He narrowed his eyes seductively. “Oh, I think you know I like it hot. Scorching hot.”
Reena laughed so hard at his corny line that her forehead fell on his chest. Mmm…firm. Warm. Smelled good.
“Uh, Reena…the potatoes?”
“Right.” She lifted her head. While describing what she was doing, she made a batter with gram flour, onion/garlic paste, turmeric, cilantro, red chili powder, and, just to see how much heat he could take, a whole, finely diced green chili.
Nadim helped her dip the potato slices in the batter and deep fry them. She made the chutney next—sautéing onions and tomatoes with dried chilis and spices before pureeing.
“Utterly brilliant,” Nadim said, picking up a crisp bhajia.
“Wait!” She took the bhajia out of his hand and coated it with the chutney. A lot of chutney. She gave him back the slice, but instead of eating it himself, he held it up to Reena’s mouth. “Let’s see how hotyoucan take it.”
Reena could take the heat. She opened her mouth and let him feed her the bhajia.
It was delicious. Spicy, perfectly crispy, and with the acidic chutney cutting right through the richness of the deep-fried potato. She dipped another one into the chutney and held it up for him.
He wasn’t as graceful with his bite, immediately hopping up and down and waving his mouth. Maybe she’d put in too much chili? She erupted in laughter as he fell into her arms. He finally said “cut,” and turned off the phone camera. She’d forgotten they were filming this.
That was the last thing Reena remembered that night. The next thing she knew she was waking up in Nadim’s bed with terrible heartburn. Thankfully, alone.
CHAPTER SIX
Waking after passing out in a drunken stupor should include at least a moment of blissful ignorance of all the events of the night before. An innocence before the wave of humiliation crashed in. But despite rousing in her familiar childhood bed, Reena experienced no such luxury. She remembered everything that had happened yesterday—losing her job, her asinine mixing of gin gimlets and sinus meds, letting Nadim film her making bhajias…and…
They’d made the contest video. Together. Shit.
She quickly looked through the videos on the phone. Yup. It looked like he’d sent her the five-minute clip. She had no intention of actually entering it on the FoodTV site. She wasn’t even going to watch the thing.
Head pounding and muscles aching, she sat up in bed. To add insult to an already abysmal situation, her cold had intensified. She sneezed, covering her nose to muffle the sound.
Quietly padding out of his bedroom, she found Nadim out cold on his purple sofa, a thin bedsheet covering his lower half and a yellow T-shirt covering his upper half. Thank the lord. She didn’t need an eyeful of toned chest and shapely biceps now. She crept closer. He looked younger asleep, with his expressive brows relaxed and that world-weary yet amused expression missing. How old was this man, anyway? She’d assumed about her age, but from what he told her yesterday, he’d achieved so much more in his life than she had. An undergraduateandgraduate degree from the London School of Economics. Lived in Dar es SalaamandLondon, before moving here to Toronto. He was miles ahead of Reena, with her community college diploma and no job. She sighed. Nadim Remtullawasan ambitious match for her. She didn’t know if she should be pissed at her parents for setting her up to fail, or happy they thought her worthy of this man.
A wave of nausea overcame her. She needed to get out of here before he woke.
It truly was a walk of shame as Reena snuck out of Nadim’s apartment with her cutting board and chef’s knife in one hand and flip-flops in the other. She’d buy new spices and vegetables. It wasn’t worth the embarrassment.
She needed to put that whole night out of her mind.
***
The first two days of Reena’s newest stint of unemployment were spent baking bread or curled up on the sofa watching Jane Austen movies while her aroma diffuser shot eucalyptus and lavender essential oils at her congested face. Saira texted a few times to set up an eggplant dip lesson, but Reena finally managed to brush her off with the convenient truth that she was feeling too sick to cook. Thankfully, Nadim didn’t call, text, or knock on her door. The more time that passed after that gin night, the less mortifying it would be when she inevitably saw her neighbor again.
By Friday evening, her cold had eased somewhat. Her misery? Not so much. Running out of Austen movies without Gwyneth Paltrow in them meant she had no escape from the mind-numbing self-loathing that inched into her consciousness whenever her mind stilled. She needed distraction. And thankfully, distraction came in the form of a dainty knock on her door at dinnertime. Marley stood on the threshold, oblivious to Reena’s troubles, with a glimmer in her eye and a bottle of sangria in her hand.
“Hey, Reena. I just got home, but Shayne’s upstairs with a ton of his grandmother’s jerk chicken and that pumpkin rice you like. Apparently, he needs to talk to you. Can you come for dinner?”
She took a deep breath. Being around people sounded good. Being around people meant not being inside her own head anymore. “You’re my savior, Marley.”
She followed Marley up to her apartment to find Shayne carefully transferring Jamaican rice and chicken from the microwave to the dining table. It smelled amazing. Shayne’s grandmother came from Jamaica and always sent Shayne home with a freezerful of food whenever he visited. Reena greeted Shayne before plopping herself at the table, watching Marley pour their drinks into tall glasses.
“They had this new sangria at the liquor store,” Marley said. “No aspartame. I will never understand why every food or drink company assumes anythinggirlyhas to be sugar free or low fat. Fake sugar tastes like—”
“Despair,” Reena interrupted. Even without Marley’s stellar metabolism, Reena wouldn’t let “substitutes” touch her lips. No fake sugar, no fake butter, or,shudder, fake meat.
She lifted the glass and took a sip. The fruity wine tasted surprisingly rich and complex. Full-bodied and almost voluptuous in flavor. The taste a perfect antidote to her mood. She sighed with pleasure.
What would it be like to share something like this wine with someone every day? To feel this warm comfort of companionship instead of having to wait for a friend to invite her out?
