Where the Lotus Flowers Grow by MK Schiller

Author:MK Schiller [Schiller, MK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensignton Publishing Corp.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Liam

I hated seeing her distressed. I wasn’t sure if it was me accompanying her, or the invitation itself. Mary had fidgeted the whole way to her friend’s flat. We stood at a door that was decorated with a lemon and lime garland. She clutched the box of sweets we’d brought. I had suggested a bottle of wine, but Mary thought sweets were more appropriate, though she admitted she hadn’t been invited to someone’s house for dinner since she was a young girl.

She opted for a more traditional outfit tonight. She took my breath away in the purple and gold sari. I wanted to slowly unwrap the yards of fabric covering her. Her dark hair cascaded in rich waves down her back.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said.

“You don’t want me here, do you?”

“No…I mean yes, I want you here.”

What was I doing here anyway? Our agreement was a fortnight. It didn’t include meeting friends. But I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit we’d broken through thresholds that suggested our relationship was only a tawdry affair. Still, she held back. She wanted space. I was a man peering through the slits of narrow blinds she controlled. I hated it. At the same time, I didn’t want to push so hard that she pulled away from me…again.

“I’d love to meet your friends, but if you’d prefer, I’ll return to the hotel and send the car back for you. If you believe they’ll judge us, or you for being with me, I won’t put you through it.”

She shook her head. “I would not be friends with someone who’d pass judgment on me.”

“Then what’s your problem? Are you judging us?”

I saw it then. I thought she was embarrassed about us, but there was fear in her eyes. Now I had no choice but to stay. I would have left her if it alleviated her stress level, but I could not abandon her in fear.

“The only judgment I have when it comes to us is that it feels good. This…us.”

“Then ring the buzzer.” I gestured to the bell.

She pressed it.

The woman who answered smiled widely at Mary. Then she took a gander at me and stepped back, her mouth dropping. “Mary didn’t tell me you were white.”

Subtle.

“I am?” I asked, feigning a look of shock that matched hers.

She lifted an eyebrow before she broke out into a huge laugh. “Sorry, can we start over?”

“That would be great.”

Mary cleared her throat. “Divya, this is my friend, Liam Montgomery.”

Friend? What did I expect?

“I’m her boyfriend,” I said, stepping over an invisible threshold without invitation.

I was debating asking for a redo when I caught Mary’s smile.

“Boyfriend,” she repeated, or rather corrected.

“Wonderful.” Divya folded her hands and bowed slightly. “Namaste. Welcome home.”

Welcome home, she’d said. Not ‘welcome to our home’—a slight shift in syntax, but a huge difference in meaning.

“Namaste,” I responded.

Mary took off her shoes. I followed suit, taking note of a crystal bowl on the credenza in the entryway. There was nothing extraordinary about it, except for the necklace of patterned cloth beads circling the inside of the dish.

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