Unease settles in my stomach as I park in front of Raya’s parents’ house. My gaze darts to the extra security Silas stationed here for the weekend, but it isn’t enough to relieve my worries.
“Is that really necessary?” Raya asks as she takes in the uniformed bodyguards, her voice soft. “This is a gated community, Lex. Besides, my dad has a very comprehensive alarm system.”
She sounds disappointed, offended, and I wish I had the words to explain myself. “It’s necessary,” I say instead, unable to explain that I still have doubts about Raya’s father and the monthly payments he continues to make. $10,000 is a lot of money for a man on the brink of bankruptcy. “Besides, your parents agreed to this.”
She looks into my eyes, her displeasure evident, but she doesn’t argue with me any further. Instead, she gets out of the car and slams the door, leaving me to drop my head back as I take a deep breath.
Things have been better than I’d expected between us, but the more time I spend with her, the more unsettled I feel. I thought I had the situation in hand, that I was in control of our marriage. I mapped out the steps I had to take to ensure she’s content before we ever said I do, but she keeps steering me off track with her smiles and her touch. Everything feels far too real. I keep finding myself doing and saying things just to make her smile, and she has no idea how much the way she’s making me lose control over my actions is fucking me up.
I sigh as I get out of the car, only to find her leaning against the front door, waiting for me. “I’m sorry, Lex,” she says, reaching for my hand. “I shouldn’t have stormed off like that, especially not when we’re visiting my parents. I can tell you’re trying your best to keep the promises you made me, and the way I just reacted wasn’t fair.”
My heart skips a beat, and I drop my forehead to hers for a moment, at a loss. This is why she keeps throwing me off — because she acts in ways I could never predict. All of my plans were built for the type of women I’m used to, but she’s nothing like anyone I’ve ever met. She’s unpredictable, seemingly unmotivated by money and fame. The more I learn about her, the more she confuses me.
“Thank you for waiting for me,” I murmur, and she turns her face a little to kiss my cheek. Raya pulls back a little, her lips parting to say something, but we’re interrupted by the door opening. She stumbles, and I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her against me.
“You’re home,” her mother says, her eyes moving between us. “Come on in.” She turns to Raya then. “Dad is still at the lab, but he should be home soon.”
My wife nods and kicks off her shoes, and I follow her lead, curious about the home she grew up in. I pause to look at the photos on the walls as I trail behind Raya and her mom, who rapidly lose themselves in conversation. This place seems like a real home, the kind I’ve always wanted, the kind I think my siblings and I would’ve had if we hadn’t lost my parents.
“I think I figured out how to make them perfectly round,” Raya says as she follows her mother into the kitchen. “There are a lot of variables, but if I make my dough perfectly round and then press down on it with an equal amount of force across the board, it’ll be a perfect circle. I think I’ll try putting a chopping board on top of it to flatten it first.”
Raya’s mom bursts out laughing, and she shakes her head. “Honey, making parathas isn’t a science. It just takes a bit of practice.”
“Mom,” Raya whines as she moves to the sink to wash her hands. “I’ve had years of practice, and they still end up being random shapes. Last time I made one that turned into a star. A star, Mom. I was trying to make it round! There’s something I’m missing — I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sure we can automate that,” I tell Raya, and she spins around, her eyes lighting up as she wraps her hands around my biceps. “Oh my gosh, Lex,” she says, her face brimming with excitement. “We could build a little kitchen tool for Mom that mixes the dough and then pops out perfectly round parathas that can go straight on the pan. Oh! Dad would love to build that with us. Shall we do it? It’d be such a fun way to spend the weekend.”
I smile at her, my heart warming. She looks at me like she actually believes I could ever say no to her. My silly girl. “Of course,” I tell her, my voice soft. I reach for her and gently push her hair behind her ear, my stomach fluttering.
God, I really want to be the man she needs. That smile of hers… I want to protect it as best as I can. She can never find out about the secrets I keep, the lengths I go to in order to keep the past at bay.
“I see you’re spoiling my daughter,” my mother-in-law says, and I snap out of my daze, stepping away from Raya just a little.
“As he should.”
Raya’s head tips up at the sound of her father’s voice, and she smiles so sweetly that I can’t help but smile myself. He offers me his hand, once again shaking it with a lot more force than necessary, though nowhere near enough to actually be painful.
I bite back a smile, not at all annoyed by his behavior, when it so obviously stems from love for his only child. “So, we’re building a kitchen tool, huh?” he says, somewhat uncomfortably. It’s clear he doesn’t know how to handle my presence in his home, and the feeling is mutual.
“Yes!” Raya says, her excitement palpable. She reaches for my hand and entwines our fingers, her gorgeous eyes on mine. “Come on. I’ll show you the lab Dad built for all of our experiments. It’s similar to yours, and you’ll love it. I think we may actually have most of the materials we’ll need.”
Her parents exchange loaded looks as she drags me out of the kitchen, her father’s footsteps trailing behind us. “Come to think of it, there’s no reason why we can’t include the cooking component too,” Raya says. “We can just build in a hot plate and make sure that the dough falls onto it as the last step. Add in a flipping component, and it should be able to create the perfect paratha. Something like that probably already exists, though it might be for pancakes or something similar. We’d just have to adapt it. We wouldn’t even have to design from scratch if we didn’t want to.”
“But where’s the fun in that, my little fairy? If you and I create something, it’ll be better than anything that’s currently on the market.”
She grins up at me and nods. Even her dad’s cold exterior seems to melt in light of her palpable excitement. “Let’s see if you learned anything in that Mechatronics class,” he grumbles.
I smile at him and shrug. “Doubtful,” I tell him. “I heard the professor’s a real tool.”
His eyes widen a little, and then he bursts out laughing, seemingly surprised by my ability to make fun of myself. His expression shifts a little, some of the frost melting. It isn’t much, but I’ll take it.
