Ashna Raje couldn’t remember the last time her restaurant had thirty occupied tables. The gentle hum of customer conversation drifted into the kitchen from the dining area. It was nowhere near the nightly five-hundred-person din from when her father ran Curried Dreams, but it kindled the tiniest glimmer of hope inside Ashna. She snuffed it out. Hope terrified her. Ashna didn’t credit her parents with much humor, but giving someone like her a name that meant “filled with hope” was definitely a cruel joke.

“Angry customer at table twelve, boss.” One of the servers ran to her just as Ashna finished plating an order of biryani and slid it onto the counter. “She’s demanding the crisp fried okra we served last week. I told her we took it off the menu. But she won’t listen.”

Ashna released a breath, expelling whatever scraps of hope she had left, and patted the server’s arm. “Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

She made her way into the tastefully ornate, albeit slightly run-down, dining room, stopping to ask the two tables on her way if they were enjoying their meal. She got one noncommittal shrug and one enthusiastic “Everything is delicious!” from a couple celebrating their engagement. She stayed to hear the story of how he had proposed in a hot-air balloon, then signaled the waitstaff to bring the couple complimentary champagne and the noncommittal table complimentary gulab jamuns.

By the time she reached table twelve, the customer demanding the fried okra—which Ashna had removed from the menu and was never putting back on—looked in no mood to be placated.

“I have to have that okra,” the woman said as soon as Ashna introduced herself. She didn’t seem used to being denied things.

The man sitting next to her patted her hand, earning himself an impressive glare for his effort. “We’re pregnant,” he declared, ignoring his wife’s glare and the fact that he was, obviously, not in the least bit pregnant.

“How lovely,” Ashna said pointedly to the woman. “Congratulations.”

She was about to add that they were no longer serving the special menu when the woman threw Ashna the most tortured look. “Thank you. It’s been a rough two months. I haven’t been able to eat anything.”

“Anything,” the husband echoed, rivaling her desperation.

“James brought me the bhindi last week and it’s exactly how my mother made it when I was little. It’s literally all I can keep down.”

“Literally all she can keep down.” Another echo.

The okra recipe was one Ashna’s friend DJ had created when he helped her come up with a menu to resurrect her failing restaurant. Why oh why did her friends have to be so good at what they did?

The couple blinked up at her, matching pleading looks widening their eyes.

“Of course.” Ashna smiled, even as her heart raced. “We can prepare the okra for you. I’ll send out jal jeera. My cousin says the mint and cumin settle her nausea. She’s pregnant too.”

The woman jumped up and hugged Ashna, then sat back down and dabbed the sweat off her husband’s forehead with her napkin.

Any other time, Ashna would have found the man hilarious. But as she hurried back into the kitchen, she could barely breathe. Fortunately, her sous chef hadn’t left yet. Ashna had promised Mandy that she could leave early today, but seeing that she was still here filled Ashna with relief.

Mandy paused in the act of putting on her jacket and the attention in the kitchen shifted to them like a spotlight. Two line cooks, the prep staff, the dishwasher, the bussers carrying trays, everyone pretended a little too hard to focus on their tasks.

When Ashna had returned from culinary school in Paris ten years ago and taken over the restaurant, she’d been buzzing with new recipes. But the first time she’d tried to cook something that wasn’t Baba’s recipe in this kitchen—his kitchen—the panic attack had knocked her off her feet, literally. It had felt like a truck driving onto her chest. Fainting and waking up surrounded by her staff staring down at her on the kitchen floor was an experience she’d sworn she would never risk repeating.

Then a few months ago DJ had helped her revamp her menu and she’d forced herself to try again, only to find that nothing had changed. For a month Ashna had relied on Mandy to prepare DJ’s new recipes. Then her sous chef had asked for a day off and Ashna realized that she had to be able to cook her menu herself, without passing out. She had reverted to Baba’s original menu.

Now, the panic truck revved close to her chest as she retrieved okra from the pantry and turned to her assistant. “The customer’s pregnant. Can you take care of the okra?”

Mandy took off her jacket and tied her smock back around herself just a little more forcefully than necessary. “Sure, boss.”

Ashna resisted the urge to fall to her knees in relief. Instead, she put her heart into a simple “Thank you,” and got back to the next drop.

Her hands flew over sautéing garlic for the dal makhani. The act of preparing Baba’s recipe loosened the panic in her chest, along with the congealed grief lodged deep inside. It had been twelve years since Baba put a bullet through his head. Ashna had heard the shot seconds before she found him facedown on his desk, a month before her eighteenth birthday.

After his death, Ashna had left Curried Dreams in the care of his two most trusted employees and gone to Paris to fulfill Baba’s dream of attending culinary school there, and to lick her wounds. It had been an indulgence she’d been paying for ever since she returned to find her father’s legacy destroyed and buried in debt. The two men had siphoned five million dollars from Curried Dreams and made off with the money.

Baba’s life had ended in a single deafening blast, but his restaurant had continued to bleed out for the past ten years. And Ashna was responsible for both.

With Curried Dreams she was determined to stem the bleed. So, thirty tables was definitely a victory, foreclosure notices notwithstanding.

After the last customers left, including one very grateful pregnant couple, Ashna thanked her staff, saving the announcement of the budget cuts for another day.

Mandy, who had stayed on after missing the baby shower she’d been headed to, pursed her lips as Ashna waved goodbye to Khalid and Wilfrieda. Her line chefs grabbed each other’s hands as soon as they were out the kitchen door, making Ashna smile. Ah, fresh young love! It was like the smell of cumin roasting in butter: you couldn’t hide it for anything.

“Which one of them are you going to fire, then?” The sharpness in Mandy’s eyes nipped Ashna’s sigh in the bud.

“I have a plan,” Ashna lied cheerily.

“Of course you do.” Recently Mandy’s cynical gruffness had morphed more and more into bitterness, something Ashna refused to allow into her own heart.

Filling the copper kettle with water, she put it on the stove. What Mandy needed was a good tulsi oolong tea to relax her.

Mandy ignored the overture, hung up her smock, and for the second time that evening grabbed her jacket from the closet. Mandy was always the last of the staff to leave. There was something comforting about their nightly routine of taking stock of the day and planning tomorrow together.

Except tonight, Mandy didn’t throw Ashna her usual: “Get some rest, how will you catch a man if you look this exhausted?” Instead, she placed a hand on her hip and paused as though she didn’t quite know what to do.

Ashna dropped the tea leaves from her jars into a tea ball, and waited.

“You’ve been promising me a raise all year,” Mandy said finally.

Ashna forced herself not to squeeze the tea ball too tight. Fidgeting made her look helpless, and she was anything but helpless. She dropped her arms loosely at her sides and acted as though this didn’t feel like being kicked in the gut.

