He held one out to her.
‘Take one for yourself. We open them at the same time,’ Shona instructed.
Sen did as he was told and they both broke their fortune cookies.
‘You go first,’ Sen said.
Shona twisted her lips as she read the words on the tiny piece of paper. And then read it out loud: ‘Don’t hold onto things that require a tight grip.’
Sen read his piece of paper: ‘Do it scared.’
He crumpled up the paper and put it in the bag.
‘I don’t even know what that means,’ he said dismissively.
‘Are you done?’
Sen nodded and they both stood to clear the table.
Shona expected the awkwardness to return after the food containers had been thrown away and they were back in the living room, but they both seemed at ease.
‘It’s after midnight, Sho. I really should be leaving.’
‘Don’t.’
Shona didn’t know why she said that, but she wanted Sen to be with her. And it wasn’t because she enjoyed his body. She just wanted him there.
‘I mean stay…if you want to,’ she said.
‘Okay. My overnight bag is in the car.’
‘Wait, firstly you brought your car and secondly, you knew I was going to ask you to stay?’
‘Sho, once you get a taste of waking up in my arms, there’s no going back. I figured you would want me to stay another night.’ His words were followed by a smirk.
‘Sen Aiyer, when did you get so cocky?’
Sen leaned in. His warm breath on her neck.
‘Remember that night? You said I was cocky when I promised that you would be in my arms by the end of the night,’ he whispered.
Shona sucked in her breath. Her cheeks were flushed and the room got hot as hell.
‘Anyway,’ Sen took a step back, ‘I brought my car because I managed to convince the caretaker to let me park inside the premises, out of sight from the town’s busy bodies.’
‘You spoke to Sol?’
Sen fished his keys out of his pocket and headed to the door.
‘Yeah, he’s a great guy,’ he said as he closed the door behind him.
This was odd for Sen. He was sleeping in a woman’s bed. Really sleeping. After he fetched his bag, they’d had coffee, talked more and got into bed. He held Shona until they both fell asleep. This was not his style. He dated women, never stayed over, never got to know them, and never called back when he was tired of the interaction. He was a dog. His secretary called him that. But that had been six months ago, before he hooked up with Shona.
He looked at his watch on the nightstand: 4am.
He thought about the dinner conversation. It was no secret that Shona was busy. She had always been. In the summer when they were teens, she was torn between the shop and having adventures with him and Anni. It had bothered him that she’d had to beg to get a day off during the summer. But he didn’t say anything. How could he? He didn’t understand the workings of a shop and, after all, he was the town’s ‘poor little rich kid’.
Back then, Shona’s grandmother ran the show. She was at the age where she really shouldn’t have been working in a shop, but the old woman was there every day. He recalled one scorching hot summer’s day when the three of them went down to the lake to cool off. Now that he thought about it, there’d never been any concern from her parents or his that he was a boy hanging out with two almost-teen girls.
