The Trouble with Hating You Read online

  Momma had been right. He was quite handsome, with pitch-black hair, rich light brown skin, dazzling dark brown eyes, and a jawline that could cut glass.

  My heart beat against my chest, and not in an insta-crush way. It beat the way it had when I came dangerously close to getting a less-than-perfect grade. It beat as if I were in trouble, as if I had gotten caught doing something bad.

  And that feeling did not sit well with me.

  “You must be Liya. Would you like a sweet?” he asked in a voice so deep and rumbly, it could’ve made my legs wobble. If I were still standing.

  He brought the nearly crumpled box to my face.

  Um…

  Well…

  All right. This was a definite testament to my stubbornness. Had this been any other situation in the entire world, I would’ve accepted with a laugh. Who didn’t love themselves an Indian sweet? But not today. I shook my head.

  I wasn’t going to avert my gaze first. Keeping my stare locked with his, the mature part of my brain told me to apologize.

  I let out a small sigh. Liya Thakkar was a brutally honest person, but she wasn’t brutally brutal. My lips parted to apologize, but then two things happened.

  One: He spoke again, “A very tempting way to meet, huh?”

  What. The. Hell? Tempting how? Like I literally threw myself at him? Did he know? Well, of course he did! Why he wanted to meet me suddenly made sense. Play me to see if the rumors were true? I knew no decent, traditional man would want to marry me, but to use traditions to test those rumors was vicious.

  Two: He smiled at me. The audacity! And not a kind, pardon-the-awkwardness-this-wasn’t-how-we-intended-to-meet smile. But a flashy, charming, cocky as hell smile. The kind that made women drop their panties in a split second. The kind he probably expected would make me drop my panties. Yep. He’d heard the rumors all right.

  As I pushed myself off my suitor, the thin scarf around my neck practically choked me and yanked me right back against him. My chin hit his toned chest.

  “Do you mind?” I grumbled, verbally smothering his laugh as he moved and lifted the arm that pinned the end of my scarf to the ground.

  I snatched it to my chest and rose as Dad opened the front door and shot eye daggers at me. His lips pressed tightly together, and his hands bunched into fists at his side. His words weren’t audible, but he was most definitely hissing my name, demanding that I get back into that house while he helped my suitor up.

  I did what I had to do. I rolled my eyes at the man flicking grass blades off his dress pants and waved at Dad—an eff-you salute—before hopping into my car. The flare of anger that lit Dad’s face was priceless, worth it, but in the back of my mind, I knew that this embarrassment wouldn’t go unpunished.

  I drove off and eventually parked my car outside my building and rested my head against the steering wheel. More times than not, I was happy to come home to an empty apartment. Peace. Quiet. Freedom. I didn’t have to answer to my parents or some man, or hurry to make dinner for anyone. I bought and owned everything to my liking, no compromises.

  Ugh. The twenty-minute drive hadn’t calmed me as much as I’d have liked. Having someone in my life who reduced me to this emotional mess was not healthy. If not for Momma and my girlfriends, I’d leave Houston forever. That very opportunity had presented itself two weeks ago. A lab position for a giant corporation in Dallas. The offer made my insides tingle. Decent pay, and a reason to leave Houston and all of its hideous memories behind.

  I’d mentioned it to my current boss, Sam. He had convinced me to stay because he saw management in my near future. I had taken that chance and it had paid off in big ways at my current company. I was actually putting my MBA to proper use. Perhaps I’d suffer for another year here and land a management role elsewhere once I had this experience under my belt.

  I took the elevator to the tenth floor and walked to my loft. I kicked off my boots in the foyer, tossed my dirty socks in the hamper, and quickly dropped onto the couch with a glass of red wine. Time to unwind and prepare for the workweek, but first, I answered a group call from Reema, Preeti, and Sana.

  “Hey, Liya! I wanted to see if we could meet the girls at mandir on Saturday?” Reema asked as I put the group on speaker.

  The idea of going to the temple sent chills up my spine. It was the place where draconian aunties gathered and vicious gossip made or broke reputations. But for Reema, I’d do anything. “Sure.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Usually, you have something to say.”