“We had thirty tables today, and we’ve had twenty-five a few times this week. It’s an upward trend.” More than anything, she wanted to give Mandy a raise, give her entire staff raises.

“You know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right?” Her assistant’s hand on her hip was a familiar pose, but Mandy had never taken that tone with her.

Ashna had hired her five years ago, after Mandy’s teenage daughter left her month-old baby sleeping in Mandy’s house one night and disappeared. When Mandy came in for the interview, her desperation wrapped tight in the cloak of cheery optimism had felt only too familiar to Ashna. She’d let Mandy set up a cradle and playpen for the baby in the room behind the kitchen. As someone whose mother had walked away from her without a backward glance, anyone who did not abandon a child had Ashna’s full support.

Then two years ago Mandy’s daughter returned for her baby, setting the harried grandma free, but Mandy had stuck with Ashna. The look on her face said that the statute of limitations on that obligation had come to an end.

“You wouldn’t be the first person to call me insane for holding on to Curried Dreams,” Ashna said gently.

“If you hadn’t reverted to the old menu, our thirty-table dinner rush might be a hundred-person rush by now.” Mandy was never going to let that go.

Ashna squeezed the bridge of her nose, then pulled her hand away. “I understand that our financial condition is frustrating to you.” She sounded imperious, much like her royal ancestors, and tossed in a smile, because she had to stay upbeat. “But Curried Dreams stands for something.”

Irritation flooded Mandy’s face, freckles darkening against her pale skin. “It stands for decrepitude and dated recipes, Ashna.”

Ashna’s hands squeezed into fists. “Where I come from, we call it history and tradition.” And respect for the dead.

That last part stayed unsaid. Nonetheless, it echoed through the spotless (not decrepit, thank you very much) kitchen, and Mandy’s eyes softened in response.

She sighed, half remorseful, half giving up the fight. “Where I come from, there’s no trust fund to indulge my need to stay stuck in the past.”

Ashna’s smile slid off her face. She unclenched her fists. “I have to run Curried Dreams the way I want to run it,” she said quietly, surprising herself with how calm she sounded.

Mandy buttoned her jacket. “Even if it means running it into the ground?”

Ashna took a step back. Mandy had never spoken to her this way. Something was very wrong.

Ashna’s mind started racing. Mandy had taken a day off last week and uncharacteristically not told Ashna why. Suddenly it was obvious what this was. An image of Mandy going to an interview at another restaurant formed in her mind. She imagined the sharp stab of abandonment when Mandy told her she had found a new job. It was inevitable, surprising that it hadn’t happened already.

“When were you going to tell me you had an offer?” The words were out before she could stop them.

Embarrassment colored Mandy’s cheeks, proving Ashna right.

The familiar discomfort of being left behind ballooned inside Ashna too fast. She swallowed it down. “You should take the job,” she said.

Mandy raised her chin, hurt and indignant. “Do you really want me to take it?”

If Mandy had gone looking, it was just a matter of time before she moved on. “You deserve to do what’s best for you.”

“Fine.” Mandy’s voice was too soft for what was happening. “Consider this my two weeks.” She opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The door creaked shut behind her. It needed a fresh coat of paint. The gray had peeled, exposing white patches of primer.

Decrepit.

Ashna ran to the door and pushed it open. Cool night air whipped her face. Mandy was halfway across the parking lot to her car. The lampposts painted

ominous halos around everything. The idea of two weeks now, with the connection between them damaged—Ashna couldn’t imagine it.

“Mandy,” she called, making her turn around. “I know you deserved much more than I could pay you. So . . . so why don’t you take two weeks. Paid. Take that trip to Sonoma. Take a break before the new job.”

Relief suffused Mandy’s face. She didn’t want two more weeks of awkwardness either.

“Thanks, Ashna,” she said.

“Thanks, Mandy.”

As simply as that, it was over.

Back inside, the kitchen wrapped around Ashna, unchanged over the years. Bricks, mortar, steel. Solid, dependable, predictable. Not fragile and breakable like the connections between people.

Sure, the appliances needed updating and the exhaust fans had become maddeningly loud—to a point where they sounded like a dead animal was stuck in the vents and screaming for mercy—but the steel countertops gleamed. Not a spot of grime anywhere.

Evidently, Ashna didn’t have as hard a time with pride as she had with hope. Plugging in her headphones, she turned on her playlist. To the power blast that was Alicia Keys’s voice belting out “Girl on Fire,” she made her way to the storage area and pushed out the janitorial cart. Then, snapping on the bright orange rubber gloves, she got to her nightly vacuum, dust, spit-shine routine.

Letting the cleaning service go a year ago had been an easy decision. It’s how she had avoided cutting Mandy’s salary or hours. Mandy, who thought there was a trust fund to cover all this. Well, that wasn’t how royal wealth worked.

The physical exertion of cleaning made Ashna feel alive.

The mosaic floors needed a good buffing, the velvet jacquard on the chairs was frayed in places, and the teakwood tables could use a coat of varnish, but as she wiped and scrubbed, everything got a little brighter and took on the familiar gleam of long-owned artifacts. New things were overrated anyway.

Baba had hand-selected every fitting and fixture to his exacting standards. Every little thing here was a handprint he’d left behind. With Bram Raje at the helm, Curried Dreams had been Palo Alto’s hottest spot, the Bay Area’s first fine dining Indian restaurant. Reservations had been a coveted prize, favors Ashna’s father handed out in his magnanimous Prince Bram way.

Ashna switched the vacuum cleaner off and wrapped up the cord. She refused to turn toward the half flight of stairs that led to Baba’s office, where she had found him in a rapidly growing pool of blood. If she let the darkness knock her down, who would keep Curried Dreams alive?

“What are we going to do?” she whispered to the beloved walls. She was all out of options.

A ping sounded in her ear, interrupting Alicia’s rapture over New York City.

We’re at the door.A text from her cousin Trisha.

In a mad dash Ashna put away the cart, rubbed rose-scented lotion into her hands to cover the chemical smell, and ran to the door.

It was just past midnight, but a visit after closing time from one of her cousins or her best friend, China, was a common occurrence. Everyone Ashna knew worked too hard and too late, and after all the restaurants in the area closed she was everyone’s favorite food source. She opened the door and found herself to be right twice over. Both China and Trisha pushed their way into the kitchen.

“We’ve been knocking for five minutes!” Trisha said accusatorially.

“You’re still here, thank God!” China added.

“Where else would I be?” Ashna headed for the fridge. “You hungry?”

They shook their heads. “We ate,” they said in unison.

Very strange. A midnight visit without a food agenda.

