“The point stands.”
I take his hand. I thread my fingers through his, the way we have been doing for days now, the way that has become as natural as breathing, and I hold on for dear life.
“You're enough too, Doc,” I say. “Surgical instruments and clinical terminology and all.”
“Anushik im, this is better than my stories.”
Arjun freezes. I freeze. We both turn, very slowly, to look at my phone, which is still propped against my thigh, screen still bright, Mrs. Kasparian leaning so close to her camera I can count the bobby pins in her hair.
“The tall one is crying,” she stage-whispers to someone off-screen. “Garo! Garo, put down the paper, the tall one is crying.”
“I am not crying,” I say.
“You are misting. It is the same. Continue, please. I am at the heel of the sock.”
“Mrs. Kasparian.” I pick up the phone. Arjun's ears are now the colour of the bougainvillea over the wall. “Mrs. Kasparian, I have to go.”
“Of course, of course. You go. You kiss the handsome one. I will tell Oliver his fathers are doing well.”
“We are not his?—”
“Goodbye, Casey. Goodbye, handsome one.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Kasparian,” Arjun says.
I end the call. The screen goes dark. I set the phone face-down on the bench, with great deliberation, as if facing it downward will somehow retroactively unhear the last twenty minutes.
Arjun exhales. “How long has she been?—”
“Since I sat down.”
“Casey.”
“I know.”
“She heard all of it.”
“I know.”
“Including the part about the surgical instrument.”
“Especially that part. She's going to tell everyone in our building. Mrs. Singh is going to know by lunch. The man at the bagel place is going to know by Tuesday.”
Arjun sighs and leans his head against my shoulder. It’s the smallest gesture. The lightest contact. The Dread Prince ofPaediatrics, voluntarily resting his head on my shoulder in a garden in daylight where anyone could walk by and see.
We sit there. Eating parathas and sharing the chai, passing the cup back and forth between us, our lips touching the same rim, which is an intimacy so small and so domestic that it makes my heart ache in the best possible way. Arjun tears the paratha in half and hands me the bigger piece without comment, which is the most romantic thing a man who calculates portion sizes to the gram has ever done.
I pick a grape off the cluster and hold it up. He looks at it. He looks at me. His eyebrows draw together in the very specific expression of a man who is evaluating whether accepting a hand-fed grape on a garden bench constitutes an unacceptable breach of personal dignity.
“Open,” I say.
“Casey, I am perfectly capable of feeding myself.”
“I know, Arjun. Now open.”
He opens his mouth. I gently place the grape on his tongue. His lips close around my fingertip for a fraction of a second, warm and soft, and a flush crawls up his neck and his eyes go wide with a startled, slightly outraged expression as he was not expecting a grape to be an erotic experience and is furiously conflicted at the betrayal.
“Another?” I ask innocently.