“Whoa. No one said love. I was with her for five days. We argued the first two.” Roshan waved them off. They were the best five days and the first two might have been his favorite. “I don’t even know where she lives.”
Vishal looked up from his phone, a grin on his face. “What if you knew where she lived? Or at least where she was right now?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Roshan said. “It wasn’t real.” And did he really need to bring someone into his world? He played off like Simmy hadn’t mattered, but she did. And she wasn’t a bad person, she just never understood his relationship with his family. It might not be the healthiest relationship, but he loved them, and it was what he had. He couldn’t imagine bringing Nimita into his world only to have her leave as well. Saying goodbye this time had been hard enough.
“What if she lived in San Diego? In PB, even?”
Roshan shrugged. “That’s not even possible.” No way did this amazing woman actually live in the same city as him. He wasn’t that lucky.
“Oh really,” Karan drawled. Roshan turned to see Vishal and Karan grinning like idiots, looking at Vishal’s phone. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Roshan rolled his eyes. Probably some surfing video that detailed how he was doing it wrong.
“No seriously.” Karan was insistent. “Look.” He turned the phone toward him. Vishal had his Instagram open, and Roshan’s sister had posted a pic of herself, Finn and none other than Nimita. The caption readme, my dog and my new friend.
His heart dropped. What in the…? Nimita and Malini were hanging out? With Finn? How was that even…? That meant Nimita was in San Diego. In Pacific Beach.
“Bruh. It’s asign,”Karan insisted.
Roshan stared at the photo. Even through the photo, she calmed him. He wanted that feeling—he needed that feeling—of home. “I’m going home. Now,” he told his friends.
Within a few hours, Roshan was on a plane, barely able to contain his excitement. What were the chances that Nimita lived in San Diego? And that Malini had already met and liked her enough to post about it?
Maybe Karan was right, and there were signs the universe gave.
Maybe he should have told Nimita how he felt before she left. Maybe he should have insisted on knowing where she lived. He had no idea how she would even take this. Maybe she wouldn’t be happy to see him, since she had her own things to sort out. He only knew he had to find out. He had to know if she felt the same, if she wanted to investigate whatever this was between them.
Roshan’s plane landed, and he took an Uber home. His heart thudded in his chest, just knowing she was in the same town. He would go home first and then text Nimita. Or maybe he should text her now. In any case, he wanted to drop off his bags and change before he saw her.
The Uber dropped him off at his house. Malini was at work, Finn was at the sitter, the house was quiet, almost still. Tidy, for sure but almost…sparse. Was Malini redecorating? What if she fell off a ladder or… He stopped his spiral. He was too excited about seeing Nimita to really think more about the state of the house. He sent a text to the dog walker and hopped in the shower.
By the time Roshan had changed, the dog walker had responded. Roshan grabbed his sunglasses and headed out.
* * *
The sun was high in the sky, with little cloud cover, so it was definitely warm enough to be out on the beach. Neha had texted Nimita that the owner had come home early and was on their way to pick up Finn.
Instead of excitement, Nimita was sad that she would no longer have the opportunity to play with the sweet dog. She took him for a well-deserved swim in the ocean, followed by some Frisbee catch.
Maybe she should get a dog. Reena would freak out, though. Nimita chuckled at the face Reena would make if she brought a puppy home. Maybe when she got her own place. She’d been daydreaming about that more and more, a place of her own. Maybe even here in San Diego. It felt right. She smiled to herself. Maybe she could even convince Molly and her roommate to let her continue being Finn’s dog walker for a while.
She pulled out her phone to text Roshan about this little epiphany she’d had. She kept doing that, wanting to tell him about her day. But she could not. She and Roshan had ended things. To be fair, she had done her darnedest to prevent anything from even starting.
She’d never admit it out loud, but she had failed in that area. She had tried not to catch feelings, she really had. But the ache in her heart advertised that failure to her. Precisely at times like this when she automatically thought to share something with him.
Finn brought the Frisbee to her and plopped down next to her on the towel she had spread out. Her phone was still on the towel. She could text him. Telling him she was ready for a home of her own wasn’t clingy, right? She wasn’t saying she wanted to move to his city, after all. She was just sharing with him her growth that she was ready to really be here for her family.
It was the kind of thing that was shared with a best friend. She could take that risk. She stared at her phone, second-guessing herself.
The timing was wrong. She needed to figure out her life before she let someone else in on her calamity. She leaned back on her hands and lifted her face to the sky, eyes closed, and let herself get lost in the warm ocean breeze. That wasn’t really it. She was just scared. Scared to put herself out there and have him reject her. Plain and simple, she was afraid of being turned down.
Her phone dinged.
She opened one eye to check the alert, and she froze. Her heart may have skipped a beat—or two—as well. Almost as if she had conjured it, Roshan’s name appeared on her phone. He had texted her.
She reached out and gingerly picked up her phone as if moving too quickly would make the alert disappear. She checked the message.
Turn around.
