“What about ‘darling’?” she asked.
He made a face. “Too cowboy.”
“What?” She laughed, and the sound of it warmed him from the inside out. “What does that mean?”
“Can’t you hear it? You’re the Texan. It sounds like something a cowboy would say with a piece of straw in his mouth.” He did his best imitation of a southern drawl. “Howdy, darlin’.”
Peals of laughter burst on the other end of the call. “Please say that again,” she said in between breaths. “You have to.”
“Never. Once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
She let out one final laugh. “Okay. Fine. No ‘darling.’ ”
“Sweetheart” and “love” popped into his head. He was about to mention them, but stopped himself. They both felt too intimate. Too real.
“Maybe we should just let one come up organically,” he suggested.
“Maybe.”
They said nothing for a few seconds until Meghna indicated she needed to hop off the call. After hanging up, Karthik finished his dinner by himself, like he had so many nights in the past, but for some reason, the act felt so much lonelier than it ever had before.
—
Three days later, an email from Seth arrived in Meghna’s inbox. It contained no apology or explanation for why he had hung up on her before. In fact, the email contained nothing in the subject line or body of the message. Just an attached document with brand-new lyrics for her review. She scanned the song quickly. It was completely different and at first glance, much better than the old one.
She closed her laptop, stretching her legs out on her couch. It had been a long day at work, and she’d planned to watch some mindless television, but reached for her phone instead.
“Hey. Is this a good time?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Karthik said, slightly out of breath. “I’m just at the gym.”
“Oh. I can call you back later if that’s—”
“No.” Some electronic beeps played in her ear. “It’s fine. I’m slowing down the treadmill. What’s up?”
“Nothing really. Seth sent me a new song to look at.”
“Yeah? Is it any good?”
“I can’t tell yet, but so far it seems better than the last one.”
“Good. That’s good.” He wasn’t quite panting, but his breaths were loud and harsh and quick.
“How was your day?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. “Jim told me I’ll get that re-interview with the panel. It’s good news, but they’re asking for more this time. A big presentation. A final pitch on why I should get the job and what my vision for the HVAC department is going forward.”
“Congrats! How are you feeling?”
He blew out a breath. “Good, I think. Nervous, but good. It’ll be a lot of work, but I have some ideas already. Some projects I’ve had in mind for a while. There’s a new method of computer modeling I want the company to implement. I think it’ll help us better analyze whether the ventilation system we’ve designed has any flaws that need to be addressed. But there are a couple different softwares out there and Iwant to test them out before pitching one to the company. I was going to start working on it this afternoon, but I got distracted. My, uh, dad called me.”
“Oh. What did…What did he say?”
He sighed loudly. “I didn’t answer. I got angry just seeing his name on the screen and didn’t think it was a good idea to talk to him in that state. But I called my mom, just to check in on her.”
“Yeah? Is she doing okay?”
“Fine. Or at least she’s acting like everything’s normal and fine. But it’s obviously not. I mean, my dad never calls me, so something must have happened. I asked if he’d told her anything, but she changed the subject.”
