Deepak poured a shot and tossed it back. “I’m the owner of a network, not your personal manager, Prem. As it is, I’m buying the Chinese food. That should be enough.”
“Don’t even start with me.” Prem began taking out white cartons and set them between the three place mats. “I had to check out that acne cyst on your balls last year because you refused to see a doctor. I’m still collecting my appointment fee.”
“Lucky,” Bunty said. He held up a carton. “Not about the ball zit. About the free food. I always have to pay for my own.”
Prem poured some lo mein onto his plate. “Can we focus, please? Because of one woman who went absolutely ballistic—”
“—that you left in my office,” Bunty interrupted. “I saw that security camera footage. You need help, dude.”
Prem scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m glad we didn’t actually hook up then. But gentlemen, because of this woman, I’ve now lost my biggest donor. What’s worse, the location that I want needs the money by September. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Bunty motioned to the screen with a similar set of chopsticks. “Hold up. How bad is this? Like, can this blow over?”
“Hell no,” Deepak and Prem said simultaneously.
“He’s officially known as a desi fuckboy now,” Deepak said. “Bindu’s YouTube video hit three million views and was picked up by mainstream local news.”
And because Rina, or Kareena, actually threw a bottle of Pedialyte at him. He had to smell like starchy baby vomit for the rest of the show.
Damn it, that suit was toast.
Like her beautiful blue sweater vest.
“Can you pass the hot sauce?” Deepak asked.
“Is that all you can say?” Prem pushed the packets of hot sauce over. “I’m drowning here.”
Deepak picked up a clump of noodles. “In this situation, the only advice I have for you is to show your new viewers that you aren’t a heartless bastard. You have to produce a woman at your side who is going to make the haters doubt this Kareena woman’s character assassination.”
“You want me to get a girlfriend? This is not a daytime Indian serial soap opera.”
Deepak nodded. “But it’s your only option. And you need to move fast.”
“Do you think it’ll reverse some of the damage that Rina did to my reputation?”
“Kareena,” his friends said in unison.
“Shut up, assholes.”
“Look, this is the only way I can see this working,” Deepak said, stabbing into a baby corn. “We all know empty apologies aren’t enough. If you don’t find a girlfriend, you may never convince your donor to come back.”
“If Gregory at LTD Financial doesn’t want to give you money at the end of this fiasco, you can use the same fake girlfriend to convince your mom to give you cash,” Bunty said. “She was willing to shell out money for you to get married. A lot of it.”
“That’s actually a solid plan,” Deepak said. He motioned to Prem with his chopsticks. “Your mom would be too distracted with the opportunity to plan a potential wedding that she wouldn’t know whether you were faking it until it was too late. Two birds with one stone: you get your reputation back, and you get the money you need.”
“No,” Prem said. He shoved his plate aside and grabbed the whiskey bottle. His heart sped up just enough for him to register the anxiety reaction he was having to the idea of being tied to another woman. Another woman who was fragile and breakable. Nope. That was a terrible idea.
Rina’s face flashed in his mind, and he began to sweat.
“I think you have both lost your minds,” he said over their voices and threw back the whiskey. “Who comes up with stuff like this anyway? No thank you. And besides. Getting hitched is not easy.”
His friends began tossing ideas back and forth, the worst one being online dating, specifically Indian online dating apps, since there was a better chance that an Indian woman was going to understand his motives.
Before Prem could shut down the conversation, his phone buzzed on the counter. He grabbed it, frowning at the unknown number.
Unknown: Hi, this is Bindu Mann, from Mann Your Business. The show producer gave me your number. I hope that’s okay. Please call me.
“What the hell?”
“What is it?” Deepak asked. “A patient?”
“It’s Bindu Mann, the woman I interviewed for the show. After Rina stormed out, Bindu was a nervous mess for the rest of the segment. She completed the interview, then left in a rush. But now, she wants me to call her.”