As Kismet Would Have It Page 4

  “Stanford girls like to think about things,” Pappa said. “So that they can be sure of their answer.”

  Rishi forced a half smile. They didn’t get it. They were still holding out hope for something that Rishi was now sure would never happen. “Right. Maybe.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Sweetie said, “I really do think you and Dimple are perfect together.” Rishi studied Sweetie’s expression and realized she wasn’t just telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. Her eyes were tinged with genuine pain for him. Hearing her boyfriend’s brother be pathetically, awkwardly heartbroken hadn’t made her cringe and run away? Wow. Ashish better hold on to this one.

  His brother patted him on the shoulder. “I agree. You guys are meant to be.”

  “Yeah,” Rishi said, sighing. “I thought so too.” Why couldn’t they have said they thought he and Dimple were a horrible match and they were glad it was over now? That would’ve been so much easier to hear.

  Rishi brought the glass to his lips, intending to drain the last of his iced coffee. But as he did so, something clinked against his teeth.

  “What the . . .” Frowning, Rishi looked into the glass. Something metallic was bobbing in the liquid. “There’s something in here.” He fished it out with two fingers, his brow clearing as he realized what it was.

  His great-grandmother’s gold ring. The one his parents had given him when he’d first gone to see Dimple at Insomnia Con last year. It usually resided in a safe in his dad’s study. Dazed, Rishi looked up at his parents, who were watching him with small smiles on their faces.

  “What is this?” Rishi asked, his voice sounding robotic and wooden. Thoughts and feelings and emotions were swirling around his brain in a tornado. He couldn’t identify a single one.

  Grinning, Ashish stood. “Bhaiyya,” he said. “Follow me. And bring the ring.”

  Rishi stood, his legs suddenly feeling like rubber. Slipping the ring into his shirt pocket, he said, “Where are we going?”

  But Ashish didn’t say anything else. He led Rishi around the side of the house, through the side yard and the orange tree grove, past the swimming pool, in complete silence. At one point, Rishi glanced behind him and saw that Sweetie and his parents were following too, all of them grinning, their eyes sparkling. Rishi’s heart pounded furiously. Hope ballooned in his chest, but he fought against it. It was too much. He couldn’t handle a letdown.

  Finally they emerged via a wooden arbor into the giant main garden that was Ma’s pride and joy. The scent of roses greeted Rishi before his brain had a chance to process everything else.

  Like the dozens of strands of twinkling lights wound around every tree branch and trunk. Paper lanterns had been hung from every low-hanging branch too, casting a golden glow around the garden, their light intensified by the sinking sun. Off to the side were Dimple’s parents, Vijay and Leena, both sporting gleeful smiles, and joined now by Ashish, Sweetie, and Rishi’s parents.

  Rishi turned his head back to the center of the garden. There, in a large oval clearing, wearing a knee-length purple dress that set off her wild black hair and made her look like a glorious queen of dusk, was Dimple.

  Rishi walked slowly up to her, unable to look at anyone or anything else. He realized he was barely breathing. She held his gaze, solemn and steady. When he was within a foot of her, he said, “Dimple?” His voice wobbled, but he didn’t care. “What’s going on?”

  Dimple took his hands. Hers were cool and dry, and her grip was firm but gentle at the same time. Rishi was sure she could feel his hands shaking, but he was too far past embarrassment.

  “Rishi,” Dimple said, gazing up at him with those sparkling brown eyes that had made him feel, on so many occasions, like no one else existed in the world but the two of them. “Recently you asked me to think about what I want. To really narrow down my views on marriage. Well, I have to say, I did, and . . . nothing’s changed.”

  Rishi’s heart dropped like a stone.

  “I still think marriage is an old-school, patriarchal system designed to intimidate and disempower women.” From off to the side, Rishi heard bangles clinking, and Dimple’s mom groan a soft Hai, Ram. Dimple continued, “I still think it shouldn’t be regulated by the government. I still think it’s a sham, in many ways.”

  Rishi wanted to take his hands from hers and run. His heart was breaking. Why was she doing this in front of both their families? He’d heard all of this already. “I know,” he began, but Dimple was shaking her head.