“We’ll take some tea,” Trisha said, even as she found Ashna’s cup and took a sip. “I can never drink chai anyone else makes. You’ve ruined me for substandard chai.”

Ashna smiled. Most people did murder tea. They didn’t understand how spices interacted with leaves and basically just threw stuff together and called it a blend. Some even had the gall to call it “tea” when there was no tea in it.

“Don’t drink it cold.” Before Ashna could finish the sentence, the cup in Trisha’s hands had been drained.

Ashna sighed and refilled the kettle. China and Trisha exchanged a speaking look. Something was definitely up. Trisha might be Ashna’s uncle’s daughter, but they had grown up together and were more sisters than cousins. Also, Trisha had the world’s most transparent face.

“Anyone want to tell me what this is about?”

China extracted a beer from the cooler. “Maybe it’s too late for tea.”

Trisha noticed the stack of mail Ashna had brought in earlier and started filing through it. The kettle whistled.

China and Trisha jumped.

“Okay, what’s going on? What do you two want?”

Instead of answering, Trisha picked out an envelope and waved it like a victorious flag. “I think we finally know how to get rid of these foreclosure notices.”

China took a gulp of beer and nodded.

“They’re just warnings.” Ashna snatched the envelope away. “And I don’t need any more of your harebrained ideas.”

Last week Trisha had tried to convince DJ, who was her boyfriend and one of the Bay’s hottest private chefs, to insist on all his offsite parties being held at Curried Dreams. DJ had been one of Ashna’s closest friends since culinary school in Paris. Ashna was, in fact, the one who had introduced DJ and Trisha, a matchmaking win she would always be insufferably proud of.

But she was not going to let DJ hold his clients ransom for her restaurant. He had already done enough for her with the Menu She Couldn’t Cook.

Trisha made a face. “I’ve never had a harebrained idea in my life. Neurosurgeons can’t have harebrained ideas. It’s in the Hippocratic oath.”

Trisha was being only half facetious. The woman was abnormally brilliant and Ashna was obnoxiously proud of her cousin, but when it came to ideas for saving Curried Dreams, not so much.

Ashna sighed. “I’m sorry. I appreciate the effort. It’s not like I’ve come up with anything that works either.”

China and Trisha high-fived. Were her best friends high-fiving her failure?

Trisha grabbed Ashna’s hand, dragged her into the dining area, and pushed her into a chair with the stupid know-it-all smile Ashna was only too familiar with.

Looking at China for answers simply caused her friend to study her beer bottle.

“Now that you have a boyfriend,” Ashna said to Trisha, not attempting to hide her irritation, “shouldn’t you be home spending time with him instead of worrying about Curried Dreams?”

Trisha dropped into a chair across from Ashna. “First, you should smack me upside the head if I let myself get involved with someone who doesn’t understand how much you and Curried Dreams mean to me.”

Fair enough. But Ashna kept her eyes stubbornly narrowed.

“Second, this actually has to do with said boyfriend. DJ needs your help.” Trisha tried to look pleading, but she was incapable of pulling off helplessness.

Ashna very much doubted DJ needed help, and she could clearly imagine the scene where he had tried to stop Trisha from whatever fanciful errand she was on.

“Right,” Ashna said, leaning forward in her chair. “First, if DJ needed my help, he’d ask himself. Second, I know that face.” She stuck a finger at Trisha. “And that one.” She moved her finger to China’s face. “What are you two up to? Spit it out. I need to be at the farmer’s market at five A.M.”

“There’s my girl. We would very much love to spit it out.” Finally China spoke, relief clear in her alpha-of-the-pack voice. Her ability to lead crews through crazy schedules had made Food Network steal her away from a local production company earlier this year.

“So, you know how DJ was going to be a pro on my new show?” China was one of the producers on Cooking with theStars—a new competitive show that followed the format of Dancing with the Stars, where they teamed up celebrities with professional chefs and the duos duked it out for viewer votes and judges’ scores.

Ashna had helped China and Trisha talk (bully?) DJ into it. DJ was handsome, madly talented, charismatic, and had that magic element for American television: a Very British Accent.

“Did you say was?” Ashna asked, alarmed.

“Yeah, he’s not going to be a pro chef on the show anymore.” Trisha sounded far too cheery.

“I thought he was all excited about it. What happened?”

“Well,” China said, “Aaron Smith, our host for the show, his wife has cancer. So he had to quit to take care of her.”

“Oh no. That’s so sad.” Ashna pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Yes. But the prognosis is excellent. Catching ovarian cancer at stage one is a win.” Trisha sounded every inch the doctor she was. “DJ is taking over as host.”

“DJ? Our DJ?” Ashna sat up.

“The very one.” Trisha beamed like a smitten fool. “It’s the accent. Also, he’s actually a better fit to host the show than Aaron was in the first place. He knows so much more about food. Plus, I was a little worried about him working with a celebrity. He’s such a diva about cooking, I can’t imagine him teaming up with someone who might not turn out something utterly perfect.”

Ashna grabbed China’s beer and took a sip. “What does all this have to do with me?” The moment the words left her mouth, she knew she shouldn’t have asked.

“Well, the network is set to announce the pro chefs the day after tomorrow on a special episode of Iron Chef. We’ve been promoting it for months.” China grabbed the beer back and took a sip. “And we’re short a chef.”

“Oh no, look at the time.” Ashna jumped out of her chair. “If I don’t close up I won’t be able to get to the farmer’s market before all the best produce is gone. Palo Alto chefs are ruthless. You won’t believe how fast everything gets swept away. Last week they ran out of bitter melon because I was twelve minutes late.”

Using both hands, Ashna tried to yank China out of her chair, but she didn’t budge. “This doesn’t sound like an emergency.” It totally sounded like an emergency. For Ashna, not them. “We can discuss it tomorrow.” She tried to move Trisha with similar results. “Don’t you have work tomorrow? Surgeries maybe? Saving lives and all that?”

China made her best puppy-dog eyes. “Trisha will have her lives to save. You’ll have your restaurant to run.” Her sigh took on a desperate quality that didn’t sound like she was faking. “But I won’t have work to go to. Not if I don’t have a new chef to replace DJ by tomorrow.”

Boom.

Trisha and China stared at Ashna with all the gleeful expectation of friends who had you perfectly cornered.

“Of course you’ll find a chef to replace DJ. Chefs have to be scrambling to get on your show.”

“Like who? We start shooting in less than a month. How will I run auditions before the announcement in one day?”

“How about . . .” Ashna racked her brains. Why oh why hadn’t she worked harder to network with her peers? She wanted to help. Truly, she did.

“You know how hot DJ is,” Trisha said.

“We need someone hot and talented,” China said.

