“Uh, two mango lassis, please. To start.”
The man rang him up and slid the cups and straws across the table.
Kareena was still scrolling on her phone when he returned with their drinks.
“Can you please refrain from having conversations with other men while we’re together?” Prem said. The idea of her talking with someone else still rubbed him the wrong way, especially when it was obvious that she had options while his only choice was her.
Kareena rolled her eyes, even as she put her phone down, and shoved a straw into the opening at the top of her cup. “I’m checking my work email.”
“On the weekend?”
“You’re working, too, aren’t you?” she said, pointing to the phone he’d placed at his elbow. “You’re on call. I’m just answering client emails.”
“Touché, Rina. Touché.”
“It’s Kareena, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I prefer Rina.”
Kareena’s expression grew pensive as she drank. “Do your parents get it? What you’re trying to accomplish?” she asked.
Prem snorted before he could stop himself. “Not at all. They want me to become like my perfect cousin, a surgeon who is happily engaged and planning a big-ass wedding. They think I’m pissing away my education.”
Kareena nodded. “My father says he’s happy I found my calling and my passion, but I know he’s irritated I took a pay cut. He recently threw it in my face that I would’ve been able to afford the house on my own if I had stayed at a top law firm.”
“I don’t see you thriving in a place like that.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t. I didn’t. I worked at a big firm until I made the switch, and I’ve never been happier with my decision. But I can’t really blame our parents for feeling the way they do. Their roots were torn clear out of the soil in India, and they had to work hard to plant them again in the U.S. Then, to ensure that the whole family tree remained stable, they tried to usher us into stable jobs.”
Prem leaned in across the table until they were inches apart. “Their purpose doesn’t excuse their actions, Rina.”
“No, but it helps shape my actions,” she replied.
Before Prem could say anything else, a plate of pani puri artfully arranged on a tray floated past their table. The snack food was one of his favorites. The fried shells were crispy and the shape of an oversized golf ball. He loved cracking a hole into the shell, then stuffing it with seasoned potatoes, chickpeas, diced red onions, chutney, and spicy water.
“Oh my god,” Kareena said, her voice as reverent as he felt.
Prem was already salivating. “Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing.”
The server gave the pani puri to a couple across the room, and Prem watched as they each picked up a shell, cracked it with a quick firm tap of the thumb, added the fillings, and immediately popped it in their mouths.
“Okay, favorite snack food,” Prem asked.
Rina’s eyes brightened. “Pani puri,” she said, without hesitation.
“Excellent choice. They’re just a fun food.”
Rina’s expression became dreamy. “I remember visiting India with my parents when I was a kid. We’d go to see my grandmother and walk down to the local market where there was a pani puri cart. The man would tap the shell and fill it between one blink and the next. Then scoop in the water, put it in the dried leaf shaped like a cup, and hand it to me. My sister and I were so young, but we’d try to compete to see who could eat the most pani puris.”
The memory of their conversation had Prem smiling. He motioned to the tray. “That’s a lot for two people.”
Kareena scoffed. “Hardly. With my years of practice? I could probably polish that off myself.”
It delighted him that she remembered their conversation. “You could probably eat half of one,” Prem said. “But definitely not the whole thing.”
Kareena adjusted her glasses. “I’ll have you know that I am the best pani puri eater in our family. But I doubt that’s something a health-conscious doctor like yourself would understand.”
Prem’s eyebrow twitched. “Excuse me, Rina. I bet you I could eat double the pani puris that you eat and not even blink an eye.”
“I doubt that. We both know that you’re all talk.”
An idea formed in his head, one that even had his Charlie twitching in his pants. An image of Kareena stuffing . . . well, something in her mouth—