As Rian drove the two women home, he couldn’t help but glance in the rearview mirror once more, the jasmine flowers shining like a delicate crown on Aditi’s bobbing head. She was speakinganimatedly, engrossed in the story she was relaying to his entertained grandmother.
He forced his gaze away to focus on the road, but couldn’t stop that small voice in his head from questioning him, daring him to figure out if the peace he felt at that moment was because of his visit to the temple, or because of the unlikely goddess sitting in his back seat.
Like a coward, Rian ignored the voice, unprepared for anything more.
After all, this wasn’t part of his plan.
6
The Art of Saying No
Rian
Rian walked into hiskitchen on a bright weekday morning, surprised to find Aditi sitting on the bar stool. She was slumped over the island counter, her face resting sideways over folded arms.
He glanced at his watch, then back at her. It was nearly 9:00 a.m and while he was getting a late start today, Aditi was usually at the hospital by now.
He shuffled a bit closer, moving quietly despite his size, and peered at her. A small huff of amusement escaped him when he realised she was sleeping with her mouth open, a thin line of drool glistening down the side of her squished cheek. Lips twitching, he focused his phone on her face, feeling only the slightest bit guilty for taking a picture at such a vulnerable moment. He couldn’t wait to tease her with this. He stared into his phone, setting it as her contact profile, knowing that each time she called or texted would make him laugh just a little bit more.
“Rian?”
Groggy, she sat up, rubbing her eyes tiredly before swiping at her mouth. His amusement dwindled into a fond warmth at her gesture, looking more like a young girl than the busy doctor he knew her to be.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and strode around the kitchen island, heading to his coffee machine.
He lifted his usual mug out of the cabinet, picking up one of her atrocious ones at the same time. He waved it at her, placing it under the machine while he waited for it to come up to temperature. “What’s up, Doc?”
“Not me, Bugs,” she answered, slapping her cheeks lightly to awaken herself.
Brows clashing, Rian turned around and faced her. “What did I do to piss you off?”
“What?”
“Why are you calling me a bug?”
At that, her scrunched nose relaxed and she chuckled. “I’m not calling you a bug. I am calling you ‘Bugs’. Like you call me ‘Doc’. I thought we’d gotten far along enough in our relationship that I should give you a nickname, too.”
Rian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter, still not convinced that she wasn’t finding a new way to pull his leg.
Since their truce, Rian had come to understand a few things about Aditi.
She was a dedicated medical professional and very involved with her patients. Nanamma told him that she’d graduated top of her class, and Rian could believe it. The tomes of medical books that she pulled up to reference when she studied each evening looked intimidating to him, but obviously did not phase her.
On the other side was her laid-back persona. The one who liked to roam about in her colourful pyjamas, drink copious amounts ofcoffee out of equally colourful mugs, watch TV as if she were in a competition, and read, as he had discovered one evening by mistake, romance novels that some might categorise as porn. Those people would be incorrect and narrow-minded, judgemental assholes, he'd been informed immediately by a flustered Aditi. He still had scratch marks from the speed with which she’d ripped her Kindle from his hands. The suggestive cover had intrigued him but she’d refused to look him in the eye after thatortell him was the book was about.
Obviously, it meant that he’d teased her about reading it out loud and finding out for himself. Only he knew it was a false threat. A childhood filled with tutors, teachers and his mother making him feel stupid for not reading or writing well, never to realise that he was dyslexic, had turned him off the activity altogether. Just as he never spoke about his learning challenges, he would never willingly put himself through the trauma of reading any book, even if it came with the added benefit of annoying Aditi.
Perhaps she was also trying to annoy him with this ridiculous nickname.
“I call you Doc because you’re a doctor,” he explained, reaching over to press the button for fresh coffee beans to be ground perfectly.
“And I call you Bugs because Bugs Bunny always greets his friend with ‘what’s up, Doc?’Just like you greet me!” She yawned.
He should have known she would have a reason. A convoluted one, but a reason nonetheless. Shaking his head, he tamped the coffee grounds into the basket until the surface was flat.
“Did you have a night shift?” he asked, taking her tired hum as a ‘yes’. He watched the fresh brew pour into their mugs while he swirled the frothed milk in his pitcher, readying it for the latte he knew she preferred.
“No wonder your brain isn’t working,” he grumbled, picking up her mug and angling it to begin pouring the milk. “Once you’re less tired, we’re coming back to how Bugs is not a good nickname.”