  “But all of that means nothing when it comes to you and me,” she said, a small smile on her face. A breeze whipped through the garden, blowing her hair into his face. She smelled the same as she did on that very first non-date: coconuts and jasmine. “You and I, Rishi? We’re a universe to ourselves. None of those feelings and doubts belong in this universe. Because you’re different. And I know you would never, ever hurt me. Never.”

  Rishi shook his head, feeling a lump in his throat. “I’d cut my own ear off before I hurt you.”

  Dimple laughed a little. Her eyes still sparkled, this time with tears. “I know,” she said, sniffing. “Van Gogh.”

  Rishi laughed. “So what is this all about? What are we doing here?”

  Dimple got serious again. As he watched, thunderstruck, she let go of his hands and got down on one knee right there in the grass. From the pocket of her dress, she pulled out a small burgundy jewelry box and opened it. Nestled inside was a gold-and-onyx ring. “It was my grandfather’s,” Dimple said, her voice high with tears. “A year ago you showed me your great-grandmother’s ring and told me what it means to you. Now it’s my turn. Rishi Patel, will you do me the great honor of marrying me . . . one day?”

  Rishi felt tears brimming over and staining his cheeks. “Dimple,” he whispered, “are you sure about this?”

  “I’ve never been surer,” she said, gazing up at him. “My mom and I were talking, and I realized . . . Rishi, you’re part of the family already. You’ve woven yourself into the fabric of my life and made it richer and more vibrant. Why would I want to cut that out and go back to that flat, dull piece of cloth I had before? So, yes, I want to marry you one day,” she continued. “After we’re done with school and whatever else we may want to do. I want to become your official family, Rishi. And I want you to become mine. I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.”

  Rishi was worried his heart would leap out of his chest. “In that case, Dimple Shah,” he said, laughing, “I would love to marry you. One day.”

  There was cheering from the family units off to the side, but Rishi’s eyes were on Dimple as she stood and slipped her grandfather’s ring onto his left hand. They stood staring at each other, in amazement and wonder and pure, deep, unadulterated joy.

  Someone cleared their throat. “Now give her your ring!” Ashish said in a stage whisper.

  “Oh, right.” Rishi slipped his great-grandmother’s ring, coated slightly with sticky coffee, out of his pocket. Grinning, Dimple held out her left hand, and he slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, as if it had been forged for her from the start.

  He swept her into his arms then, and she collapsed against his chest while their families cheered and whooped and made as much noise as a whole family tree of relatives who couldn’t be there with them in that moment.

  “So how did you plan all this? Did you have their help?” Rishi said, glancing back over his shoulder at his parents, who were hugging the Shahs.

  “Of course,” Dimple said, grinning. “And Ashish and Sweetie were integral in getting you out here without suspecting anything, of course.”

  Rishi chuckled. “Oh my gods,” he said, shaking his head. It was actually hard to believe that he’d been a veritable zombie just an hour ago. He was so incredibly happy now, it felt like he’d always been this happy and like he’d always be this happy. Forever.

  “I wanted you to have that beautiful, memorable proposal you’d always imagined, Rishi,” Dimple said,
smiling. Then, her smile fading, she added, “I’m sorry.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. Dabbing the corners of her eyes on his shirt, she added, “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I just needed to think. And when I did, I realized it was so simple. So very simple. I love you, Rishi Patel. Nothing else matters.”

  “As kismet would have it,” Rishi said, bringing his lips down to meet hers, “tujhme rab dikhta hai. I love you too, Dimple Shah.”

  And the world closed in around them.

  Find out more about Sweetie and Ashish in this unforgettable companion novel to When Dimple Met Rishi!

  There's Something about Sweetie

  by

  Sandhya Menon

  CHAPTER 1

  Ashish

  List of totally overrated things:

  1. Love

  2. Girls

  3. Love (yeah, again)

  Ashish Patel wasn’t sure why people ever fell in love. What was the point, really? So you could feel like a total chump when you went to her dorm room only to find she’d gone out with some other dude? So you could watch your mojo completely vanish as you became some soggy, washed-out version of your former (extremely dashing) self? Screw that.