“I can’t think of anyone—”

“We can,” they both said in a perfectly delusional symphony. “You, Ashna.”

A giant ball of laughter gathered inside Ashna and came tumbling out like an avalanche. “Very funny. No, really, you guys are hilarious,” she said between hiccupping and—bordering on maniacal—laughter. “Hil-fucking-arious.” She pressed her hands into her sternum. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. And she couldn’t stop laughing.

Identical worried frowns creased Trisha and China’s foreheads. Ashna couldn’t remember the last time this panic-fueled laughing fit had happened to her.

China brought her water.

“Do you need a paper bag?” Trisha asked.

Ashna shook her head and sucked in several deep breaths. It took a few moments, but she forced the laughter to subside. “What are you going to introduce me as? ‘Ashna Raje, owner and executive chef of the soon-to-be-foreclosed Curried Dreams?’”

“But if you do this, there will be no foreclosing. They’ll pay you a signing amount, and the prize for winning is a hundred grand. Think about the exposure Curried Dreams will get!” China swept an arm around the room. “You’ll be able to make repairs, freshen things up.”

It stands for decrepitude and dated recipes.

Another spurt of laughter burst out of Ashna. She pressed her lips together as tightly as she could.

Trisha nudged the glass of water toward her. “Calm down and think about this without freaking out.”

Too late. Ashna forced herself to focus on the cold glass in her hand, at the mosaic lamps hanging from the ceiling, the jasmine diffuser scenting the air. She grounded herself one sight, one sound, one smell at a time. The laughter died out, but her heart still galloped in her chest.

“Okay?” Trisha asked, studying Ashna’s pupils in her doctorly way.

Ashna pushed her away. “I’m fine, but you’re both insane.”

“Why is helping your two best friends in the whole world, andyourself, insane? Why?” Trisha said, her usual relentless self. “You know what’s insane?”

“If you give me the ‘definition of insanity’ line right now, I will strangle you with my bare hands,” Ashna snapped.

“Okay, I won’t. But look at you, Ashi, you’ve been doing the same things for the past ten years and it hasn’t helped. Sometimes it’s just a matter of changing something. Doing just one thing differently.”

Ashna didn’t bother to hold back her groan. “I can’t.”

The idea of cooking in front of a camera made Ashna want to bring up her dinner, bring up all the dinners she’d ever eaten. She wished she could explain why to them. But how could she explain something she didn’t understand? How could she explain the ugly panic that choked her when she tried to cook anything but Baba’s recipes? All she had was how her loved ones saw her, as strong, in control. A little bullheaded, but capable. Easy Ashna. Dependable Ashna. If that went away, all she’d be was the girl to pity, to tiptoe around.

Been there. Never going back.

“I’m begging,” China said, standing up. “At least take the night to think about it.”

I can’t. But she didn’t know how to repeat it. Not with the dogged hope sparkling on their faces.

As always, routine relaxed Ashna. Her day started at the farmer’s market. The night sky had not yet fully transformed into day. She loved when the sun peeked at the edges of the sky while the moon was still not quite hidden away. The carts overflowing with plump and fragrant fruit and vegetables added to the magic of the hour. Vendors and chefs talked in hushed tones in deference to it.

There was plenty of bitter melon today, glossy and lime green with lush scalloped ridges. Ashna let Charlie, her favorite farmer’s son, sell her everything he had left, an extra five pounds, so he could go home early. He was taking care of business while his father recovered from colon surgery—which Charlie felt the need to explicate in lurid detail as he helped Ashna carry her bags to her car.

Apparently, the pre-surgery “bowel clean-out” hadn’t gone as smoothly as they had hoped.

Ashna patted the poor boy’s shoulder and asked him about high school, and they bonded over every Asian child’s favorite topic: their family’s obsession with grades and college applications. Charlie’s parents were Vietnamese, and Ashna much preferred the image of Farmer Dang as an exacting parent to any sort of bowel clean-out association.

“You’re a good son,” she told him, and he blushed, which was incredibly endearing given that talk of bowels hadn’t embarrassed him in the slightest.

Ashna dropped off the produce at Curried Dreams. Extra bitter melon was never an issue. The unpopular vegetable was a favorite with the Rajes, none of whom were daunted by the bitterness that sat atop the other, more complex underlying flavors. She would take some over to her aunt and uncle’s house later.

Her grandmother could make magic with bitter melon, stuffing it with fried onions and then frying the entire thing to a buttery, salty crunch. Baba’s recipe at the restaurant was derived from Aji’s recipe, but he’d made it richer with cashews added to the stuffing and a creamy onion sauce. Decadent, the way all of Baba’s versions of traditional recipes were. Ashna could make that version in her sleep, but she preferred the taste of the one her grandmother made.

After washing and sorting the produce at Curried Dreams she headed home to shower. Her restaurant and her home were separated by a cedar fence and a thicket of jacarandas, a distance of barely one hundred feet. Ashna’s father had built both buildings—the mansion-style restaurant and the Spanish stucco bungalow—from the ground up just after they moved from Sripore to California when Ashna was ten years old. Before that Ashna had only ever lived in the palace her ancestors had built centuries ago.

With Curried Dreams and the bungalow, she had watched the backhoe break ground as she stood there with her cousins, smelling long-buried earth being dredged up. She’d walked on newly laid tile and touched freshly plastered walls, watched furniture being moved in, tapestries being hung and rehung to Baba’s satisfaction.

Until he built Curried Dreams, Bram Raje had been the quintessential spoiled prince, the youngest son of the royal family of Sripore, one of India’s oldest princely states. Unlike his older brothers, Bram had lived up to the stereotype of indolent entitlement and fed his antics to the hungry media machine that surrounds royals everywhere. Until one such antic had landed him in trouble with the law and forced him to flee India.

His older brother Shree—HRH, as Ashna and her cousins called him—had rescued Bram (yet again) and brought him to California. Then he proposed (Raje code for dictated) that Bram channel his taste for decadent food and his passion for keeping the public entertained into an Indian restaurant that wasn’t the usual curry house in a strip mall.

HRH had been right, as he often was. Curried Dreams had finally given Bram the sense of responsibility his family had hoped for as they’d bankrolled business after business to help give him purpose that might save him. They had gotten it right that last time; Curried Dreams had given Bram purpose and taught him responsibility, which even having a daughter had not managed to do. But Curried Dreams hadn’t saved him.

Ashna stopped to pluck the few dandelions poking up among the roses along the side of the house. She had just enough time to get in a run before returning to the restaurant. Today was her yoga day, but there was no way her mind would stay quiet enough for yoga. Putting her phone on silent all morning had been cowardly, but she didn’t care.

