Love at First Fight Read online

  Ashish

  It was like Cupid had thrown up all over everything. Like the dude had a big night out, spun around on a carousel a few times, and then just… let loose. Ashish stood back and considered the giant tree in the center of the plaza covered with pink and red glittery paper and enormous papier-mâché hearts.

  “It feels like a crime against nature.” He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. “Right?”

  Dimple snorted from beside him, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “And against humanity. Why am I being subjected to this? Why should big corporations be able to say—nay, dictate—when I’m supposed to be feeling amorous?”

  Rishi kissed her cheek. “That’s right. Because you can’t help but feel amorous all the time when you’re engaged to the big R-man.”

  Dimple turned and gave him a withering look. “Never say that again.”

  Ashish laughed as a cool breeze rustled all the gaudy decorations on the tree. “So have the Shah-Patel parents moved in together yet? To plan the big day? They’re on the phone enough that I told Ma to just do it already.”

  Suddenly, Dimple looked like a thundercloud. Rishi made a pleading face at Ashish, but it was too late. “It’s ridiculous. I told my mother that although, yes, technically I did propose to Rishi last summer, she’s not to assume this means my brain cells have evacuated my skull. I told both my parents this is a long-term engagement, that I wouldn’t even be willing to talk about actual wedding plans until I’m finished with graduate school—my master’s and my doctorate. But does my mother listen? Oh no. What does she do instead?” Ashish was pretty sure he wasn’t meant to answer any of these questions, so he just listened patiently, as Rishi was doing. “She runs out and buys a subscription to, like, ten different desi wedding magazines and websites. Multiple subscriptions for a wedding that’s years, if not a full decade, away! What is she thinking?”

  Apparently she did expect him to answer this one, because there was a long silence, and she was glaring up at him like it was all his fault. “Um…” Ashish tried to rack his brain for something appeasing to say. “Your, uh, I like your top thing. It matches your eyes.”

  Rishi put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. Dimple looked over her shoulder, darting him a suspicious glance, and he dropped his hand, smiling. “It’s just your mom’s way,” he said in a soothing manner that sounded practiced. “It gives her happiness. So let her do it. You and I know we’re not getting married anytime soon, and that’s all that matters.”

  And just like that, the thundercloud had passed. Wow. Rishi was, like, the Dimple Whisperer. She snuggled against his chest and smiled contentedly. Crisis averted. “Oh, there she is,” Dimple said, looking past Ashish. “Sweetie.”

  His heart lifted at her words, like a legit helium balloon in his chest. Ashish turned—and there she was, striding across the plaza toward him, a soft smile on her face.

  Sweetie Nair.

  Was there anything more perfect in this world than that dimple in her cheek? The spiraling curls of her ponytail? The curves of her body, each one made to mold to the planes of his? The way she walked, so sure and graceful, so athletic and perfect? Oh, right. He’d already said perfect. So what? She was.

  “Perfect,” he said, gathering her into his arms the moment she was close enough. Her skin was cool in the winter sun, and she smelled like shampoo and spun sugar. She’d probably been baking with her mom.

  She kissed him and then smiled up at him, her brown eyes shining like this was the happiest she’d been all day. Man, what an honor. “Hey, you,” she said softly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  “Happy day of love.” Ashish rubbed his nose against hers. “But just don’t say that to Dimple; she’ll eat your face right off,” he added in a whisper.

  Sweetie rolled her eyes at him and stepped aside to see Rishi and Dimple. “Hey, guys.” She walked over to where they were now sitting under the poor, undignified, festooned tree. “How’s it going?”

  “You don’t buy into the whole Hallmark-created notion of love, do you, Sweetie?” Dimple asked severely, and Sweetie glanced over at Ashish.

  “I told you so,” he mouthed, out of sight of Dimple.

  “Um,” Sweetie said, shrugging. “Most of it seems silly, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking an extra day to be with the one you love.”

  “Exactly!” Rishi said, beaming. “That’s what I was trying to say earlier.”

  Dimple raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you were trying to say when you gave me a card that said The universe is infinite, as is my love for you; happy Valentine’s Day?”

