Page 49 of Not Your Basic Love Story

Jag set down his fork and pointed a finger, switching to Punjabi. The whole table joined in on the argument, obviously some for and others against tattooing. Even the grandparents, who hadn’t said much of anything, were in on the heated debate.

Well, shit.

Dev and Shawan came back and took their seats. Dev’s eyes darted from person to person, trying to catch up on what he’d missed.

“Sorry,” I said.

He looked at me quizzically.

“I might have mentioned Priya’s art school, and the topic of tattoos came up.”

“Ah. Thank you for coming,” he said, feigning sarcasm.

“Any time,” I replied. “This is great.” I grinned into my glass of milk, and Dev stifled a laugh.

The argument seemed to reach a crescendo as Priya suddenly stood and left the room.

Everyone collectively exhaled, the silence palpable.

“My apologies, Rebecca.” Jag shrugged. Then, with a chuckle, he added, “teenagers!”

“It’s totally fine.” I nodded as if I knew what having a teenager was like.

Taking advantage of the lapse in conversation, Moe leaned in across the table. “You’re the girl Dev met in Mexico, right?”

Dev coughed, choking on his bite of food.

Shawan looked from Moe to Dev, to me. “I haven’t heard this story.”

Dev was quick to interject. “We swapped luggage, remember?”

“That’s not the only thing you were swapping.” Moe laughed under his breath. The other cousins tittered. I eyed Neetu, who was whispering something in the ear of the girl next to her.

“Enough,” Jag said in a warning tone, eyeing his nephew.

Thankfully, Moe backed down.

My ears burned and I couldn’t help but glare at Moe. I was already struggling to win his family over. The last thing I wanted his parents and grandparents to be thinking of right now was all the things we’d beenswappingin Mexico.

The rest of the meal passed in relative peace. For the most part, the cousins spoke amongst themselves, only asking me occasional questions to be polite. The grandparents were quiet. Shawan kept to herself. Jag mostly talked business with Dev.

I managed to make my way through most of the food, leaving the spiciest dishes behind. When Shawan got up to do the dishes, I joined her, taking plates and carting them back to the kitchen. When I noticed that Dev stayed seated, I nudged him.

“Hey, want to do dishes with me? Give your mom the night off?” Surely that would get Shawan on my side, at least. The entire table looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

Dev stood. “Absolutely.”

Together we worked side by side at the sink, me washing as he dried and put things away. He seemed a little lost as if he hadn’t spent much time in there, opening two or three cupboards before finding the right home for everything. Despite that, having him next to me was perfect.

Dinner had been a bit of a fiasco.

On the one hand, it was a relief to see that even a family like Dev’s, with their gorgeous mansion, sprawling estates, and traditional Indian culture, still had squabbles like my family did. The amount of times dinner conversations had exploded into arguments at my house was more frequent than I’d ever want to admit, often because of my brother and I fighting about something petty.

On the other hand, his family was so much bigger than mine. So many people lived in this house, interacting with one another constantly. It wasn’t only him, his sister, and his parents, but three grandparents and five cousins all under one roof. It was so different from how I grew up.

But standing next to Dev at the sink, an inch between us, laughing and joking and talking as if nobody else in the world existed, everything else seemed to fall away.

In the end, that’s what mattered.

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