The downside of choosing cowardice was that there was only so long you could hide. Problems were patient. They always waited you out. On her way to the front stoop, she finally checked her phone. Surprisingly, there was only one message from China and nothing from Trisha. Thinking about the Herculean effort that must have taken made her smile. She had agreed to take the night to think about the show. Not that there was any way she could do it. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing from Mandy either. So it seemed like that chapter was closed.

China’s message was a simple Call me.

All night Ashna had tried to think of another chef who might do the show, but she’d come up empty.

Just contemplating cooking off-script made her heart race so hard she had to breathe through it.

Dear judges, I have for you today: a giant meltdown.

Nope, never going to happen.

How tidy her life had felt yesterday. Thirty occupied tables, a sous chef who helped her find solutions for the restaurant, best friends who didn’t think she was too selfish to help them. What else could possibly go wrong?

She picked up her phone and was about to call China when the name of the last person she wanted to think about right now flashed on her screen.

Every bit of sense Ashna possessed told her to ignore the call. Another minute and she would have missed it anyway. But it had been six months since she’d spoken to her mother. A long gap even for them. That last silently destructive fight—a specialty of their mother-daughter bond—had been one of their most spectacular ones. Ashna had even wondered if they’d ever speak again.

She pressed talk.

“Hello, beta. Why does it take you so long to answer the phone?”

Why oh why had she asked what else could go wrong? Obviously she was in no position to tempt fate.

“Hi, Mom,” she said with the casualness of a daughter who didn’t care that she hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in half a year. “What’s wrong?” Not the smartest question, given that when it came to them that answer could take a while.

“Can your mother not call you without something being wrong?” Her tone was perfectly self-possessed, not a whit of emotion in those words. Shoban Gaikwad Raje probably didn’t even remember that it had been six months since she’d spoken to her only child.

The hard blast of anger in Ashna’s belly meant she needed to calm the heck down. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, and then did what she did best with Shobi: stayed silent.

Shobi gave a self-deprecating laugh, the one that always came out as a huff-cough. “Well never mind all that. How are you?”

If Shobi had been standing in front of her, Ashna would have checked over her shoulder to see if she was talking to someone else. But Ashna was an adult woman; she could handle this without regressing. She took the phone into the house and removed her shoes. “Everything is peachy with me. How about yourself?”

Her (admittedly overdone) breeziness was met with a long pause.

Shoban Gaikwad Raje, whose most recent TED Talk had tens of millions of views, was not given to pausing.

A short, almost unsure clearing of the throat followed. Another most un-Shobi-like move. Putting her shoes in the closet, Ashna made her way up to her room. If Shobi was giving her a silence to fill, it had to be a trap. Ashna had been raised by her aunt, whose first rule was: read the room before you show your hand.

Finally, Shobi went for self-deprecating laugh, round two. “Actually, I have news.” Her voice did a strange wobble. Which had to be Ashna’s imagination, because Shobi did not waste her time on displays of emotion. She wasn’t called Dragon-Raje by the Indian media for nothing. “I know we didn’t leave things in a good place the last time we spoke, but you had to be the first person I told this to.” The quiver in Shobi’s voice was unmistakable this time. “They’re giving me the Padma Shri.”

Ashna started to pace, words failing her. The Padma Shri was one of India’s highest honors for achievement in a field.

“Ashna, your mother is winning the Padma Shri! All my hard work, all my sacrifices. It’s all paying off.” The excited quiver raised Shobi’s pitch a few levels. She was entirely unaware of the fact that she was saying these words to the sum total of all her sacrifices.

This time Ashna cleared her throat. “That’s amazing,” she said, because she wasn’t a colossal enough bitch to be unkind when someone was excited about winning an award only a handful of people won.

“Thanks, beta,” Shobi said, clearly struggling with how her inexplicable daughter could be so underwhelmed by her brilliance.

There was another awkward pause, awkwardness being their default mode. Ashna took herself to the bathroom and turned on the tub faucet. A shower wasn’t going to cut it today.

“Listen, Ashna. I know this isn’t easy for you to understand, but it hasn’t been easy for me either.”

Which part?But Ashna knew the answer to that already.

The part where Shobi had to abandon Ashna to achieve what she was born to achieve. You couldn’t ask a question like that without being reminded of how dispensable you were, and even worse, how selfish you were for feeling sorry for yourself for being dispensed with for the sake of “changing the world.”

Truth was, nothing was ever hard for Shobi. She had been the star of the Indian national women’s cricket team. After retiring from that, she had singlehandedly taken sports advocacy for girls to the remote corners of India, a country that determinedly ignored all sports except men’s cricket.

As if that weren’t enough, she had transformed her sports advocacy into a weapon to change the lives of girls and women across the country by building sports-focused schools for girls. Her network of grassroots female empowerment projects brought together millions of dollars from the world’s greatest philanthropists. She made conscienceless politicians tremble, manipulated corrupt media, and managed to employ hundreds of people who truly cared about her cause in an entirely self-focused world. If anything dared stand in her path, she leveled it like the champion she was. In other words, she was the polar opposite of her daughter in every way possible.

Ashna had been struggling to keep one restaurant afloat for ten years. For the entirety of those years, Shobi had been waiting for her to fail.

“I see that you’re not going to make this easy for me,” Shobi said with the deep regret she used in fund-raising speeches. It was a tone that could guilt people into coughing up every penny they could afford.

“I’m really happy for you,” Ashna repeated in the most upbeat of her collection of upbeat tones. The emptiness that overtook her when she spoke to Shobi didn’t make it easy.

“May I say something? I know you don’t want to hear this.”

Dear God, every single time that line came out of Shobi, she followed it up with something that started a fight.

Please don’t do this today. That sense of barely holding it together that Ashna kept firmly at the edge of her consciousness closed in. Every time Shobi showed up, it pushed its way to the center of her. What kind of dumbass let someone do that to them over and over?

But of course, no one stopped Shobi from doing exactly as Shobi wanted.

“I think you’ve forgotten what it means to be happy.”

Ashna sank down to her knees next to the tub. A stray hair marred the spotless floor. She picked it up and threw it in the garbage.

“Are you going to say anything at all?”

Ashna wanted to, but her words had a way of hiding away when they sensed Shobi’s presence.

“Ashna?” She couldn’t tell if Shobi was reprimanding her or if that was concern in her voice. Not that she had any experience with recognizing concern in Shobi’s voice.

“You’re wrong, Mom. You can only forget something you knew.”

Her mother gasped and Ashna realized that she had said the words out loud.

In the moment that Shobi said nothing, relief and hope rushed through Ashna. She imagined her admission filling Shobi with regret and understanding.

“That’s not fair, Ashna.”

How could Ashna not laugh at that? Of course Shobi would make Ashna’s admission that she had never learned how to be happy about herself.

