Jas growled. “Shut up.”
“I like her. This is great.”
“You didn’t like her this morning.”
“I changed my mind. Have you eaten her cobbler? It’s amazing.” Bikram paused for a breath. “You kiiiiiiiissed her.”
He resisted the immature urge to pull his brother into a headlock to get that smug look off his face. “Bikram.”
“Admit it. Admit it, and I’ll leave you alone.”
He gritted his teeth. “I kissed her, okay?”
The words slammed between them and Jas closed his eyes. He hadn’t meant to say that. He shouldn’t have said that. Not to Bikram, not when he hadn’t so much as apologized to Katrina.
Bikram whistled.
Jas scrubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Uh-huh. When did it happen?”
“You said you’d leave me alone if I admitted it.”
“I lied. You don’t seem happy about this. Did she not like it? Are you a bad kisser?”
Jesus. How had they even gotten from talking about his grandfather potentially disowning him to this? “I don’t think so.”
Bikram’s face turned grave. “You don’t know if someone likes it when they’re kissing you yet? Oh, Jas. That’s so sad. How much did you come in? How much did she?”
“What?”
“There’s a seventy percent test when you want to kiss someone.” Bikram crossed his arms over his chest. “You lean in seventy percent. Then they lean in thirty percent. If they don’t lean in, you lean back. How much did she lean?”
He replayed the kiss in his head, but trying to figure out the percentages of theirleansbaffled him. “I don’t know.”
“Hmm, yes, yes, I see.” Bikram paced in front of him, stroking his beard. “What about eyes? Open or closed?”
“Mine or hers?”
“Both.”
“I don’t remember, Bikram.”
“This is important stuff.”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t see why.”
“Because I don’t think you’re upset about the kiss, you’re upset because you don’t know if she liked it. Like, if she had liked it, would you be okay?”
Yes. If she had liked it and wanted it, he’d be better than okay.
“Aha,” Bikram said softly. “Knew it.”
Jas tugged at his collar. It might be cool outside, but he was too warm. “Knew what?”
“One thing you learn when you spend a lot of time with crews is how to read people. Whenever you’d call, I would count how many times you said Katrina. Katrina said this, Katrina did that, Katrina’s so smart, Katrina... after a while I had to stop counting. Especially after Hardeep died and you moved to Santa Barbara.”
Probably because he’d no longer felt so guilty about coveting his boss’s wife.