  Slamming his locker shut, he turned around to see Pinky Kumar leaning against the locker next to his, sketchbook in hand, one purple eyebrow up (as usual; she’d probably been born like that, all skeptical).

  “What?” he snapped, adjusting his backpack with way more force than necessary.

  “Oh.” Pinky blew a bubble with her gum and then continued chewing. She’d drawn all over her black jeans with a silver marker. Her parents would probably be pissed; no matter how often Pinky messed up her clothes for her “artistic statements,” their corporate lawyer selves could never get on board. So yeah, they’d be pissed. But not as pissed as when they saw she hadn’t thrown out that Pro-Choice IS Pro-Life T-shirt they thought was so “vulgar.” “Still IMSing, I see.”

  Asking about IMS—Irritable Male Syndrome—was Pinky’s common refrain when Ashish was grumpy. According to her, it was about time people began blaming cis men’s emotionality on their hormones for a change. “I am not . . .” Ashish blew out a breath and began stalking down the hallway, and Pinky fell easily in next to him. She was tall—almost five feet eight—and could match him pace for pace, which was really annoying sometimes. Like right then, when he wanted to get away.

  “So why do you look all cloudy?”

  “I don’t look—what does that even mean?” Ashish tried to keep his voice mellow, but even he could hear the thread of irritation running through it.

  “Celia texted you?”

  Ashish opened his mouth to argue but then, sighing, reached into his pocket for his cell phone and passed it to Pinky. What was the point? She could read him like an open book. It wouldn’t be long before Oliver and Elijah, his two other best friends, found out too. Might as well get it over with. “I don’t care, though,” he said in his carefully-practiced-last-night I am so over Celia, in fact Celia who? voice.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Ashish didn’t lean over to read the text with Pinky; he didn’t need to. The words were burned into his freaking retinas.

  I’m sorry, Ashish, but I wanted you to find out from me. It’s too hard . . . I can’t keep driving myself crazy thinking about you. Thad and I made it official tonight.

  Ashish had had to read the text about twenty-two times before it finally sank in that (a) Celia was truly going out with someone named Thad, (b) she’d been the one to move on first, and (c) Ashish’s first real relationship had been a spectacular bust.

  Ashish had been irrationally optimistic that he’d get to the moving-on stage first. He’d had to suffer the indignity of being dumped; the universe had to hand him the consolation prize of dating someone new before Celia did, right? Instead the universe decided to blast out a cute little song called “Ashish Is a Loser and Everyone Should Know It.” Well, screw the universe. Screw it all the way to the Milky Way. He was Ash-freaking-shish. He was debonair. He was brilliant.

  Okay, so he hadn’t had a date in three months. So his basketball game was suffering a bit. His mojo wasn’t gone, though. It was just . . . on hiatus. Kicking up its shoes on the table, snoozing. Taking a little trip to Hawaii or something. For frick’s sake, even his über-nerdy, Boy Scout–level goody-two-shoes older brother, Rishi, now had a serious girlfriend.

  Pinky handed the phone back to him. “So what?”

  He glared at her as they rounded the corner to the cafeteria. Oliver, Elijah, he, and Pinky had eaten breakfast together before school started every morning since freshman year. Now that they were juniors, it wasn’t even a tradition anymore—it was just a habit. “Easy for you to say, Priyanka. You’re not the one who’s in serious danger of damaging your playa rep.”

  “It’s Pinky,” she said, glaring at him like her eyes were blades that could slice and dice. “Only my grandma calls me Priyanka.”

  Ashish felt a prickle of guilt. He was being petty; he knew she hated to be called Priyanka. “My bad,” he mumbled.

  Pinky waved a hand. “I’m going to let that go because you’re obviously having a bad day. But seriously. Just date someone else. Come on.” She pushed him with her shoulder and scanned the other students at the lunch tables. “Oh, look. There’s Dana Patterson. You’ve had the hots for her forever. Go ask her out, right now.”

  “No.” Ashish pushed back, but not hard enough to knock Pinky over, though he seriously did consider it. His palms felt tingly, like they might be on the verge of sweating. At the thought of talking to a hot girl. What the hell was happening to him? “I—I don’t want to ask her out, okay? It’s just—it’s weird to ask girls out in the cafeteria.”