Ashna knew exactly what Shobi would say next. “Why is it so hard for you to understand your mother?” Bingo. And then . . . “You always understood your baba no matter what he did. No matter how wrong his choices.”

How many times could you have the same fight? Baba had stuck with Ashna, always. Well, until he hadn’t, in the end. But Ashna had never known Shobi as anything but a visitor who was either arriving or getting ready to leave.

Shobi had been gone a lot when they lived in Sripore, and then she hadn’t moved to America with them. Just visited. At first Ashna had tried hard to believe the visits weren’t reluctant, but over time, they grew shorter and farther apart, proving how wrong she’d been.

“Anyway, I didn’t call to have that conversation again. I was hoping maybe we could move past all that. Isn’t it time to fix things?”

Wasn’t this just precious? Now that Shobi had achieved the ultimate validation for her work, it was time to start taking stock of collateral damage.

Yes, well, Ashna wasn’t doormat enough for that. Being vulnerable in her mother’s presence was a mistake. She got herself up off the floor. The tub was full. She turned off the water. “There’s nothing to move past. I’m happy for you. And I’m proud of everything you’ve achieved.” There, she’d said what a dutiful daughter would say. “Good luck.”

“Oh, Ashna, maybe someday you’ll mean that. I have changed the lives of thousands. I’ve worked hard for it. It would be nice to have the person I gave birth to acknowledge it.”

“I’m proud of you,” Ashna repeated, trying to reach into that part of her that still remembered how proud she used to be of Shobi. The water was the perfect temperature. She dropped a capful of eucalyptus oil in. The steam rising from it turned intoxicating. She sank down to her knees again and inhaled it.

“I don’t mean repeat the lie. I mean, actually mean it. You have no idea how badly I wish you could see my life. Understand it. See me.”

“Across the thousands of miles you’ve always put between us?”

Instead of another gasp, another pause followed. A potent pause, filled with things Ashna didn’t want to hear, places she didn’t want to go with the woman who had birthed her.

Ashna skimmed a circle on the water’s surface.

“You’re right,” Shobi said, her voice determined. “Let’s fix that.”

Ashna’s hand jostled the water, disturbing the surface, splashing herself. Why hadn’t she just stayed silent? It was the only strategy that worked with Shobi.

“Actually, that’s why I was calling, I just didn’t know how I was going to ask. So I’m glad you brought it up. Why don’t you come to India?”

Ashna took her face close to the water’s surface. The tip of her nose touched the liquid warmth. The weight of her heavy bun skewed to one side of her head.

“Ashna?” Shobi pushed into her silence.

“I can’t do that.” Her whisper reflected off the water, the mint in her breath mixing with the eucalyptus. She picked out the distinct familiar scents and let her mind linger on each.

“Why? This is the perfect time to come home. Share this experience with me. They asked me to choose someone to introduce me at the awards ceremony and, naturally, I want you to be the one to do it. It’s been too long, beta. You haven’t been to Sripore in thirteen years. Come home!”

Sripore was not her home. “Palo Alto is my home,” she said quietly, “and Woodside,” she added to make sure her punch hit home. Woodside was where her aunt and uncle lived. The people who had been more parents to her than Shobi ever would.

The punch landed squarely where Ashna had aimed it and Shobi’s patience snapped. “You’re being deliberately hurtful again,” she said. “You aren’t a teenager anymore. This anger isn’t going to get you anywhere. It’s not healthy. You’re thirty. It’s not—”

“I am the least angry person I know.” The irony of her hiss did not escape her. “I have a business to run. I’d love to help you, but I just can’t.” She forced herself to regain her calm.

At least Shobi had gotten her age right this time. Shoban Gaikwad Raje had the fabulous distinction of having asked her child “So, what grade are you in?” on multiple occasions.

“Getting away from that place is exactly what you need. I can’t believe your father saddled you with—”

“Curried Dreams is my life,” she hissed again, because the only thing being upbeat would get her was a bath gone cold.

“That’s my point exactly. You need to find a life outside Curried Dreams!” said the woman who lectured all and sundry endlessly about how a woman’s work should be just as important to her as her family. “It’s time for you to break the chains that have been tying you up for years. Reset your priorities.”

Dear God, not chains! Chains were Shobi’s favorite metaphor. “Women in Chains” was the general theme of all her lectures. Once Shobi started on this topic, she’d never stop.

Ashna straightened up. Curried Dreams wasn’t what was tying her up in chains. Shobi was, and she always had with her promises of love that she kept just out of reach. Always. For Ashna’s whole life the woman had wielded those chains with ruthlessness.

Finally, in this moment, it hit Ashna why. It had been so Ashna would be here, waiting, when Shobi was finally ready to fix that neglected part of her life. Because Shobi had always set her priorities exactly the way she wanted them.

“You’re right,” Ashna said. “I do need to break the chains. Which is exactly why I’m not coming to India.”

“That makes no sense, Ashna. You’re stuck, don’t you see? You’ve been doing the same thing for—”

“I have a new job, Mom.”

No! Why on earth had she said that? Ashna wanted to wring Trisha’s and China’s combined necks for shoving stupid ideas in her head.

“You’re moving on from Curried Dreams?” The almost gleeful hope in Shobi’s voice strummed every one of Ashna’s overstretched nerves.

Baba’s been dead for twelve years, she wanted to scream. You can stop fighting with him now. “No, I’m not. But I’m going to be on a competitive cooking show as a pro chef.” Her voice sounded strong and clear for the first time since she’d heard Shobi’s hello. She leaned in and met her own eyes in the mirror.

“Reality TV? You?” The voice on the phone stretched between skepticism and outright disbelief.

Shobi’s favorite metaphorical chains stretched at the links around Ashna. “Yes. If I win I can pay down the debt on Curried Dreams. And no, I’m never giving up on it.”

The frustrated sound Shobi made was so delicious that for one lovely second Ashna didn’t care about anything else. “You are so Bram’s daughter. He was a great expert at cutting off his nose to spite his face.”

“Being Baba’s daughter is something I’m proud of.”

“Don’t I know it? But there’s no wisdom in ruining your life to stick it to me, child. Being punitive will get you nowhere.”

So, the gloves were off now. Their conversation arriving at its inevitable destination.

“Hard as it is to imagine, not every decision I make is motivated by you.”

“I know. It’s motivated by the guilt your father dumped on your head before leaving.”

Leaving. How clean she made death sound. Shobi had left. Baba had died.

“Thanks for that. I have to go.” She disconnected the call, finally doing what she should have done the moment she started to lose control of the conversation, long before letting her bath go cold. Then she pulled the plug and watched the water drain away.

