Page 31 of Isn't It Obvious?
When he’s gone, Yael’s voice comes from behind Ravi. “What was that about?” she asks.
She’s on her tiptoes, slotting another book into place. “I don’t know yet,” Ravi answers honestly.
In response, she only hums out a note. She nudges the cart away from her with her foot.
“So, did I ruin your good day?” he finds himself asking.
That note again. “No, but there’s still time,” she says. And then she drags the nearest chair toward her and climbs onto it.
“Oh Lord, what are you doing?”
“Stocking my newly cataloged titles,” she says. The tone isobviously.
“Do you not have a step stool for that?”
“It’s several inches shorter than the chair, and it’s all the way in the office.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Ravi says. Call it a hazard of living with a four-year-old, but all he can see right now is imminent bodily injury. “Is the office unlocked?”
“I’m fine,” Yael insists.
Ravi doesn’t respond. Doesn’t see the point. But he doesn’t leave, either, just watches on with his arms folded across his chest.
Yael rises to a tiptoe, and when she leans forward, the chair wobbles. She catches herself, pressing her heels flat and bracing a hand against the bookshelf, then looks down at the chair as though it’s sold her out in court. The tension in her shoulders is so visible, Ravi can feel his own neck ache.
“Let me get the step stool,” he says.
“I already told you,” Yael says. “It’s too short.”
“Right. Then let me put the books away,” Ravi says.
Her “I don’t need your help” overlaps with his “Come on, you clearly need my help.” And his laugh overlaps with her glare. He tries to cover it with a cough, but then he’s laughing more, and there’s a light in her eyes like she can’t decide whether she’s amused or furious.
“You’re what”—she scans his body—“two inches taller than me? Three?”
“Enough to make a difference,” Ravi says, starting toward her.
“I’m not getting down from my chair just because you told me to,” Yael says. The look she gives him, he supposes, is meant to intimidate him into submission, but it’s severely undercut by the way she’s still bracing herself against the bookcase.
“Okay, then,” he says. He picks up a chair along the way and plants it right next to Yael’s.
Her sightline fixes on him, catlike, as he rounds and steps onto his chair. She seems to track him with her whole body, her chest and chin lifting along with her eyes when he stands to his full height. She’s right—he’s not all that much taller than she is. Yael probably likes it that way, the playing field even. The space between them small.
Ravi likes it, too.
Slowly, he reaches for the book in her left hand—the one not gripping tightly onto the purple-painted plywood. His fingers close around the edge of the book, and when he drags his eyes away from hers, he watches her thumb twitch. Like she’s genuinely considering yanking it out of his grip.
“May I?” he asks, looking back at her face. At the crease in her bottom lip, which gives the barest purse under his gaze, at her eyes moving over his features so carefully. Widening—guiltily, he thinks—when they meet his again.
She doesn’t respond, and it feels like a dare.
Ravi loops his free hand loosely around her wrist. Then gently,gently, tugs it away from the book. He lingers without meaning to, or maybe it feels like he lingers. It’s only a split second before he releases her, but that’s all it takes for him to register how soft and warm she is against the pads of his fingertips.
He was right, too; he slots the book easily onto the highest shelf, his feet still safely flat atop the chair. At the sound of it sliding into place, Yael’s eyes flutter shut.
They blink open, and the dreamy look in them dissipates. Like she remembers where she is. Whoheis. “If you say ‘I told you so,’” she says through gritted teeth, “so help me God, I will push you off that chair.”
Ravi feels his pulse in his neck. He tracks the rise and fall of Yael’s chest—her breathing is rapid, irregular. “I’d say thesame,” he says, “but I don’t think you need any help falling off.”