  Pinky snorted. “Really? That’s the excuse you’re gonna go with?” They got in line for breakfast burritos.

  “What’s weird?” a familiar male voice said from behind them.

  Ashish turned to see Oliver and Elijah, his two other partners in crime since middle school, saunter up to join him and Pinky. Oliver was the taller of the two, but Elijah had the muscles that just about everybody in school swooned over. They were both black, but Oliver was paler than Ashish, while Elijah was a shade or two darker than Pinky.

  The four of them had been Richmond Academy’s “Fantastic Four” since seventh grade, when they’d coincidentally—some might say fatefully—all concocted the same harebrained excuse about why they hadn’t done their book reports on The Scarlet Pimpernel. Apparently, Mrs. Kiplinger, their English teacher, found it hard to believe that all four of their mothers’ water had broken on the same exact day. The excuse was totally ridiculous, considering Mrs. K. found out they were lying with a quick phone call to each of their moms. Despite (or maybe because of) their shared lack of finesse in executing subterfuge, they became instant best friends in detention.

  Pinky answered before he could. “Ashish suddenly thinks it’s weird to ask girls out in the cafeteria.” She smiled at him spitefully and he rolled his eyes.

  “Since when?” Elijah said. “You ask girls out in the greeting card section at Walmart. What’s the difference?”

  They’d laugh until they choked on their own spit if he told them he was nervous. “Nothing.”

  Oliver, the more empathetic of his best friends, put his arm around Ashish. “Aww. Tell Ollie what the problem is.”

  He didn’t have to say anything, though. Pinky filled them in on Celia’s latest text.

  “I don’t get it,” Elijah said, frowning. “You were already broken up, right? Ever since you went to her dorm and found out she was out with that guy Thad. So what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal,” Ashish said, annoyed that his friends really didn’t get it, “is that I thought this whole thing with Thad was supposed to be temporary. She said it wasn’t serious. She was just . . . bored or experimenting in college or whatever. We were still texting. There was still the possibility that we might . . .” He stopped abruptl
y, feeling more like an idealistic loser than ever. He’d really thought they might get back together at some point, hadn’t he? God. He wasn’t the basketball-playing Romeo/GQ model he’d thought himself to be at all; he was a freaking Teletubby. And he was now seventeen. One year away from being an official, card-carrying adult. Why couldn’t he keep a girlfriend?

  Oliver, sensing his embarrassment, pulled Ashish closer. “I’m telling you, Ash, you gotta just get back up on the horse again. Just do it. Celia’s doing it.”

  “Yeah, man,” Elijah added. “It doesn’t even have to be a particularly nice horse. Any old mare will do.”

  Pinky glared at him. “Nice.”

  Elijah made a What? face, and Oliver shook his head and sighed. Pinky turned to Ashish. “Look, if you’re afraid, I can do it for you. I know Dana . . . sort of.” She took a half step in Dana’s direction.

  Ashish grabbed her shoulder. “I’m not afraid, for crap’s sake.”

  “Then do it,” Pinky said, crossing her arms. “Right now. You won’t have a better opportunity.” Ashish darted a longing glance at the burritos, and she added, “I’ll save your place in line.”

  Ashish adjusted his backpack and surreptitiously wiped his definitely damp palms on his shorts. “Fine. You jerks.” And then he walked over to where Dana sat with the other cheerleaders, dressed in a crop top and amazingly tight jeans. She’d probably end up in the principal’s office over that outfit before the day ended, but that was the cool thing about Dana: She just never gave up.

  She looked up as Ashish approached, her face breaking into a smile. Tucking a strand of short blond hair behind one ear, she slid over on the bench. “Ash! Come sit with us.”

  Dana had been pretty openly flirty with him at the last few basketball games, even given that he’d been a ball-fumbling shadow of his former shining-captain-of-the-team self. Ashish knew she’d say yes if he asked her. He should ask her. Pinky, Oliver, and Elijah were right: The only way forward was through. He needed to get this first-date-after-Celia thing out of the way. Jeez, it had been three months. It was way past about time.