Rico Silva watched as giant sprinklers dropped down from the absurdly high ceiling and rained water on the mud pit, where bikini-clad women wrestled with a bunch of his mates. There was nothing quite like a bachelor party to strike terror in any sane—or sober—person’s heart for the future of humankind. Across the room at the giant bar, Josh—wearing horns of some sort—watched a woman—wearing the most minimalist of sequined pasties and thongs—take a shot from between his knees. Needless to say, Josh was in his underwear, which made how much he was enjoying this evident to all present.

Rico threw a look around the room to make sure no one had their cameras out. This was the Hold, Vegas’s most elite and secret club, and the lighting used a special wavelength that made taking photographs impossible. Even so, for every technology invented to protect privacy, there was a countertechnology invented to violate it. It was the world they lived in. You didn’t have to be a Premier League football player to know this, but if you were, you knew it well. Not that any of these knobs remembered their names right now, let alone the lessons they had learned. Most were young enough to still believe themselves invincible after enough whiskey recklessly mixed with every other kind of alcohol.

Del was on top of the bar and about to grab a rope dangling from the ceiling to take a Tarzan-style swing across the room. Fortunately, the season was over and they didn’t have to get back on the pitch for training for a few more weeks.

Well, not them, exactly. Rico was never getting back on the pitch. The torn iliotibial band and shattered kneecap had made sure his career was good and over. Not that he could complain. At eighteen he’d moved Sunderland from the relegation zone back up to the Premier League, kicking off the kind of career he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams. He’d won the World Cup and the Champions League, and been purchased by Manchester United for a record sum. At thirty, he’d had a run he was more than a little proud of.

The part he wasn’t proud of was how badly he was handling the pain. His knee hurt as though the screws and plates substituting for bones and tissue were made of solidified acid. As always, the pain sharpened when he thought about it.

He had read somewhere that human nerves blocked out chronic pain after a while, but the sensation of pain returned when you were reminded of it, like when you heard someone else talk about theirs. It was as though the knowledge of another person’s pain reminded the nerves of what they were trying to forget.

Rico was here to tell all skeptics that the theory was indeed accurate. He adjusted his leg on the booth couch. The body-armor-style brace itched like the depths of hell and he couldn’t wait to get it off in a few days.

“What’s got you all grumpy?” Zia, his best mate and the groom—which made him the man of the hour—slid into the booth Rico was hogging all to himself. Not that the other guys had any interest in leaving the dance floor, or the mud pit, or the bar with the Tarzan vines hanging over it.

“Nothing. Just jealous that I can’t join the guys in making such perfect arses of themselves.” Much as Rico detested the brace, he was grateful for it today. He was in no mood to get out there and prove how much of a party animal he was. Not that he wasn’t perfectly adept at that. As a Carioca born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, knowing how to have a good time—while preserving his dignity—was in his blood.

Zee knew he was joking, but he still looked at Rico in that way good friends looked at you when you were off your game: one part concern, the other part impatient hope that your affliction would pass fast. Zee looked ready to bodily shake off this ridiculous blue mood that had been clinging to Rico recently.

“Thanks for being here.” He thumped Rico’s shoulder and threw a wince at his leg, which was more than the rest of them dared to do. Their other teammates avoided the topic of the surgeries and the sight of Rico’s knee as though torn connective tissue that ended your career were contagious.

Rico shrugged. A brace and crutches wouldn’t keep him from his best mate’s bachelor party. For a few moments, the two of them took in their teammates acting like this was their very last opportunity to hold on to the stupidity of their youth.

“Tell me again why you let Del plan this?” Zee asked. “Wasn’t it your bloody job as my best mate?”

“I was in the hospital, remember? And Del and Josh thought it was the perfect excuse to take over. I don’t think any of the guys were stoked about catching Hamilton in New York to celebrate you losing your bachelorhood.”

Zee laughed. “That actually sounds fecking brilliant. Except Tanya would kill me if I went without her, even though she’s seen it four times.”

As always, that fuzzy I just took a hit of something potent look crossed Zia’s eyes when he talked about Tanya. It was well deserved, of course. Tanya was possibly the best woman Rico had ever met. Steady and badass and madly warm and nurturing.

“How the hell did I get so lucky?” Zee said.

“I don’t know, mate. How did you?”

“I guess we caught each other young and watched each other grow, eh? Luckiest break of my life.” Tanya and Zee had been college sweethearts.

“By that definition, it’s pretty much too late for the rest of us.” Rico took a sip of his club soda, wishing for something stronger, but his meds didn’t mix with alcohol.

For all his reputation for being a rule breaker on the pitch, Rico was, in fact, never stupid about which rules he broke. His father hadn’t had a chance to teach him much, but the one thing he had taught Rico was that you couldn’t win if you got thrown out for committing fouls. Staying in the game was a requirement for winning.

“Does that mean there’s no chance of you and Myra getting back together, then?” Zee asked, running his hand through his blond-highlighted hair, his very obvious worry tell.

“That would be hard given that she just got engaged to her new boyfriend. Apparently, he wasn’t emotionally unavailable.” To her credit, Myra had tried not to break up with Rico before the spate of surgeries started almost a year ago. But he hadn’t wanted her nursing him through sickness if she was done with him in health.

Zee gave him the kind of look only a happily-in-love person could give a single friend, especially one they believed had no idea what being in love felt like.

“So, on to the next relationship, then?” Zee said, meeting Rico’s gaze over his almost-empty glass. “Frederico Webster Silva and his string of lovely women, each one of whom has gone on to make someone else a lovely wife.”

“You sound like you’re trying to say something, mate. Blokes like you who have it all always have something to say about things you know nothing about.” Rico held up his club soda and clinked glasses with his friend.

“Hey, all I know is that you’re my best mate and you have no interest in playing the field. You’re an excellent boyfriend—my old woman’s words, not mine. I don’t understand what it is you’re waiting for.”

“I’m waiting for someone like Tanya who keeps the ball and chain tight without letting it chafe.”

Zee let out the deepest sigh any human should be allowed to sigh. Seriously, if all those rabid female fans saw him moon over Tanya, there would be a serious threat to the poor woman’s life.

“I do love my ball and chain.” Zee punched his phone screen and a sleepy “Baby? You all right?” came across the phone.

“Never all right without you, love. My mates are knobs. I want to be home, baby. Home with you, not here with these hairy, stinky bastards.” Then he dropped his voice. “All I want is to be buried deep inside you right now.”

Rico turned away and started scrolling through his phone, blocking out the lovestruck whispering.

“You can stop pretending to check your phone now, I’m done being a sop,” Zee said when he was done, and Rico had to smile.

“It’s okay. But only because Tanya deserves a sop like you,” he said less lightly than he’d intended.