  I put on a smile, because people often said that they could tell if one smiled over the phone, and explained, “Girl, you would not believe what my parents tried to pull today.”

  “What?”

  “Dish!” Preeti and Sana blurted at the same time.

  “You know how I’d told them I wasn’t interested in meeting suitors?”

  “Yeah…” Reema said.

  “They invited this guy and his mother over anyway!”

  “No! Stop! That’s why they asked you to go over to their house?” Preeti squealed.

  “Hey, don’t be so quick to snicker, lady. You’re next.”

  “Oh, boy. That time is near,” Preeti replied, her enthusiasm suddenly vanishing.

  “Is there a guy?” Sana asked, moving the conversation toward Preeti, who, unfortunately, volleyed it right back to me.

  “First, let’s talk about Liya and her stud! Was it a big Bollywood meet-cute where your dupatta got stuck to his suit and it was googly-eyed love at first sight?”

  I could not laugh harder. Anger drained out of me like fat draining out from sizzling bacon in a hot pan. Speaking of bacon, that sounded like the perfect thing to have for dinner. While I relayed the entire stunt to the girls, I pulled out all the fixings to make bacon and jalapeño mac and cheese from scratch because, contrary to popular belief, I could cook.

  Chapter Two

  Jay

  I lurched up in bed and hissed from the pain that slashed across my back. Drenched in sweat, I shoved off the covers and grabbed my shoulder as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. My heart beat to an insane rhythm, and my body blazed hot like I was surrounded by fire.

  Hold on. Wait. I was at home. In bed. Not engulfed in flames.

  “Son of a…”

  I stomped into the bathroom and splashed cold water onto my face. My eyes were sunken and my lips downturned. The nightmares came and went, fewer and fewer every year, but they were still there. The worst part wasn’t the pain or memories, but seeing Dad’s face. Smeared with cinder, partially burned and red as he stretched out his hand to push us away. Embers danced around him, grazed his hair, illuminated his eyes. Watery eyes. The kind that spoke immensely about love and life and sacrifice. He made the ultimate sacrifice, and I had not, to this day, forgiven myself for that.

  Dad died because of me. Ma kept saying that I deserved a full and rich life, which was why she tried so hard to find a good woman for me. But the truth was that I didn’t deserve anything, much less a life. Not when Dad sacrificed his life for mine. But how could I ever tell her that?

  I was not really the traditional or religious type. I didn’t particularly enjoy going to mandir every week, nor did I entertain the notion of settling down. But I would never be the cause of another stress for Ma after Dad’s death. He was the love of her life, a kind and compassionate man. I would never leave her side, but how could I tell her that I didn’t deserve the happiness that she wanted for me?

  Shaking my head, I twisted and looked at the scars raked down my back. “You’re a grown man. Get control of yourself.”

  Unable to get back to sleep, I pulled out a skillet and made eggs and toast. As I ate, I read over a few legal files for Reinli BioChem, the company I’d recently been assigned to, and sent out email reminders for my first meeting with them for Monday. This was not exactly the type of work I’d envisioned myself doing, but it was what I had in Houston. To do anything else
, I had to leave this city, which meant leaving my family, the people who sacrificed everything for me since Dad’s death. And that was not about to happen.

  I finished up and headed to the mandir to meet the guys for a friendly basketball game. If I had to go to a temple, it might as well be fun.

  The makeshift court was small, and the movable hoop was a crying shame, but the room was free, and these boys didn’t seem to believe in a gym they had to pay for.

  “I can’t keep doing this,” I said.

  “What?” my brother, Jahn, asked.

  “This sorry so-called court. We have gym memberships. We need to use the court at the gym.”

  “What about us?” Samir asked.

  “Get a membership!”

  “It’s not that bad,” Jahn said.

  “Yes, it is. I can throw the ball across the entire room. We have to dumb down our skills to fit in here. It’s hardly exercise.”

  “Any more complaints?”