  “You said you liked it!” Rishi said, looking outraged.

  Softening, Dimple leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I did. I do. And I love your love of all things sappy.”

  Mollified, Rishi took her hand. “That’s why we make such a great team.”

  “Speaking of teams.” Sweetie walked forward to check out a chalk signboard, the hem of her pink sweater-tunic fluttering in the light breeze. “Look at this!”

  Ashish went to stand by her and read the sign she was talking about. “An escape room. That sounds like the perfect thing to do on our couples’ date! Especially since we hadn’t figured anything out yet. Nice work.” He kissed Sweetie’s temple, and she flushed a pretty pink.

  “Great, let’s do it!” Rishi hopped up and held out a hand for Dimple, who took it and stood too.

  “As long as the room’s not called Love’s Lament or something,” she grumbled. “People lose their minds on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Look.” Ashish pointed to the flyer. “Not a single heart on there. I think you’re safe.”

  “Excuse me!” a girl said, and before anyone could react, a giant poster board was crashing into Ashish and then pushing past him.

  “Hey, ow!” he called. “Watch it!” And then he read the poster board.

  GOVERNMENT-FUNDED BACK SURGERY FOR THOSE WHO’VE EXPERIENCED ALIEN ABDUCTIONS! it said. LET’S DO THE RIGHT THING, AMERICA!

  Ashish narrowed his eyes as the poster board kept plowing through their group. “Pinky? Pinky Kumar!”

  The poster board slowed and then lowered, Pinky’s brown face appearing above it, looking surprised. “Oh, hey, Ash. Sweetie. Didn’t see you guys there!”

  “How could you when you were using the poster board as a weapon to clear your path?” Ashish deadpanned, just as Sweetie leaned forward and hugged Pinky, who looked a little shocked at such a public display of friendliness.

  Pinky set the board down on the ground and propped an elbow on top of it. “Oh, hey, Rishi. Dimple.” She’d met them a few times before and knew them in passing. “What are you guys all up to today? You’re not on a couples’ date, are you?” She sneered as she said the phrase “couples’ date.”

  “What’s wrong with a couples’ date?” Ashish asked, frowning.

  “Well,” Pinky said, drawing a breath, and Ashish knew one of her patented Pinky lectures was coming. “Not everyone is a couple, Ash. Some people are polyamorous. They have multiple partners. Some people are single by choice. Some people don’t want to go on heteronormative ‘dates’ that corporations decide we need to go on so they can make even more money.”

  “Oh my gosh, finally, a voice of reason.” Dimple stepped up so she was beside Pinky and then read her poster board. “What’s this? Are you going to a protest or something?”

  “We just finished one up,” Pinky explained. “I was about to go home.”

  “Oh.” Dimple’s sharp brown eyes seemed to be assessing the situation. “Or you could come with us to the escape room if you want. Break up the numbers a bit so we’re definitely not on a couples’ date?”

  “That soun
ds like fun, actually.” Pinky flipped a piece of green hair out of her eyes, and it joined the other multicolored strands on top of her head. “I’m pretty good at escape rooms.” She paused. “Wait. It’s not going to have some cringey theme like Sleuthing Sweethearts, is it?”

  Dimple snorted. “I don’t think so. But I really like how your mind works.”

  They began to walk toward the escape room, which was located up some stairs over by a Starbucks.

  “Um, you want to get rid of that?” Rishi pointed to Pinky’s gigantic poster board, which she was still lugging but couldn’t see over. She was using the group to guide her past potential life-threatening barriers.

  “They don’t have a recycling bin big enough here. I’ll just walk it to the recycling plant later.”

  Dimple beamed at her. They were obviously going to be lifelong friends after this.

  “Ash?”

  They turned toward the male voice to see a tall, Gap commercial–looking dude in a tan sweater and dark jeans. He was holding a to-go cup of coffee. Ah. The childhood nemesis.

  “Samir.” Ashish raised a hand. “What’s up?”

  “Just getting some java.” Sam held up his coffee. Then, taking in Pinky’s board, he said, “Whoa. You guys getting ready to stage a protest?”

