Arjun came to his full height, with some difficulty. “I told you, it was a hack.”
“It wouldn’t have been hacked if you hadn’t had the messages in the first place.”
Arjun licked his lips. “I know. Trust me, I know.”
Dev flung his arms wide. “What the fuck were you thinking, doing something like this?”
Arjun rubbed his arms and pouted. “It was Rohan’s idea,” he muttered.
Dev pointed at the bed. “Sit down.” He was already taller than his cousin, but he’d like to really intimidate him.
Arjun sat.
“I require a better explanation than that.”
“Rohan wanted to prank you, so he sent a few messages to random women.”
Dev slapped his forehead, his hurt at his brother’s perpetual dislike of him subsumed by panic. “There aremorewomen?”
“No! No. The others didn’t answer.”
“And you were in on this joke. Using my old scripts for lines to feed her.”
“I helped him splice them up,” Arjun confessed. “Rohan said you wrote most of them. You’re not a bad writer, by the way.”
Oh, that one hurt. Arjun liking anything wasn’t a good endorsement as far as he was concerned right now. “And after he died?”
Arjun hung his head. “I don’t know. Rohan was my buddy. I missed him, and Luna, too. I wasn’t thinking straight, so when Jia started texting again a couple months ago...”
“You thought you’d prank boring old me as well.”
“No! I thought to help you.”
“Help me!”
“Yeah, because of the will. You need to find a wife, so I thought maybe...” He trailed off. “I didn’t think far enoughabout her meeting you or anything. But it seems like you did fall in love with her! So it worked.”
Dear Lord. Adil Uncle hadn’t been that far off base with his matchmaking theory. “It... worked?” Dev growled. “It has turned my life upside down.”
“In a bad way?”
“Could there be a good way?”
“Sure.” Arjun squinted at him. “You’re right, you were boring. Got up, went to work, always on time, hit all your marks, went home, slept. No way you would have even talked to a girl like that without someone forcing you into it.”
“What do you mean a girl like that?”
“I mean a talented, popular, outgoing one. And look! According to Aji, you’re marrying her soon.”
Dev opened his mouth and closed it, wishing he could dispute anything his cousin was saying. “What you did was horrible, despite the result.”
Arjun sobered. “I know. I realized as soon as Jia started pushing to meet me. I mean, you. I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Dev leaned away. He hadn’t expected a sincere apology from his selfish, foolish cousin. “I don’t know either.”
“Have you told Aji?”
“No.”
