“Speak of the devil,” Karan whispered.
The guys waded out of the water together. Roshan knew when she saw him, because her expression tightened. “There you are.”
“Here we are,” said Vishal as he stood dripping in front of her.
“I got you a rental car. They’ll drop it off here this afternoon. I left your itinerary pretty open today… Better to get acclimated and get past the jet lag before anything too demanding. So, you have free time at the beach today, dinner at Mama’s Fish House tonight, and tomorrow we’ll do surf lessons.”
Was she coming to dinner with them?
“You’re coming to dinner, right?” Karan asked.
“I need to eat.” She raised one eyebrow. “I’ll drive.”
“Uh. No.” Roshan found his voice. “I always drive.”
“Not this week,” Nimita stated, leaving no room for further argument. “I’ll see you at 7:00 p.m. in the lobby.” She turned to go.
“Where are you going?”
“To my room for a nap. Didn’t sleep well last night.” She grinned and left.
Chapter Three
She really did need to sleep. She also needed to figure out her life. She’d been in constant motion for over three years now. Away from her family, her memories. Easier to hop on another flight than deal with all that.
If her mom had been here, she would have told her pick one of those handsome young men and marry him. Nimita closed her eyes to shake the thought, and as soon as she did, an image of Roshan standing on the beach filled her brain.
He had been captain of the soccer team in high school and considered handsome by most of the senior class. But Nimita had had her eye on things other than boys.
Roshan had become decidedly more attractive since high school. He most certainly was more muscular, had grown into his jawline, and his eyes were still that deep dark brown.
But Nimita had not forgotten her last encounter with him at graduation. The subtle accusations he’d made. Sure, they’d been barely eighteen, and he had been upset. But fifteen years had passed, and email was not new.
Though at least he had his life together. That was more than she could say.
The glances she had sneaked at him when he was bickering with his friends revealed a man in the thick of the people he loved most. Whatever had happened between her and Roshan back then, he was clearly successful and loved now.
She’d had the same potential back then and had even had herself together. Yet here she was, no job, no home and her family angry at her.
She remembered the three guys as being completely inseparable in school. And here they still were, close as ever. It was something unusual.
Nimita’s high school friends had fallen away as she moved on to college, and to be honest, she hadn’t really been sad to see them go. She hadn’t ever really belonged. She didn’t care about hair and makeup and clothes at the time, and while she liked boys, and secretly crushed on a few, she knew she would never be allowed to date, so why bother? Not allowed to date, but then was expected to marry in her twenties. To say it was paradoxical was an understatement.
Not to mention, she had dreams. Dreams of changing the world.
She lay down and closed her eyes. She had loved her job as a biomedical engineer, figuring out how technology worked with the human body and vice versa. She had felt like she was changing the world, even if it was simply in her own little corner.
Her mind jumped to all the adventures she had been on in the past three years. She’d been to Christmas markets all over Europe, explored deserts and safaris in Africa, seen the Taj Mahal and experienced houseboats in Thailand. All things she might have missed out on had she listened to her mother.
She quickly brushed aside thoughts of her mother. She avoided thinking about her mother as much as possible, and she wasn’t going to start now. There would be plenty of time to meander down the road of guilt and regret when she got to San Diego. Reena would make sure of it.
She was exhausted and jet-lagged, and sleep finally found her.
* * *
“Well, at least we didn’t hit anyone on the way in,” Roshan said, glancing at Nimita as she deftly parked the car at Mama’s Fish House.
Nimita was more than ready for dinner. She had slept most of the day and had showered and thrown on a summer dress for dinner. The guys cleaned up nicely, making a very handsome trio.
