The Shaadi Set-Up by Lillie Vale

Chapter 12

The place looks great.”

I don’t need to turn to know who it is. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

It’s been playing on repeat in my mind ever since Thursday night, so my entire Friday and Saturday were spent in cramping dread that I’d run into him here.

Milan didn’t show either day, which meant that the figurative nail-biting time I spent worrying about whether he’d make an appearance was nothing compared to how much time I’d have lost if he actually did.

I hate this about myself, but being in the same room with him still does something to me.

It’s the always-there-just-buried grief until I feel the biting urge to hurt him like he hurt me pressing against my chest like the strike of a snake, but mostly it envelops me with the memory of coming home to soft thumb rubs and stomach-plummeting pronouncements: Making a house into a home. I always knew you’d be good at that.

Well, I am. It’s what he hired me to do.

And I did a damn good job.

But now that job is over.

I take a deep breath before turning around. “Thanks,” I say coolly.

He closes the distance between us, alternating his Starbucks coffee cup from hand to hand, mapping the entryway and the living room and what he can make out of the dining and kitchen area.

There are a few new additions: baby Zebra haworthia succulents floating on an invisible shelf in colorful ceramic reject planters that didn’t meet the quality standards of the local pottery studio; a mid-century modern armless leather accent chair thrifted from Lucky Dog Luke’s; a tattered ottoman I reupholstered in mint-green velvet; and underneath the flared leaves of a majesty palm, a bench woven with Goodwill belts in varying shades of caramel and espresso.

“It looks so much better,” says Milan after he takes it all in. “You were right. I shouldn’t have followed the modern, minimal style through the whole house. I should have showed people how they could live in it. Those extravagant other things I brought in . . . the art, the glass table, they were just things.”

He doesn’t say it, but I understand: This is a home.

I wait a beat too long without saying thank you. Waiting for the rest of it.

I’m still waiting for him to make a crack about matching with me on MyShaadi, which he had to have seen by now. He would have received the same email notification at the same time as I did. It would be a great opportunity—my last opportunity—to throw Neil in his face.

Even if I had to lie to do it.

So what if I matched with you?I imagine myself saying. I also matched with this totally hot other dude who—

Okay, so it’s really hard to think about Neil right now, annoyingly, for some reason.

But there’s no sign of recognition on Milan’s face, no knowing quirk of his lips.

“You did a fantastic job,” he says, his voice too loud in the silence. “One hundred percent.” I dart a suspicious glance at him. “It’s everything you said it would be, and more. I couldn’t have even imagined how terrific everything would come together.” He stares at me, trying to drive home his compliments, to make sure I hear him.

“I . . . ah.” I swallow past the sandpaper in my mouth. “Thank you.”

Relief passes over his face. “For a second there I thought you’d gone into shock because I said you were spot on with your design instincts, Rita.” Goosebumps pimple over my skin when he says my name. “I think I’m a big enough man to admit when I was wrong,” he continues, flashing me a crooked smile.

“It takes a lot more than that to shock me,” I counter.

His smile spreads. “Should I take that as a challenge?”

We stare at each other for a long, heated second.

“So the finishing touches are all . . .” Milan waves his hand. I catch the glint of the watch I gave him. “Finished?” His cheeks twitch, like he can’t believe he said something so inane.

I half smile. It’s nice to see him discomfited for a change. “Yeah, I’m done here.”

His eyes widen. “Yeah, but not done done, right?”

Annoyance prickles in my fingers. “Not unless you can think of something else,” I say slowly, making a show of looking one-eighty degrees around me. “The open house is in less than an hour. You’re going to have to let go of me at some point.”

He blanches.

I can’t bring myself to apologize. I didn’t mean it like that. It was supposed to be a light joke, but it didn’t land. I was right, before; joking doesn’t work out well for either of us.

Milan watches as I pull my scrunchie out of its messy bun and let it drop on the entryway console so I can shake my hair loose. I don’t want him seeing me with the bumpies. It’s another memory between us, the way I used to lay my head on his chest and he’d run his hand over my crown, playing with each bump, wiggling his finger into the loop of hair that stuck out.

“You’re still obsessed with those things,” he says, nodding to the scrunchie.

“I could say the same about you and all your T-shirts.”

“Now that’s one thing I did outgrow.”

So there were other things that he hadn’t?

“And don’t even pretend you don’t love my shirts,” he replies, so fast that I don’t think he realizes he wasn’t speaking in the past tense. His eyes get a wily glint. “You slept in them all the time. In fact, there’s a couple that went missing that I always suspected you took with y—”

“Patent lies,” I bite out. Why does he have to remind me of old times?

He grins at me, slow and easy. Arousal unfurls in my stomach, tickling my rib cage with want. Need. It’s shameless and pathetic how much I want him to keep smiling at me like that.

NEIL,I remind myself in all caps. NEIL IS YOUR BOYFRIEND. MILAN IS SO FAR BACK IN YOUR REARVIEW THAT HE’S JUST A PINPRICK ON THE HORIZON.

Falling into this easy banter is dangerous. MyShaadi was laughably wrong about us being a perfect match. If that was true, we would never have broken up in the first place.

You can’t fix something this broken.

Not Mom and Amar, not me and Milan.

Right as I’m about to accuse him of trying to waste my time, he asks, “Oh, do you want this? I only had a sip. They messed up my order.” He extends his Starbucks cup, its sweetness wafting up to me.

If he’d meant to offer it to me, why hadn’t he given it to me as soon as he entered?

Reading the question in my face, he says, “Sorry, brain fart. Lot of things on my mind this morning. This week has been a lot.”

Paranoia has me clenching my teeth. A lot, why?

