Page 57 of Born in Ruin

Amay burst out laughing, tears leaking out of his eyes. “I can’t wait to tell Dhriths about this.”

“Bet she already knows,” Virat said wisely, his laughing eyes on Ishaan’s fiery red face. “Talk to Mayukhi. She’ll understand why you need to play Parash’s wife. I doubt she’ll make a fuss.”

No, she wouldn’t, Ishaan thought mutinously. But he kind of wanted her to, dammit.

THIRTY

Mayukhi

Mayukhi glanced over at Ishaan’s set face in the dim light that filtered into the car from the shop windows that they crossed. He looked completely shut down, his entire face and body screaming at her to keep her distance. It wasn’t normally the look a man who’d gotten some action the previous night would wear. Especially around the woman who’d provided said action.

“You know,” she said, her gaze back on the traffic outside. A lorry with a ‘kiss me please’ sticker filled her vision as she tried not to look at the remote, locked off man beside her. “We don’t really know the little details about each other. If we’re meant to be engaged, shouldn’t we know more.”

“What kind of details?”

Ishaan’s voice was like granite, igniting a flare of irritation in her. What the fuck was his problem?

“What do you like? What don’t you like? Shit like that,” she snapped.

“I like tomatoes. I don’t like cockroaches,” he snapped right back. “What else?”

Mayukhi stared at him in disbelief. “Tomatoes. You like tomatoes? That’s what you’re giving me.”

Ishaan pulled out from behind the ‘kiss me please’ lorry and flicked his indicator on signalling a right turn.

“Where are you going?” she asked, pissed and ready for a full blown fight now. “That’s not the right way.”

Ishaan pulled into a quieter by lane, lined with trees and apartment buildings. He parked the car to the side and dropped his head against the backrest.

“Fuck.” He dragged his hands through his hair, pulling it out of its perfectly groomed style.

Mayukhi stayed silent, uncertain of what exactly was going on. She had never figured Ishaan for a brooder. Most of the time he was either irritating her, teasing her, fighting with her and in recent times, kissing her. Right now, he was doing none of the above and it was freaking her out.

“I like tomatoes or pretty much anything edible because I didn’t have a lot of food to eat growing up. I figured if I could just grow my own food, I’d never have to go hungry again.”

“The cherry tomato plants in the school garden,” she murmured, memory sweeping through her.

“Yeah.” Ishaan didn’t look at her, his cheeks turning a dull, brick red. “I never waste food that’s on my plate. If we go out to dinner and don’t finish our meal, I will always pack it up. I don’t care how downmarket you think that is.”

She didn’t care about any of that shit but Mayukhi didn’t interrupt. She let him get all of it out of his system.

“I dress well,” he said now. “I’m particular about the clothes I wear and the fit because I spent most of my life in hand me downs that were either too tight or too loose. So, this,” he tugged at his suit jacket. “It matters to me.”

Ishaan sighed. “When my father lost his business and our homes at the poker tables, we moved into a chawl in Mumbai. It-“ The red in his cheeks deepened. “We moved from a six bedroom bungalow to a one room tenement. It was the first night of my life when I slept on the floor on a sheet that probably cost more than the entire room. I woke up in the middle of the night with a cockroach crawling over my face.”

Mayukhi reached for the hand he had clenched around the gear box. She covered it with her own, squeezing tight, hoping to offer comfort for past wounds and ever present grief.

“Crestwood was supposed to be my escape. But-“

“Yeah,” she said, her voice rusty with emotion. “The DD’s made that impossible.”

“But I found Virat and Amay.” He slid her a sideways glance. “And in a twisted way I found you too.”

“I was a shit to you at school.” She swallowed hard, shame coursing through her.

“I was a shit right back,” he murmured. “The chip on my shoulder was a damn brickhouse.”

They fell silent for a while. And then Ishaan said, “So, yeah, I like tomatoes and I don’t like cockroaches.”

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