Zee didn’t notice, lost as he was in his groom raptures. The general belief was that only brides went into a wedding haze, but men were worse. Where brides tended to get lost in the wedding details, Rico had noticed that men tended to get hit on the head by the idea of getting to hold on to the woman who made them come apart.

“I’m telling you, man. I want this for everyone. This single-minded need for a woman. No other shit in life comes close to this. You know what I mean?”

I know exactly what you mean.

It was a thought Rico hadn’t had in years. He didn’t allow himself to have it, ever.

Zee was wrong in thinking that no other shit came close. Rico had spent the last decade proving that a lot of shit came close.

It’s just that none of it came close enough.

Rico shifted in his seat. The immobility from his propped leg made him restless in a way he couldn’t explain. Restless in a way he hadn’t been in a very long time.

He reached for Zee’s drink. Not drinking had to be messing with his brain.

Zee, being Zee, moved the glass out of his reach. Not that Rico would have actually broken doctor’s orders and taken a sip, but it was good to have someone to nudge you back into place when you slipped.

“Bloody hell, I’m being an arse,” Zee said. “Here you are with Myra marrying someone else, and I won’t stop going on about things. Talk to her. She was really into you. It’s not like there was closure. You’re still friends. Maybe it’s not too late.”

Rico had to laugh at that. “This isn’t one of your Bollywood films. I’m not going to ride into her wedding on a horse and whisk her away. As a matter of fact, there was closure. That’s why we’re still friends.”

“You’re really not broken up about her marrying someone else, are you?” Zee looked abjectly disappointed, but Rico wasn’t sure if it was at not getting to witness the drama of a filmy reconciliation or at Rico’s inability to feel deeply enough.

“Myra’s exactly where she wants to be. And I want her to be happy.”

This was true. But Zee’s other assumption wasn’t. Rico would never admit it to Zee, or to anyone else, but Rico did, in fact, know exactly what Zee meant about single-minded need. Or he had once. Maybe pain receptors weren’t the only things that worked like jealous mirrors. Maybe pain wasn’t the only thing your brain refocused on when it was reminded of it.

Zee and Tanya had always dug up memories of something. Someone, rather. Someone who deserved neither the comparison nor the single-minded devotion Rico had felt.

Unfortunately, he’d been too young to choose how he reacted to her, and by the time she had proven herself unworthy of those feelings, it had been too late. Now here he was, relationship after relationship, unable to be that Rico again. The one who had no idea how to be emotionally unavailable.

She had taken that away from him. The reckless freedom of being emotionally available.

After all these years of doing all he could to wipe away his memories of her, the realization hit him like a body blow.

All he had succeeded in doing was building scabs, and blocking himself off emotionally. He was running around in a hamster wheel of his own making.

Closure.

The word ricocheted in his head, setting off a raging longing for relief.

He touched his knee, where throbbing pain wrapped tight on the outside even as it pushed from the inside, the brace holding everything in place until he was healed and ready to go on as normal. Maybe it was time to cut open another wound and sew that torn muscle together too. Regain the use of other parts he had lost.

Zee chugged what was left of his drink. His gaze bounced from the empty glass to Rico.

“There’s plenty more where that came from. Go on. I’m fine,” Rico said.

His friend studied him for another second, then opened and closed his mouth a few times. There was nothing he could say that Rico wanted to hear right now. Zee was smart enough to know this. He thumped Rico’s shoulder and headed to the bar.

The guys rushed at Zee and lifted him up above their heads, carrying him to the dance floor, where EDM boomed against the walls and broke into strobes of fluorescent light. They could have done this anywhere in the world. The wedding was in London, where Zee and Tee were from. But they had chosen to come to Vegas for the bachelor party.

Nevada was right next to California.

That could be a coincidence, but what was it they said about coincidences? That there weren’t any.

Rico leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The psychedelic lights continued to flash behind his lids. The pain on Myra’s face as she told him she was done with him danced there with the lights.

I know you try, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry.Her eyes had brimmed with tears and accusation.

Rico’s own lack of sadness at those words had felt like a hole inside him. Then there had been the relief. The worst part was that Myra had seen the relief and it had multiplied the accusatory hurt in her eyes.

What you feel for me is fondness, not love. Love hurts. I can’t hurt you, no matter what I do.

She had been right. He liked being with her, but losing her hadn’t shattered him. He hadn’t asked her why it was important for her to be able to hurt him. Truth was, nothing had hurt him in a very long time other than winning and losing matches.

Sitting up, he pulled out his phone. Before he could think it through, he texted Myra. Did I say Congratulations?

Maybe he should’ve cared what her fiancé thought about Rico texting her in the middle of the night, but Myra wasn’t a bone to fight over and Rico certainly didn’t give a shit about a man if he didn’t trust the person he was with. Myra had insisted they stay friends. He was friends with all his exes. The friendship had always been the best part of the relationships anyway. As was proven by the fact that he was godfather to Ryka’s baby girl, a commitment he took very seriously and an honor he was grateful for.

There was only one ex he hadn’t stayed friends with.

Myra’s response buzzed in immediately. Several times. Aren’t you in America? Isn’t it three in the morning there?

Zee’s bachelor party’s just getting started.

She sent him a smiley face followed by a few dancing-lady emojis, beer mugs, and, inexplicably enough, monkeys.

Are you happy?he wanted to ask her. With this new guy?

Because he wanted happiness for her.

We set a date, she texted, before he embarrassed himself by asking that question. September 30th in Tuscany. You have to be there.

Of course. I’m happy for you.

I know.

Dots danced on the screen as Myra typed more, then erased what she’d typed. For a long time he stared at the phone as dots appeared and disappeared but no new text came in.

Zee shouted Rico’s name from the dance floor and the guys raised their glasses to Rico across the room.

The room in Nevada.

Right next to California. Where Rico had been the unhappiest he’d ever been in his life. But also where he had still known how to be happy.

His best mate gyrated around the dance floor. Zee’s Punjabi Indian half always showed up in his dancing. He turned everything into a bhangra, shoulders popping, feet thumping. The wild beat of the dance captured Zee’s joy perfectly. He knew how to be himself without shutting any part of himself down. He knew how to be with someone he loved without holding himself back. He hadn’t lost that ability.

The skin under Rico’s brace itched. They couldn’t get the darned thing off him soon enough.

He imagined the freedom of having his body back. Of being able to run and bend and move. For all the pain and discomfort, the surgery was going to give him that.

He raised his glass to his wildly dancing teammates. Maybe it was time to stop wishing for things to happen magically and do the work to fix what was keeping him from what he wanted. A family, love, the ability to feel. Maybe it was time to finally leave Ashna Raje behind.