* *
‘We’ll be in Kolhapur in another hour or so,’ Melissa said, effectively breaking into his thoughts. ‘Are we stopping there or going straight on?’
‘We could stop for lunch,’ Samir said. ‘There’s another burger place on the highway, and a couple of coffee shops as well.’
Melissa wrinkled up her nose. ‘I had two burgers for breakfast,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can look one in the face for a while. Can we go somewhere else? I’ve often seen Vegetable Kolhapur on restaurant menus—would it be a kind of speciality here?’
‘Along with Kolhapuri chappals,’ Samir agreed solemnly.
Melissa made a face at him. ‘I wasn’t planning to buy footwear. But do let’s stop somewhere in the city.’
It would add another hour to the drive at least, but Samir complied. After Melissa’s fainting fit his attitude towards her had changed. Not normally indulgent towards other people’s whims, he found himself unaccountably wanting to fall in with whatever she wanted.
They chose a small restaurant in the centre of the city—the food was spicy, and not really to his taste, but it was worth the delay just to see Melissa savour the meal. Unlike the perpetually dieting women Samir normally dated, she genuinely enjoyed her food, just about stopping short of licking her fingers after polishing off everything on her plate.
‘Dessert?’ he asked after she was done. ‘There’s ice creams and gulab jamun. Or, no, you can’t have the ice cream if you’re lactose-intolerant. Gulab jamun?’
It was the first time anyone had actually remembered she was lactose intolerant—people who’d known her for years, including her own sister-in-law, continued to ply her with milkshakes and ice cream every time they met. Maybe he just had a good memory, but she couldn’t help feeling a little flattered.
‘Gulab jamun,’ she said.
Samir watched her as she dug a spoon into a gulab jamun, golden syrup gushing out of the round sweet. It was a messy dish to eat, and she paused a couple of times to lick the syrup off her lips. His eyes were automatically drawn to her lush mouth and the way her little pink tongue ran over its contours. She was the first woman he’d met whose simplest gesture ended up being unconsciously sexy. Or, then again, maybe he was just turning into a horny old man.
‘How old are you?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Twenty-four,’ Melissa said, and her brow furrowed up as she polished off the last bit of gulab jamun. ‘Why?’
Why, indeed? She looked so young that for a second he’d wondered if she was underage.
‘I was thinking about the ad you wrote,’ he said. ‘I’d assumed it was written by an older woman—someone with kids.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said, looking embarrassed. ‘I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law after my nephew was born. She didn’t have anyone else to help her with the baby.’
‘Still, it was a very insightful piece of work. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t win something.’
Feeling more and more embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘Has Brian been brainwashing you?’
Samir laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a particularly attractive way. ‘He happened to mention it a few times. But I don’t get easily influenced by other people’s opinions. Are you done? We should leave if we want to get to Goa before it’s dark.’
He put a hand under her elbow to guide her out of the restaurant and Melissa felt all her fantasies come rushing back in full force. Of course he was probably just being polite. Or he was worried she’d keel over and faint once again, and he’d have to carry her out on his shoulder. Either way, her insides were doing weird things at his touch, and the temptation to touch him in return was immense.
She tried to kill the fantasy by imagining his reaction. Shock? Embarrassment? Then she remembered the feel of his lips on her fingers as he’d taken the sticky candy from them, and she couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d reciprocate. Bend down and kiss her. Tangle his big strong hands in her hair and tip her head back to get better access to her lips...
‘Melissa?’
Brought back to earth with a thump, she realised he was holding the car door open for her.
‘Sorry,’ she said, sliding into her seat quickly.
‘You’re a complete daydreamer, aren’t you?’ he asked, looking rather amused as he got into the driver’s seat. ‘What were you thinking about?’
Ha—wouldn’t you like to know? Melissa felt like saying. Maybe some day she’d actually be confident enough to come back with the truth when a man like Samir asked her a question like that. Unfortunately, as of now, she was less than halfway there.
‘Just stuff,’ she said after a pause.
‘Random stuff?’
‘Oh, very random.’ He’d sounded a bit sceptical, and she felt she needed to justify herself. ‘As random as Brownian motion—you know, that thing they show you in school...dust motes being tossed around by invisible molecules...my mind’s a bit like that.’
He gave her a long look, and she shook her head, laughing.
‘Sorry, sorry. Rambling a bit there.’
‘Just a bit,’ he said, but his lips quirked up at the corners as if he was trying hard not to smile.
Melissa had a nasty feeling that he knew exactly what she’d been thinking about. She concentrated on her phone for a bit, replying to the various texts that had come in while they were at lunch. When she looked up they were on the highway again, going down a rather lovely stretch of road with sugarcane fields on both sides and rolling green hills on the horizon.
‘Look at the bougainvillaea down the centre of the road—aren’t they beautiful?’
Samir hadn’t noticed the bougainvillaea other than as an unnecessary distraction—at her words, though, he gave them a quick glance.
‘They’re OK, I guess,’ he said. ‘Though they seem to be planted in any old order. White for a few hundred metres and then miles of pink, with a couple of yellows thrown in.’
‘I thought that was the nicest thing about them,’ she returned. ‘They look as if they’ve just sprung up, not as if someone planned—’ She stopped short as she took in Samir’s less than interested expression. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘The driving must be stressful, and here I am babbling about bougainvillaea.’
‘And now you’re making me feel guilty about being a grumpy old git,’ Samir said wryly. ‘I’m sorry—I’m not very good at noticing things.’
‘I’m the opposite,’ Melissa said, mock-mournfully. ‘I notice everything. My head’s chock-full of all kinds of unnecessary junk.’
‘It’ll all come in handy some day,’ Samir said. ‘You’ll be brilliant if you’re on a quiz show, one day, and they show you a picture of a road and ask you to identify it.’
