“No worries.” He shifted, and his elbow bumped hers.
She pulled it back, but not because she didn’t like it. Oh no, she liked it a little too much. She imagined her mom frowning at her, and that helped kill some of her liking.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“I know a restaurant that’s really quiet and tucked away.”
He put his seat belt on. “How quiet? Everyone has a phone on them nowadays.”
And he was a hot property, as they’d discovered. She gave him a mischievous smile. For all the stress and upset she’d been under for the last week, it was nice to feel vaguely relaxed. “Don’t worry about it.”
They lapsed into a companionable silence as they drove to the place, interrupted occasionally by Dev asking herabout things they passed. When they got to the restaurant, a small, inconspicuous spot on a quiet side street in Highland Park, she pulled around back instead of parking at one of the meters.
He trailed behind her as she went to the back kitchen door and knocked lightly. The door opened and a young man with a thick mustache stuck his head out. “There you are, Jia!”
“Hey, Antony.” She walked inside and gestured to Dev. “This is my friend, um... Bob.”
Antony winked. He wore a standard white chef’s jacket, pristine despite the sweat that had plastered his hair to his head, declaring a busy dinner service. “Bob, eh?” He shook Dev’s hand. “Pleasure. Come on, let’s get you guys a seat. The crowd’s died down, I had them clear out the back corner for you. No one will bother you.” Antony led them through the kitchen to a private booth. True to his word, no one was there. “Menus are on the table, waiter will be with you soon. I suggest the gnocchi tonight, but everything’s good, of course.”
“Thanks, Antony.”
The chef left and Dev raised an eyebrow. “You must be a regular here.”
“I did a series about six months ago about mom-and-pop restaurants in different parts of L.A. It took off pretty nicely, though I’m not exactly a food blogger. This was one of the restaurants I went to and they got a nice little lift in business.” She wrinkled her nose. “He tried to repay me in free food, but I don’t feel comfortable being one of those kinds ofinfluencers. I’m willing to accept his gratitude in this manner, though.” She gestured to the almost completely private dining.
“It’s not bad. I used to pay top dollar for this kind of privacy in Mumbai.”
“I imagine it was hard to get around at all there.”
“Yes. Here I have some level of privacy. The public in Mumbai felt like my grandparents were theirs. By extension so were we. My brother and cousin—” He cut himself off.
Jia tried to control the automatic lurch in her stomach. “It’s okay, you can mention them.” Since Dev hadn’t said anything more about his relatives, she assumed he’d been unlucky in getting ahold of his cousin to wring more information out.
She was okay not knowing anything more, to be honest. Especially if she had to hear more about how she was collateral damage in some family feud.
She was the star, damn it! Not a side character.
“It’s just that they simply didn’t mind as much as I did.” He pulled out his phone and scanned the bar code on the table, waiting for the menu to pop up on his screen.
The waiter materialized and poured them water. “Can I get you two anything else to drink?”
“Iced tea?” Dev asked her, and she nodded. He ordered for them, getting himself a glass of red wine. “You don’t mind if I drink around you, do you?” he asked after the waiter left.
“Nope.” She perused the menu. “It’s a personal choice for me, I’m not judgy about others. One of my sisters is actuallya bartender.”
“Not the twin.”
“Nope. There’re five of us. Noor, Zara, Sadia, Ayesha, me,” she said with the practice of someone who had listed the names in descending order for a while.
“What do they do?”
“The bartender, of course, bartends. Otherwise they’re doctors.”
He raised an eyebrow. “All of them?”
“Noor and Zara are, and Ayesha is in her residency. I would have been, too, but I escaped med school.”
“You went to medical school?”