  “Yes…” I grumbled, agitated in one of those ways where no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it off.

  I exhaled and shook my head.

  Samir restarted the game, made points, and the ball came back to me. I loved the feel of a rough, rubbery basketball in my hands. I could grip it as tightly as my fingers allowed and pummel it against the floor, aggression flowing from me and through it.

  The pounding of the ball echoed against the walls as Rohan tried to block me, but I moved left then right. My back hit his shoulder as I crouched, then shot up to score.

  “You mad?” Samir asked.

  Clenching my teeth, I only cocked my chin and bent over, my hands on my thighs as I waited for the next chance to get the ball.

  “I thought this was a friendly game,” Rohan said, bouncing the ball from hand to floor to the other hand.

  “Sorry,” I muttered and snatched the ball from an unsuspecting Rohan and made another point. His team groaned and threw up their hands.

  “Yo, what’s going on with you?” Jahn asked.

  I shoved a hand through my damp hair. “Sorry. I had a rough night. Not that it’s an excuse to demolish you guys. Then again, you’re easy to demolish.”

  And thus, the smack talk began, which siphoned the tension out of the air. The room rumbled with laughter and scuffing sneakers. We didn’t keep score, just played. It was enough to ease my thoughts away from the nightmares. Unfortunately, that left just enough room to recall the debacle of meeting Liya Thakkar.

  Crap. And just like that, I was irritated.

  “Seriously, what’s up?” Jahn asked for the third time.

  “You know Ma and I met with a woman and her parents. Take a guess.”

  “Ma hated her? No, she loved her and you hated her? No, wait, she was great, but you couldn’t stand her parents? No, I bet—”

  “Funny,” I said, cutting him off.

  “Oh, wait, those have all been done before. Why do you care? You don’t want to get married anyway.”

  Jahn was right. I didn’t want to get married, not really. But that was beside the point. I said, “Want to hear something that hasn’t been done before?”

  The guys slowed down to a casual game. Rohan dribbled the ball in place. All eyes were on me.

  “As soon as we walked into the living room, she bolted. I had to run back out to grab our gift for her, and she bulldozed me, she was running so fast. Thank god Ma didn’t see that.”

  “Ha! Messed up!” Jahn chortled like it wasn’t a big deal. “One look at your ugly face and she ran? That’s new.”

  The guys chuckled.

  “It’s not funny. Look, I don’t care if she thought I was ugly or weird. Whatever. Why agree to meet if you’re going to bolt? The worst part was how her parents tried to cover for her. Ma and I felt so bad that we ate with them anyway. She didn’t have to run. She could have just said she didn’t want to meet me. Ma was so happy about us all having dinner, too. She thought the girl running off was something against her. Ma is distraught.” My anger surged just remembering Ma’s teary eyes and embarrassment, her cheeks pink and burning. With all that she’d been through with Dad dying, I couldn’t stand that she’d been brought to tears by some stranger.

  “Ma can be sensitive. Maybe the girl will want to meet again when she’s gotten her nerves under control. It’s kinda sweet.” Jahn grabbed the ball.

  I glared at him. “Sweet is if she actually ran because of some endearing reason. Selfish is putting us all through that at the very last second. At the very least, she could’ve just lied and said she wasn’t feeling well. But no. She actually snuck out the back door, and I happened to catch her. Literally. She ran into me and knocked me down. And despite that, I tried to be casual and play it off, I tried to make jokes and smile to hopefully put her at ease so it wouldn’t be a big deal and we could talk, but she just rolled her eyes and left. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t apologize or make up an excuse. Just left.” Although, admittedly, for a quick minute she did look as if she might rattle off a reason for having to leave. A very brief expression of awkward panic crossed her delicate features before she hardened into stone.

  “It’s for the best anyway. I’ve heard some things.”

  “Why? What’d you hear?” I stole the ball from Jahn but lost it to Rohan.

  Jahn caught his breath before replying, “Word around the mandir is that she’s…well…how to say this nicely. Easy. Gets around.”

  “What?” I choked. By now the other guys had stopped, curious and nosy.

