“Technically it’s one failed engagement,” he murmured, though no one was listening to him. He’d allowed his mother’s friend and neighbor exactly two chances during a moment of weakness a few years ago, and only because he’d grown up listening to Hema Auntie’s glowing success stories. His first match had bolted for reasons he still didn’t understand. The second had jilted him.
Neither had made him believe in Hema’s hype.
“There are plenty of girls who will overlook Naveen’s past once we explain the circumstances.”
His grandfather opened his mouth, but Naveen cut him off, certain he was about to say something incendiary. “Actually, good news! I have a date tonight.”
As expected, that shut both his elders up. His grandfather blotted his forehead with his ever-present embroidered handkerchief. His hand was shakier than usual, which caused Naveen some concern. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Naveen snapped. “I am quite capable of meeting women on my own.”
“Well.” Shweta paused. “Tell us about her.”
“Not much to tell.”
His mom’s dark eyes narrowed, and she fiddled with the cuff of her blazer. “How old is she?”
“She’s about my age.”
“Job?”
“A lawyer as well.”
“Local?” his grandfather asked hopefully. “I might know her family.”
“Nope.”
His mother steepled her hands under her chin. “How did you meet?”
Naveen shrugged. “An app.”
“These dating app schmaps are not serious,” his grandfather mused. “You’re not taking her to one of your escape room things, are you?”
Naveen’s ears grew red. He’d mentioned to his grandfather one time that he enjoyed escape rooms, and then had to spend an hour explaining what an escape room was. The man couldn’t resist using every opportunity to tease him about it. “No.”
“What on earth is an escape room?”
“Shweta, listen.” Ravi sat forward in his chair. “The boy asks to be locked up in a room.”
Shweta’s eyebrows flew up, right to her hairline. “Oh no. Jana’s son got into something like that.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s perverse.”
He rubbed his temples. “It’s not something weird, Mom.”
“My friends were right, I should have made sure you had a strong man around after your father died to raise you well.”
“Dad died when I was twenty-eight,” he said, at the same time as Ravi exclaimed, “He had me!”
“If it’s an addiction, we can discuss it, Naveen. You don’t need to struggle like you did last time.”
Naveen knew that he was incredibly lucky to have family who prioritized and cared about his mental health. He had many a friend whose immigrant parents and grandparents didn’t check in with them as often.
Still, they were so clumsy about it. “It’s not an addiction, and it’s not anything to worry about. It’s a game. You use clues to figure out puzzles and eventually how to get out of a locked room. Usually it’s themed. Like a scavenger hunt. I went after rehab with a guy I became friends with there, Alan, and we’ve gone a couple times.”
More than a couple times, but they didn’t need to know that. There would only be more teasing and worrying.
His mother pressed her hand to her chest. “Oh. Okay. A game.”
“He pays good money for this.”
Shweta dismissed her father. “He won’t have time for such silly hobbies once he’s a husband and father. Back to this date.”
Right. Your fictional date. “Why are you grilling me like you think I’m lying about her?”
“Because I can tell when you’re lying, and I think you are.”
Fair, because he was.
Before he could speak, his grandfather jumped to his rescue. “Leave the boy alone, Shweta. Let him have his date.”
His mother subsided. “Very well. I will still buy you a house if you get married without my help, you know.”
Ajoba rolled his eyes and wheeled his way to the fridge. “You’re bribing the boy, now, Shweta? Is that how they do it in your husband’s family?”
Naveen tensed. “Ajoba. That’s my family, too.” He might have issues with individual members of his family nowadays, but he still loved his late father.
His grandfather had the grace to look shamefaced. “Of course, of course. You know what I meant.”
Most parents would love their kids to marry wealthy, but Ravi came from more humble beginnings and he’d been suspicious of the Desais from the minute Shweta had eloped with his dad. Not even his daughter’s happiness with the man had changed his mind.
And they had been happy. They’d been so nauseatingly in love—well, nauseating for their sons—that it may have given Naveen unrealistic expectations of how marriage worked. Which was probably one of the many reasons he was still single.
“It’s a token of love and congratulations, Baba. You wouldn’t know about that, I suppose.”
Naveen rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t need a house, Mom. I was joking. I’m perfectly happy living in Ajoba’s in-law apartment for now.” The studio apartment had once been a garage, but it had been converted into an additional dwelling unit, complete with a tiny kitchenette. Which he barely used, thanks to the aforementioned minifridge that Ajoba was rummaging through.
“My grandson doesn’t require all the fancy things that you do.” Ajoba pulled out a Thums Up soda bottle that the grocer next door had dropped off as part of his thanks for helping with a parking ticket.
His mom, thankfully, ignored the dig. “I just bought your brother a plot of land near our house. It would only be fair.”
Her words were deliberately casual, but they landed with the force of a bomb. The only sound in the room was the clock ticking on the wall.
“I don’t want anything that Kiran has,” Naveen finally said quietly.
“It’s been a long time,” Ajoba observed.
Naveen rubbed the side of his nose. Here was probably the one thing that his parent and grandparent were united over: reconciling him and Kiran. “Not long enough.”
“He misses you,” Shweta added.
“He said that?”
“Of course he did.”
He shot his mother a wry look. “Now who’s the one who’s lying?”
His mother’s nostrils flared. “I can read between the lines.”
Ajoba took a sip of his soda. “He betrayed you. I understand your anger. But he’s your brother and always will be.”
“I’m tired of having two family group chats, one with you and one with him.” His mother raked her fingers through her hair, messing up her blowout. “I need you to speak with him, Naveen. He’s reached out to you so many times.”
There were two group chats? What good morning forwards was he missing in the other one? “Is that what he told you? That he’s reached out to me repeatedly?”
“I know he has. He came to see you in rehab, and you turned him away.”
“That was it. That’s not many times.”