Page 2 of Bad At Love

“Oh, honey!” Mona said, with just the right amount of sympathy and admonishment. Like only best friends of thirty-three years could. “You met him because his mother hired your ‘Adulting Package for Adults Who Can’t’. This spoilt, rich kid who lives in an apartment his parents pay for can’t do a load of laundry? Can’t buy his groceries?”

“He’s a painter, Mona. The artistic type that’s not great at admin stuff, you know? Doesn’t make him a loser.”

“I’m not saying that. But there’s a thing called responsibility, no? I mean, can you imagine Kaasi or Sanjana or Sid being so unaware of their privilege?”

Chaaru shook her head and then said ‘no way’. Her son Kaasi and Mona’s twins were good kids. No, they were fantastic kids.

“Babe,” Mona said, gentling her voice, which inanely made Chaaru want to cry.

Even having known her all her life, she kept waiting for Mona to find Chaaru lacking in the same way her entire family and her ex had. When her best friend showed her this…gentle, unconditional affection, Chaaru felt both panic and peace.

Panic that the next time, she might see her flaws and warts, and peace that…this love was hers.

“Don’t let the whiny baby get to you,” Mona said in her stern voice. “All you wanted from him was hot sex before menopause swallowed up your libido in its gaping maw. Please tell me you got that.”

“Not really,” Chaaru said. “His mother might as well have hired me to draw him a map to a woman’s clit. He kept knocking backdoor because he couldn’t find where he wanted to go.”

Mona burst into giggles. “So I don’t have to be jealous that you’re out there having all this fantastic sex with young, hot partners?”

“Not this time, no,” Chaaru said, cutting her off. Mona was TMI queen about their sex life. Not that Chaaru thought they shouldn’t share that stuff. It was just that when Chaaru saw Dominic, which was at least once a week, she remembered all his sexual tells and tics in technicolor. “But then, not everyone can be the Big-Fat-Dong.”

Mona made appropriately inappropriate sounds about the bartender Chaaru had seen for two weeks after six years of fighting her nasty ex for divorce and custody. He had shown her how good it could be when lovers paid attention to each other.

As a twenty-one-year-old bride with naïve notions of love, she’d spent too many years letting her ex-husband shame her for her sexual desires. As if wanting an orgasm or to explore her own sexuality within their relationship was unnatural. All Ravi had wanted was that she lie back, take it, and make appropriately eager sounds. He’d shot down any small suggestion she’d made to improve their sex life by calling her a slut.

“The technician is here, Char,” Mona said, cutting through her blast from the past. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive over? I can cancel.”

“No, don’t. I’ll get someone else,” Chaaru said, rubbing a hand over her face.

After promising to text Mona as soon as she got the hell out of there, Chaaru considered calling her business partner Laura. Then, she remembered that Laura and her husband Leo had planned to take their boys out for skating. So yeah, Laura was out.

Her cousin Veena was another option.IfChaaru was okay with the entire world learning about her disastrous date and the color of her undies.

She cursed a mile in three different languages even as she tried to jimmy the cuffs open. The damned things didn’t budge an inch.

Her last two options were her twenty-one-year-old son Kaasi and her friend DP.

Although, calling Kaasi wasn’t a choice at all. For all that she’d tried her best to keep their relationship open and honest, she couldn’t stomach the idea of Kaasi finding her in a compromising situation, abandoned by some strange man. Her sweet boy would worry over her endlessly.

So, it had to be DP.

Chaaru banged her head on the headboard and groaned. She had no doubt that DP would come get her even if the sky was falling down. Which meant she was pulling him away from a date with the perfect woman that she herself had found for him.

2

The dark red leather seats, the private booth tucked away from other tables, the dim lighting and the exquisitely cooked food…everything about the elegant French bistro was perfect for DP’s third date with Pooja, a beautiful, witty environmental lawyer.

But the minute she excused herself to go to the restroom, doubts poured in.

Should they be talking more and touching less? Should he show more interest in her career, her friends, share more about his own family and hobbies?

He recalled the interesting tidbits his brother TJ, while smirking at DP, had helped him come up with and realized he’d already run through all of them.

Damn, dating was hard. A night of sweaty sex with a friend-with-benefits once every few months was more the norm for DP. That’s all life had allotted him for his twenties and most of his thirties.

When he told potential romantic partners that he was the guardian for his much younger brother and sister, most women dropped him. And whoever remained simply wanted no-holds barred sex.

But that had changed in the last few years.

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