Page 68 of Isn't It Obvious?
When she catches up with him, he’s already cleared most of the tables. He nods at her, and she nods back, and they go about doing the rest quietly for a few minutes.
“Gina’s right—you’re earlier than usual,” Yael says eventually, not looking at him.
“Is that a question?” Ravi asks. Yael can hear the laughter in his voice, feel his eyes on the side of her face.
Finally, she makes eye contact. “Maybe.”
“I had less to do today than I usually do,” he says. “And I thought we were trying to be…”
“Normal?” Yael guesses. In her periphery, she sees Eli and Jaxon arriving hand in hand.
Ravi holds her gaze for a long moment, playing with oneof the hoops that hug his earlobes. His fingernails are painted a sparkly purple. “Yeah,” he says, voice strained.
Yael swallows thickly. She knows she’ll be thinking about that single syllable for the rest of the night.
YAELLOOKSGOODtoday.
Ravi got in a silent fight with Suresh this morning. He woke Mia up and got her ready to go while Suresh double-and triple-checked that he had everything he needed for their three-and-a-half-day trip. Mia was irritable from the get, but when she was about half dressed, her petulance peaked, and suddenly her vocabulary was limited to “Do I have to?” and “I don’t wanna.”
When Ravi finally got her downstairs, he offered once again to watch her for the weekend. Irritation approaching anger flashed in Suresh’s eyes, and all Suresh said was, “The car is ready.”
An hour and a half later, Ravi got a text saying they’d made it safely. He liked it, and that was it.
A low hum of frustration has followed him through the day since, utterly obliterating his patience. When he realized there was only a sad, stuttered squeeze left of his conditioner, he said his longest string of expletives in years. Adobe After Effects crashed in the middle of a render, and even though Ravi didn’t actually lose any of his work, he had to get up and walk a lap around the block to fight the urge to throw his monitor at the wall.
And now Yael looksgood. In a way that makes him feel a little desperate, impatient. If he closes his eyes, he can feel the pulse point of her wrist under his fingers, the one on her neck under his tongue.
Elle occupied the desire center of his brain for weeks, Yael creeping in on the margins. And now that he’s trying not to think about Elle that way, it means more space for Yael.
Part of him wonders if she’s always had this effect on him, to some extent. He could’ve just apologized and slipped out the window. He should’ve. But he stayed and talked to her. He stayed and memorized an image of her, sleep-rumpled, that has been withdrawn from its folder in his mind far too many times these past few weeks.
What is it about you?he thinks as he sits down across from her. Her eyes meet his, and his thoughts must be written on his face, because something shifts in her expression. She crosses her legs, looking away from him.
Christ, he wants his hands on her again. Right now he lacks the self-control to try to convince himself that he doesn’t. They spend the club meeting talking about the climax of the novel, and Yael is all Ravi can think about. And there are moments that make him nearly certain that she’s thinking about him, too.
The heat in her eyes after he turns a page in his notebook. The way she scans his body when he shifts, resting his forearm on the back of his chair, letting one of his legs extend farther into the circle. He swears, on everything he’s ever known, that the first time he speaks, she watches his mouth instead of his eyes.
Leo lingers after the club, and Ravi waits for him, scrolling on his phone and leaning against a table. No new messages from Suresh, not that he expected any.
“Ravi?” Leo says.
Ravi looks toward the door before he looks at Leo, and sure enough, it swings shut behind Jackson and Eli, leaving only him, Leo, and Yael in the library. “Hey, Leo,” he says.
“Alex told me he wants to get back together.”
“Oh,” Ravi says. He can feel himself grimacing, and the corners of Leo’s mouth tug down in return.
“I really like him,” Leo says.
“Have you talked to your parents yet?” Ravi asks.
Leo shakes his head. “But he says he’s okay with that now.”
“Are you telling me because you want me to tell you what to do? I can’t do that, Leo. You have to make your own choices.”
Leo bites his lip, color rising in his cheeks. “Can you just tell me if you think it would be a good idea?”
Ravi shakes his head slowly. “I don’t. A boy who made you feel bad enough that you wanted to drink until you threw up isn’t good enough for you. Especially when it sounds like he doesn’t know what he wants or what he’s okay with.”