  “No, I just got done,” Pinky explained again. In the next moment, her gimlet gaze zeroed in on Samir’s coffee cup, and she gasped. “You don’t bring your own reusable travel mug?”

  Samir slowly looked down at his cup. “No?”

  Pinky shook her head at him, as if she were gathering steam, but before she could say anything else, Ashish jumped in to divert the conversational flow. “Hey, uh, we’re all headed to do an escape room. Wanna go?”

  Sam smiled around at everyone. “Oh, sure. If you guys don’t mind. I didn’t really have any plans today.”

  “And once again, we’re in pairs,” Pinky muttered, and Ashish and Sweetie exchanged amused smiles.

  * * *

  They turned into the escape room facility, Samir going first and Ashish being the caboose. Ashish wasn’t even in the building before he heard a chorus of groans and gripes, which mainly seemed to be coming from three members of the group.

  “Are you kidding me.” Dimple.

  “Nauseating. Lots of nausea.” Pinky.

  “This is definitely… not… what I thought it was going to be.” Samir.

  And then Ashish crossed the threshold himself and stopped short. “Oh. I… Wow.”

  Sweetie giggled, and he wanted to dip her and kiss her, but he didn’t think the rest of them would appreciate the display. Especially considering they were apparently on the verge of throwing up.

  The escape room facility had definitely gone whole hog into the Valentine’s Day, love-makes-the-world-go-round thing. In fact, there was a giant poster of the world on the wall, in which every continent was shaped like a heart. There were treasure chests scattered around, and giant gold necklaces with blue heart-shaped pendants spilling out. There was even a huge fake ship set up in the center of the warehouselike space.

  “What is this? Pirates of the Caribbean in love?” Ashish asked, thoroughly confused.

  “I’m not sure,” Rishi replied as they waited in line to talk to the employee behind the desk. “But I’m thinking they had stuff left over from Halloween that they wanted to reuse.” He pointed to a pirate flag on the ship; someone had given the skull heart eyes.

  “I think it’s cute!” Sweetie looked around, beaming. “In a kitschy kind of way.”

  “Of course you do,” Pinky muttered, and Ashish glared at her. “What? You have to admit, this is pretty vomitus-inducing.”

  “Give it a chance, will ya?” Sam said from beside her. Apparently he didn’t get the concept of a line.

  Pinky rolled her eyes and dragged her poster board forward as the line moved. “Oh, big surprise. Mr. Ralph Lauren here kowtows to the corporation.”

  “I’m not kowtowing,” Samir replied heatedly. “I never kowtow.”

  Pinky studied him blankly. “You don’t know what ‘kowtow’ means, do you?”

  “I scored higher on my SAT Reading and Writing than you did,” Samir shot back.

  “Weird flex, dude.” Pinky shook her head, while Samir rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed.

  It wasn’t strictly totally nice, but Ashish derived great amusement from how wrong-footed Samir always seemed to be around Pinky. It took his Sam-perfection down a notch or two, brought him down to a more human level.

  “Miss? Miss?”

  Ashish poked Pinky’s shoulder, and she turned to the dead-eyed employee who’d been trying to get her attention for a while.

  “I’ll see you and your boyfriend now,” the employee said, gesturing to her and Samir.

  Pinky sputtered for a good five seconds before saying, “This is not my boyfriend! We’re all here as part of a group!”

  “Yes!” Sam put in, turning an entertaining fuchsia. “This is a group outing, not a group date!”

  Ashish grinned at them and stepped forward to help out the beleaguered employee who literally did not give a crap about who was dating whom. “You guys get really riled up for two people who aren’t dating,” he said, just to needle them.

  “I’ll show you riled up.” Pinky raised the poster board to jab Ashish in the ribs before Samir stopped her.

  “Not bad.” Dimple looked impressed. “Using what you have on hand as a weapon. I never would’ve thought of that.”

  “Don’t give her ideas.” Rishi groaned. “She’s already terrifying enough with this Krav Maga class she’s been taking recently.”

