Page 31 of Not In Love

Hair a little long, stubble just this side of rakish. In his usual white t-shirt and blue jeans, he looked delicious enough to devour in one bite and God, she was hungry.

After gaping at him like a groupie, she hurriedly shifted her gaze to the spice jars, wary of her longing written across her face.

All of January, with his radio silence, hadn’t been enough to face this moment. They had both acted as if Cancun had never happened. No texts. No calls. Except hearing his voice when he video called Tia every night and read a story to her.

She didn’t owe him anything, and he didn’t owe her.

Still, the lingering ache of not hearing from him had surprised her. And in this moment, when he was within touching distance, the ache was keener, its roots inside her deeper.

It wasn’t just that her body ached for his touch again. Wasn’t just her lips trembling in the middle of the night for the firm press of his, or her core clenching and unclenching on emptiness, or her skin tingling for his touch.

She had missed his quiet, unassuming presence in her house. In her kitchen, whipping up meals for her and Tia.

In his absence, it had been easy to focus on herself though. To get her head screwed on straight. To pause and take stock of her life.

She’d spent two weekends with Mona and Chaaru. Read for pleasure again. Signed up for dance classes. Taken herself out for lazy shopping trips without letting her to-do list boss her around and just people watched. Even attended her first therapy session.

She was still tired, still on edge sometimes, but for once, she didn’t try to control it. She let herself be. After all, as her best friends had reminded her, she’d gotten through the worst things in her life. If she fell apart now, she would simply put herself back together with their help.

And while she still fought her budding feelings for him with every breath, she was at least ready to face Diego with a more grounded version of herself.

His cousins surrounded him. With Tia chattering away all things wedding in his arms, he greeted each one, hugged Muriel one-handed. Whatever the bride-to-be whispered to him, his gaze flew across the room and landed on Kash.

She stilled, even as every inch of her skin prickled with awareness.

The eye contact lasted mere seconds, but it hit like heat rising through a vent, sharp and fast. Then there was that sudden fluttering ache between her thighs.

Something unreadable flickered across his face, then vanished as Kaif swooped in to greet him with a loud backslap and the kind of laugh Kash hadn’t heard from her brother in years.

Muriel began barking out schedule changes in the background, and the room swung back into comforting chaos.

Kash took an unwanted sip of the soda, willing her pulse to settle.

He was here. The wedding chaos would afford her a little more time to switch back to normal before it was just them and Tia again. Whatever crack had opened in her chest would be patched up. In the coming months, if not right now.

Really, she had no choice if she wanted to preserve her sanity.

CHAPTER10

By the time the sun dipped behind the neighbor’s trees that evening, the house had taken on a different kind of energy—loose-limbed and quiet murmurs, glowing from the inside out.

Golden light stretched through the windows and spilled across the hardwood floors of Kash’s house, casting warm halos over piles of shoes, empty pizza boxes, and a cooler wedged in the corner like it had always lived there. The scent of tomato sauce and melted cheese mingled with something faintly floral from the backyard, where leftover sunlight still touched the patio.

In the spacious living room, all of their cousins—and a bunch of her friends—had sprawled in front of the massive plasma TV, arguing over movie choices while clutching paper plates piled with pizza. Beer bottles clinked on the low table, and someone had dug out fuzzy throw blankets from the linen closet like they were settling in for a long haul.

Kaif sat in the corner scrolling through a shared playlist doc, occasionally polling the room about reception songs. Muriel’s friend’s teen brother had taken over DJ duty with all the seriousness of a NASA engineer.

Diego leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter, a half-finished slice in one hand and a bottle of beer sweating in the other, watching it all with an irritation he worked hard to mask.

Strangely enough, the noise and the people grated on him, like sandpaper against his exhausted senses. Maybe because he had expected to come back to Tia and Kash and no one else.

Or maybe because her family was once again taking advantage of Kash’s generosity. Kaif, especially. The man had been absent for years, when Kash had needed him, and now, he was happily lapping up her hospitality, her house, and everything she offered without a hint of guilt.

Diego made sure to not show his irritation to Muriel though. It wasn’t her fault if she didn’t know the dynamics at play in the Shah family.

And he knew, as surely as his gaze returning to Kash like she was his true north, that she wouldn’t appreciate his protective urges. Would probably tip her chin high and call it interference.

Not that he gave a damn. Worrying about Kash was as natural as breathing now and he was tired of fighting it.

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