Because we’ve seen more of each other in the last ten days than we have in six years? Because he’s weirded out we matched on MyShaadi and he doesn’t want to have a horribly awkward conversation about it?

Doesn’t want me to say: Hey, maybe that AI is onto something! What do you think, wanna make our moms’ day by giving ourselves another chance?

“ ‘Brain fart’? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that since high school.” I take the piping-hot cup with a mumbled thanks.

“Yeah, you know me.” He laughs, but it’s strained. “I’m sentimental about the past.”

We both freeze. Because I do know him. And it goes both ways.

I clutch harder at the cup. “Right. So. Thank you for the coffee. I didn’t have time this morning to grab anything since I wanted to get in and out by nine, and it’s already past that, so I better go before people start arriving . . .” I edge toward the door, which unfortunately means moving closer in his direction.

“Rita, it’s 8:50 a.m. What time did you get here?” He sounds fondly exasperated, which sets off giddy somersaults in my belly, especially when he reaches out to touch my shoulder.

I stop in my tracks. “It may have been seven,” I say grudgingly. “But only because—”

“You wanted to avoid me?” There’s a laugh in his voice.

“What? No! That’s not even—you’re so off base—it’s laughable—!” I sputter.

I can’t stand his lofted eyebrow.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “Don’t think I don’t remember that you almost caused a car accident in front of this house last week because you were going to pretend like you didn’t see me.”

I glare at him, unblinking. “I told you that wasn’t how it happened.” My chest rises and falls like I’ve just gone on a three-mile run.

“One hundred percent that’s what happened.” The statement is accompanied by a smirk that brings out a faint dimple in his cheek and accentuates his barely there butt-chin.

Wait, this is the second time he’s said “one hundred percent.”

The blood drains from my face. He’s playing with me. He did see the notification that our profiles matched and he’s acting like he didn’t to fuck with me. Or is he waiting for me to bring it up first?

“I guess it’s good you weren’t trying to avoid me,” says Milan, “because I was thinking about you last night and I wondered if—”

Last night? Thinking? About me? My head spins.

“—you’d be interested in getting together to—”

“We’re not getting back together. I matched with someone on MyShaadi,” I blurt out my lie at the same time, swallowing half his sentence.

Any second now, victory is going to sweep over me. I watch his face carefully, expecting him to roll his eyes and say: Yeah, Rita, I know, because it was me.

“Um . . .” His forehead scrunches. “Okay? That’s not at all where I was going, Rita.”

“Oh.” My mouth tastes chalky. “Sorry. I missed whatever it was.”

“I just thought that, well, since we worked together so well, maybe you’d be interested in— Wait, I’m not telling this right.” He lets out a short laugh. “Let me start over. The other day we talked about dream houses, remember?”

“How could I forget?” I say wryly, hoping I don’t give myself away by going red.

Now it’s his turn to look embarrassed.

I get the feeling he’d revealed more to me that day than he’d intended to.

“I bought a house. I mean, it’s not mine outright. But it’s mine enough. Mortgage and all,” he says. “Out on Rosalie Island. You remember that B&B we stayed in?”

“Of course.” Our families had vacationed there together the summer after senior year. Sentimentality is all well and good, but why is he bringing up—

“Milan,” I say, aghast, for the first time saying his name without creepy-crawly weirdness going down my spine. “That beach house was gorgeous, but it had seen better days even then.” I tilt my head to the side. “Don’t tell me that you . . . No. You didn’t.”

He shoots me the most sheepish of sheepish smiles. “I did.”

Why is he telling me this? Is he trying to re-create the past by bringing up Rosalie Island?

“Congratulations.” I start for the door again. “I’ll send you my final invoice, okay?”

He throws an arm in front of me, inches away from touching. “Rita, please.”

Abruptly, I halt, anxiety and annoyance spiking. “What? Aren’t we done?”

He opens and closes his mouth.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He makes no move to stop me, but I wrench myself away. Hard. “We’re done. We’ve been done. Maybe you thought all this was going to soften me up, the compliments, the coffee, the island, the . . . the talking about the past, but we’re done. One hundred percent done,” I say, throwing the phrase back in his face, just in case it is a game we’re playing, pretending neither of us saw our match on MyShaadi. “One hundred percent,” I repeat for emphasis. “I hope this place sells, but now there’s nothing left between us.”

“Rita, is that what you think?” He seems truly taken aback. “I think you’re talented. I think you’re smart. I wasn’t asking you for anything right now other than to go into partnership with me to flip the house I bought.”

I still. “So you mean . . . you weren’t trying to . . .” I gesture helplessly.

“When I’m wooing you, you’ll know it,” he says, cracking a smile. “It was really just business. Listen, don’t answer me now. Think on it.”

It was one thing to work with him when I was put on the spot, but another to voluntarily jump in the ring again. “I don’t think it would be a good idea,” I say. “We’re like cats in a bag.”

That gets another grin out of him, the butterfly-inducing dimpled one that makes me press my knees together.

“Hear me out. Sure, the house could use a little love, but you could say that about most any place, couldn’t you?” He spreads his arms, comes so close to grazing my chest that I flinch out of the way. “Look at this one. You transformed it.”

“I rent, Milan. I have no clue how much a mortgage on a place like that costs, and I don’t have the money to pitch in for my share.” It’s less embarrassing to admit than I expect.

“We can work all that out, Rita,” he says, leaning toward me in his eagerness. “It used to be a beautiful home and it could be again. It’s a little broken down, sure, but isn’t it worth putting it back together? Giving it another chance? Restoring it to how it used to be?”

I move to the door, putting my hand on the knob. Twist, release. “Maybe,” I admit. “Or maybe it’s better not to pin your hopes on lost causes.”