  “You know I don’t like to bad-mouth people, especially when I haven’t met them. But when all the aunties say she’s disrespectful, and some of the girls say she gets drunk and sleeps around, then I’m going to be cautious if she’s being suggested to my brother as a potential wife.”

  “What happened to giving the benefit of the doubt, man? Running out on dinner is one thing, but those are serious accusations.”

  “This is a large community; we can’t possibly meet everyone here. But when that many aunties are saying the exact same thing, it makes you think. All we do know is that her parents approached Ma and talked her up. Gave her a picture. The usual. Ma asked if you were interested. You agreed. We should take into account what people who know her have to say. I’m not saying it’s all true. I’m just watching out for you.”

  “Did you tell Ma what you heard?” I ran a hand down my face, half pissed at this woman and her parents and half pissed just to be pissed.

  “Not exactly. I can’t say something like that to her. She’d ask for proof.”

  “Ma is smart.”

  “Be cautious is all I’m saying.”

  I mulled over his words. Ma was the traditional type, which was fine. She didn’t push anything on me. I grew up knowing what had to get done. High GPA. Esteemed college. Prestigious career. Remain Hindu. Marry a Hindu. Raise a couple of Hindu babies to repeat the cycle. I was appeasing my mother by meeting these women, whom I had no interest in actually getting to know, much less marry. I guessed I wasn’t any better than Liya.

  “Who are you talking about?” Ravi asked.

  “Look, I don’t want to make a big deal if, by chance, everyone is lying or making crap up, but I’m talking about Liya Thakkar. You guys know anything factual about her?”

  Ravi rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Back up. She’s a straight-up bit—”

  Rohan chucked the ball right into Ravi’s stomach. He groaned and bent over. “Not in here,” Rohan warned. “Not in a place of worship.”

  “What’s so bad about her?” I asked.

  Ravi held up a finger before stating, “She moved out of her parents’ house after high school.”

  “To go to college,” Rohan intervened. “Not that moving out when you’re single is a crime or taboo anymore.”

  “She never moved back in. She’s been living on her own, not even with a roommate, doing whatever she wants.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Rohan repeated calmly.

  “I went to hig
h school and college with her. Since sophomore year, in high school, she was always on some guy. Plus, she hardly talks to her parents, and when she does, she’s rude to her father. Ask anyone. Ask her parents, even.”

  “You actually saw her with all these guys? Or know for a fact that she moved out to spite her parents?” Rohan asked, anger evident in his tone.

  “I saw her with plenty of guys. Mostly athletes. At lunch, after school, during class, she got along with the guys real well. I’d overhear them telling each other what she’d done with them. It was like something in her snapped during sophomore year. Same thing in college,” Ravi said.

  “Maybe she got along with guys better than girls because she didn’t have the right girls around her then,” Rohan said. “She’s got an inner circle of female friends now, but she doesn’t mess around with toxic ones. It doesn’t prove anything because you don’t see her with other women. Even if she was the way you remember her, it doesn’t mean she still is. Or that we should judge her. Maybe the reason you don’t see her here is because she knows she’s being talked about, and no one wants to hang around people who constantly gossip about them.”

  “You know her that well, huh?” Ravi asked.

  “Yeah, actually I do,” Rohan spat. “I’m not going to lie and say I know everything about her, but I do know if you’re nice to her, she will be a good friend to you. If you’re a jerk or start judging her, she’ll probably put you in your place. Liya is opinionated and strong and doesn’t take crap from anyone. Maybe the problem here is you and not her. All that judgmental, sexist shaming you’re doing isn’t reflective of her but defining you.” His gaze wandered to each of the guys, finally landing on me. “If you’re going to label her a bad person, do it on your own experiences with her, not what anyone else says.”

  “You feel strongly about her,” I commented. Not that a woman should be labeled as “bad” or “unworthy” because she wasn’t “proper.” That double standard always got me. I’ve had my fair share of girlfriends, and some of them ended up in my bed, but no one slapped a label across my face that read defiled.