She pointed to the Diwali party behind them and he shook his head.
Ten minutes later, he was driving them home.
“What if someone saw us leave?” she asked, watching people crowding the side streets, the noise of fireworks interrupting the soft music from the stereo.
“Then they’ll speculate that we’re together.”
Rian didn’t seem bothered, but Aditi didn’t want people to gossip unnecessarily.
“Maybe they won’t notice.”
“Then I’ll make sure to tell them.”
His declaration silenced her. He may as well have tattooed ‘mine’ in large, bold letters across her forehead.
“Keep talking to me,” he added after a moment.
“Why?” she asked, scrunching her nose at the odd request.
“Because if you don’t distract me, I might park this car on a random road and fuck you in the back seat.”
Her eyes widened comically at his very honest response. Far from being scandalised however, his admittance only caused a familiar tug of desire in her gut. “Maybe not for our first time,” she suggested,unable to think about anything other than Rian doing very naughty things to her now. “But I don’t mind trying the back seat in the future.”
The vein in his head bulged.
“Okay!” she panicked, racking her brain for another reason. “Umm. . .at least we're in a car and not on your bike. Imagine having to balance on a bike while we. . .”
“Not. Helping,” Rian bit out, his jaw clenching so tightly that she thought it would splinter.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, folding her hands one on top of the other in a prim pose.
“Show me your feet.”
Confused but unwilling to torment him like she usually would, she pulled up her saree, exposing a little above her ankles.
Rian glanced over at her once, then twice, before his forehead crunched.
“You’re not wearing anklets,” he finally said, eyes on the road. “But I could have sworn I heard the sounds. Why?”
“Oh. I’m wearing something that has the same chimes as anklets do.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you see,” she started in that tone that told Rian he was in for story time. “When I started losing too much weight, my paati got an arana kayiru made for me to wear.”
“A what?”
“An arana kayiru. It’s usually a black thread to ward off bad energy, but the one I have is in gold with a protection charm from the temple. Paati also added the chimes on it to make it pretty. Hence, the sound.”
“Doc, any chance this gold chain is around your waist? I think I felt it before.”
“Of course it’s around my waist. Where did you think it was?”
He didn’t think. He drove faster.
29
The Firefly