  “So we’re all in a group, like they said,” Ashish told the bleary-eyed, barely-alive employee, whose name badge said, very incongruously, HI! MY NAME IS TOBY! “It’s six of us, total.”

  “You guys can have a room to yourselves,” TOBY! said in a monotone. “Six also qualifies for our group discount.”

  “Great.” Ashish pulled out his credit card. “So, what’s the theme of the room?” he asked when Toby did not provide any more information, likely because he had fallen asleep with his eyes open.

  “Sail the Sweetheart Seas,” Toby replied, like he was reading out the numbers of pi.

  There was a chorus of groaning behind him, and Ashish smiled soothingly at Toby. “Don’t worry about them. They’re all very excited. This is just how they show it.”

  Toby’s eyes wandered to Pinky’s gigantic poster board. “She can’t bring any signage into the room.”

  “I’m going to leave it out in the hall,” Pinky explained. “I’ll take it home with me so I can walk it to the recycling center later.”

  Not even a flicker of expression on Toby’s face. “Please go to the end of the hall and make a right. Walk until you see the yellow door. A guide will be waiting for you there with further instructions.” He handed Ashish the receipt.

  “Thank—”

  “Next!” Toby yelled, as if Ashish had ceased to exist.

  “Yep.” Ash tucked the receipt into his pocket, took Sweetie’s soft hand, and led the way to the yellow door.

  * * *

  The guide, a short blond girl in braids, was waiting for them, just as Toby had said. Ashish could see her ecstatic smile from all the way at the other end of the hall.

  “Hi!” she called when they were still roughly twenty feet away. Her voice rang out like a robust bell. “My name is Amy! Welcome to your escape room experience—Sail the Sweetheart Seas!”

  “Is she going to yell the whole time?” Dimple asked as they walked closer.

  “She should’ve given some of that energy to poor Toby,” Ash muttered, and Sweetie elbowed him in the ribs. But gently, because she was Sweetie.

  “This is one of our most romantic themes,” Amy said in a more normal voice once they were close enough. “All the clues in the room have to do with a lasting love that’s meant to be. Just like all of you!” Amy beamed around at them.

  “We’re
not a couple!” Pinky and Samir chorused, then paused to look at each other suspiciously for a moment before turning back to Amy, whose sparkling smile had frozen on her face.

  Ashish chuckled. “Excuse them,” he said. “They’re in deep denial.”

  “But you really shouldn’t assume people are couples just because they’re together.” Dimple gave Amy a severe look. “I mean, like they said, Pinky and Samir aren’t. That’s a total microaggression.”

  Pinky shot Dimple a grateful look.

  “Oh,” Amy said, looking a little upset. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, um, micro…” She trailed off.

  Rishi sighed and put his arm around Dimple.

  “It’s fine,” Samir said kindly into the awkward silence. He hated when people—girls, especially—got distraught. It was genetically coded into his DNA or something. “Really.”

  “In this instance,” Dimple intoned darkly.

  Pinky turned to Ashish. “I’m in denial? Do you want me to hit you with the poster board? Because I will. And I’ll make it hurt. Deny that.” She brandished the giant thing at him, her eyes flashing behind her glasses.

  “No violence!” Amy touched the walkie-talkie strapped to her hip, looking alarmed and, Ashish thought, a little like she wanted them all to go away forever. He wondered if she was considering calling for security. He would, if he came across Pinky in the wild. “You’re going to have to leave that out here. Sorry.”

  Pinky propped the poster board against the wall. “That’s okay. I’ll pick it up when we’re done.”

  Amy’s smile was back in place, more than a touch of relief in it this time. “Great! So, when you go in, just make sure to read the letter in the envelope on the desk to your right. It’ll have instructions and a background story to the room. You have forty-five minutes to find and solve all the clues and escape the room. Please don’t touch anything with a red sticker on it; that means it doesn’t contain a clue. Any questions?”

  No one said anything for a moment, and then Samir raised his hand. Ashish was 98 percent sure he was just going to ask a question because he was a Goody Two-shoes who felt like he had to ask a question when someone asked if there were any questions.