Yash replied.
I plucked some grass and threw it at him. He laughed and swiped shredded grass blades from his hair. Then we sort of sat there and eyed the other.
I cleared my throat, tossing a jalebi at him, which he caught in the air and bit into. “You can feed yourself,” I said.
“That’s fine. I didn’t get you anything anyway.” Even though he pointedly looked at my camera.
I stuck my tongue out at him, and that was kinda the end of that.
And the Most Anticlimactic Award goes to . . . Nikki!
I turned to my camera and took family shots to capture the day before going through the ones from Diwali.
“Anything good?” Yash asked, glancing over his plate of food. I landed on the firework scenes—the perfect picture with the prefect subject—and smiled. “Yeah, something really good.”
“Lemme see?”
“You’re not ready to behold this level of beauty.”
* * *
We checked into the airport and made it past customs with some extra time on our hands to peruse the mighty, glimmering shops. We avoided the super pricey stores and went straight for the treats.
“Here’s your gift,” Yash said.
“What?” I asked, taking the familiar Al Nassma bronze box.
“You liked camel milk chocolate, right?”
I smiled, imagining how I was going to savor these little squares of rich, smooth, gourmet camel milk chocolate with creamy nougat, pistachio, and espresso centers. But then my smile vanished.
“Not for Bhai Beej,” he added quickly, scratching the back of his head.
“Obvs,” I said with a nervous chuckle.
“But you’re not going to be able to find these anywhere else.”
“Thank you. So, as a heads-up. My parents know I like you.”
He tapped my fingers, still clutching the box, and added, “Well, my parents know that I like you.”
“How long do you think before they ignore our pleas and tell each other?”
“I give it to the end of takeoff.”
“Can’t trust them with anything.”
Lilly appeared at my side with a grin.
“Oh! How long have you been standing there?” I asked, stepping away from Yash.
Lilly put a hand on my back and pushed me toward him. “Go on. God, only took y’all forever. Seriously, am I the only one who saw this coming from miles away? Sure you don’t need my glasses?”
Yash cleared his throat as I mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Plane’s boarding!” Auntie yelled from across the seating area. “Go to the bathroom! Then we can divide leftover thepla.”
“Oh, my god,” he muttered.
In a matter of minutes, we’d boarded the plane and shuffled ever so slowly toward our seats. The novelty of air travel had lost all meaning, now that I was dead tired and not looking forward to catching up on mounds of homework. As we suspected, our parents had arranged for Yash and I to sit together again. But this time, neither one of us wanted it any other way.
We shuffled toward the back and settled in while our families sat farther up. I slipped into the window seat and Yash took the aisle seat with an empty seat in between us, now piled with three seats’ worth of “airline swag.” Namely toiletries and blankets.
“Is that really your seat?” I asked.
“Yep. My dad said the trick is to book seats with an empty one in the middle because who wants a seat in between two people?”
“Smart. Hopefully no one booked it.”
“At least I can change seats with them, but looks like a half-empty flight.”
“Hey. Don’t forget your Garfield and Nermal picture.”
He laughed. “Who forgot?”
Yash situated the two stuffed animals in the seat between us, buckled them up, and took pictures before stashing them in his backpack. Then he moved all the swag to the aisle seat and slid into the middle seat beside me.
