“Hell yeah,” Rehan agreed. “We wouldn’t want to put Jay’s porky nose out of joint.”
The adults at the table got very quiet before Maya Maasi said, “Rehan! Apologise!”
“Why?” He made his eyes comically round. “He does have that big, fat nose. It looks porky. You all know it. I’m just stating a fact and you don’t apologise for facts. And why am I apologising to her? I didn’t sayshehas an ugly nose.”
“Rehan.” Ved’s voice crackled with authority.
“I’m sorry, Tani,” Rehan muttered sulkily.
“Sorry for?” Maya demanded, unwilling to let it go.
“I’m sorry your husband has a fat, piggish nose.” Rehan took an unconcerned sip of his virulently pink drink, spluttering a minute later when Kabir smacked him on the back of his head. Again.
“Watch your mouth. That’s your jiju,” he said mildly.
“Seriously?” Rehan gaped at Kabir. “You too?” The utter betrayal of having his coolest cousin turn on him silenced Rehan for once in his life.
“So, Tani,” Yash asked from where he’d been watching everything quietly. “Is your father going to wear his leather jacket to the wedding?”
Tani forced a small smile to her lips. “Try and stop him.”
From the other end of the table, Kabir’s phone rang, a loud buzzing noise filling the awkward silence around the table. He frowned, silencing it and putting it face down on the table.
“Who is it?” Ved asked him. “Whoever it is has been calling nonstop for over half an hour now. It might be important.”
“It’s not,” Kabir muttered sulkily.
“How do you know?”
“I just do okay?” Kabir snapped. “Is the interrogation over or would you like to start pulling out my fingernails next?”
And now, the silence was extra awkward. They should have stayed on the topic of Jay’s porky nose for a little longer.
As the silence ballooned and grew, the buzzing noise began again.
Kabir’s phone vibrated in rage on the table, channelling its master’s irritated fury.
CHAPTER 17
KABIR
When the tablefell into that uneasy silence, every pair of eyes fixed on him and the phone that refused to stop vibrating, Kabir felt the walls closing in. The restaurant wasn’t even small; it was one of those high-ceilinged, glass-fronted places his family liked, all warm lights and clinking cutlery and low piano music. But the moment his phone’s low buzzing cut through it, the space seemed to shrink around him, compressing until the air itself felt thick.
He grabbed the phone like it was burning through the tablecloth and pushed back from the table. Chairs scraped behind him. Someone said his name. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
His bodyguards, stationed discreetly near the entrance, straightened and fell in behind him without a word. Their presence boxed him in even further. He hated needing them, hated how the world recognized him before he even had a chance to breathe. But in public, with families and cameras and strangers with fast fingers…he didn’t have a choice. Not anymore.
The moment he stepped into the corridor outside the restaurant, the phone vibrated violently in his hand again, a buzzing wasptrapped against his skin. Frustration rose hot and sharp in his throat, scraping against the panic that always lurked just beneath.
He looked down at the screen.
DO NOT ANSWER.
That name, those stupid, childish words, glared up at him. Ridiculous. Immature. He knew it.
He also knew it was the only way he could bring himself to save her number at all.
His aunt never used the same number twice. She’d learned long ago that he wouldn’t pick up anything unfamiliar, so she rotated through them, new SIMs, new burners, new tactics. That discovery had only made her more creative. So, he’d given up and not blocked the last number. He should block her. He should’ve blocked her years ago.
