“Okay. I got it, Uncle.” Dhillon grinned at him, rolling his eyes slightly. Like a son.
Dhillon finished his wine, giving his empty glass a quick rinse before placing it in the sink. “I’d better get going.” He looked at her parents. “My turn to make rotli.”
Riya saw him do a double take at her neat pile of rotli before meeting her eyes. They had both learned how to make rotli together. Right here, in fact. He had asked her mother to teach him so he could surprise his parents. Riya broke his gaze, unable to look at him and think about happy times before the fire.
“Lucky, come,” Dhillon said as he stepped out of the kitchen.
Lucky lifted his head but stayed put and raised one eye at Riya. She smiled and shook her head. “I’ll bring him over. You know how he is.”
Dhillon simply nodded.
“Come, Lucky,” Riya called as she left the kitchen. Lucky followed, and Dhillon brought up the rear. The sun was just getting ready to set, and the sky was a summer shade of violet. The heat from the sun was gone, but the air was as sticky as ever. They walked single file like this all the way to Dhillon’s door. Neither of them spoke as Dhillon moved in front of her to enter his house. Why did he smell so good? More to the point, why did she keep noticing?
Before he went in, Riya needed to know if Dhillon was going to tell everyone about her job. “Dhillon,” she said to his back.
He turned to face her. Suddenly, he smiled a bit. His teeth were slightly crooked, but only if you studied them, and—sadly—she had. But he had the perfect mouth, and when he stretched it into a rare smile, it was breathtaking, refreshing to see. “Do you remember when you broke your arm?”
Riya smirked. “Which time?”
“The time when you justhadto get that cat out of the tree and you fell?” His tone was a mix of pride and frustration. “My sister thought you were freaking amazing. I heard about your heroism for weeks!”
She wrinkled her nose in a grimace. “It was the worst. I couldn’t ride my bike for, like, six weeks.”
“Remember what you did as soon as the cast came off?” His smile widened.
Riya giggled. It was an almost foreign sensation as it rose from deep inside her. She had forgotten about the incident until he mentioned it. “I got back on my bike the minute I got home from the doctor.”
“She had specifically told you not to do that. To let it keep healing.”
Riya put her fingers to her lips in an attempt to hide her guilty smile. “But I had been off it forsix weeks.”
“You fell off within minutes. And rebroke that arm.” He chuckled.
Now Riya laughed out loud, wincing at the memory. “That hurt so bad. You helped me up and took me right to my parents.” She recalled the pain vividly. But more than that, she recalled being petrified that her parents would be mad that she had so blatantly ignored the doctor’s orders. She stopped laughing and focused her gaze on Dhillon. “You told them I had tripped over a toy your sister had left out. You lied.”
“I didn’t want you to get in trouble.” The laughter was gone from him. Even in the waning light, she could see the intensity of his gaze. “I didn’t tell then. And I won’t tell now.” He paused. “I’m not sorry I yelled at you. But I am sorry I yelled at you in front of your team.”
Riya relaxed. “Thanks.” He was still her secret keeper. Even though they never traded secrets anymore. Something soft and familiar passed between them.
Dhillon spoke into the silence, his voice an intimate whisper. “Lucky always needed you to walk him home.”
Riya warmed at the memory. They had no idea when that had started, but one day they realized that Lucky would only leave Riya’s house if she walked him over. She ruffled the fur on his head and bent down to hug him. “He’s getting old.”
“I know.”
Remnants of her anger with Dhillon dissipated into the night. Sometimes she was just angry with him out of habit. She also remembered that the cat she had pulled from the tree had been injured. It had been Dhillon who had treated the injury and found the cat’s owner.
She looked up at Dhillon and found him intently watching her and Lucky. His shoulders sagged, his arms hung limp by his sides, he bit his bottom lip, and his eyes had almost no fight in them.
“He’ll be all right, Dhillon. Lucky’s too stubborn to die.”
“You know you’re lying to us both?” His voice was low and soft, dreading the inevitable.
She nodded, unable to speak.
Dhillon opened the door and entered the house, Lucky close behind.
five
