When Dimple Met Rishi
Page 37

He smiled and started the car, pulling into the street. “Okay.”
Dimple’s mouth was dry. She’d never, ever done something like this before. To give herself something to do, she glanced sideways at Rishi and said, “You forgot the book.” She set A Wrinkle in Time in the center console. “You’re not going to look it up on the Internet and read the CliffsNotes, are you?”
He laughed. “No, I’m really looking forward to reading this. I have a theory: Charles Wallace is a killer robot.”
Dimple stared at him. “A . . . killer robot.”
“What? You said it’s sci-fi, right?”
Dimple groaned. “Hai Ram, not every sci-fi has to have a killer robot in it, Rishi Patel. Just read it.”
“I don’t see the point if there aren’t any killer robots, but okay,” Rishi said, and Dimple thought, I love the way your eyes twinkle when you’re messing around.
About fifteen minutes later, Rishi pulled over. “This is it, Bernal Heights.” Across the street, an old homeless man was yelling at thin air in a flat Boston accent. Rishi wondered what his story was; how someone from Boston ended up there, a fifty-something-year-old street person. His story would probably make an interesting comic. Everything’s not a story, Rishi , Pappa would say. Your head is in the clouds again.
Rishi got out of the car and held Dimple’s door open. Her face shone, pink-and-gold-tinged in the setting sun. She looked . . . excited. Rishi tried not to get his hopes up.
He’d obviously read this whole thing wrong. He’d thought the kiss meant that Dimple was conflicted; that maybe he could win her over even though she’d said this was a non-date. That obviously hadn’t worked to his advantage. She’d been aloof on and off through dinner, and he was fairly sure she saw his gifts as over the line. Ugh. Rishi still felt the echo of the sting of rejection, even though she hadn’t said anything outright. Well, he wasn’t going to give her the chance. From now on he’d be friendly and nothing more. That was his new motto: Friend. Amigo. Dost.
“It’s this way, I think . . . ,” Dimple said, walking forward, looking down at her phone.
Rishi looked around. They were walking along a winding path on one of the many hills in San Francisco, bordered on one side by green grass and on the other by squat houses, a road, and parked cars. Karl the Fog swirled, ever present. “So now are you going to tell me where are we? What’s here?”
Dimple smiled at him and put her phone away. Pushing a curl off her forehead, she said, “Just keep walking.”
CHAPTER 34
That was easier said than done. Bernal Heights definitely lived up to its name—Rishi’s thighs were burning from scaling the thing. It felt like they should have special equipment. But Dimple apparently wanted them to climb this giant hill, so Rishi did, with minimal grunting.
By the time they got to the top the sun was dipping lower, smearing the sky with color, and Rishi was trying his best not to look like he was dying. Which, you know, was hard to do when he was bent over, wheezing, with sweat dripping into his eyes. Crap. He was sweating. Did he smell? Rishi was dipping his head in what he hoped was a surreptitious way to sniff at his armpit when Dimple grabbed his arm and said, “Look!”
He straightened up. “Ho-ly crap.” They had a 360-degree view of San Francisco’s seven-by-seven-mile beauty.
It looked like chaos at first—buildings and homes and roadways and other unknown structures all jostling for this tiny parcel of forty-nine square miles. But if you looked closely, like Rishi was doing, it all began to coalesce into this design. Wavy lines of white houses and a bridge (he thought it was the Bay Bridge, but he wasn’t familiar enough with San Francisco to say for sure), rectangular strips of buildings interspersed with strips of green-black trees, the Pacific in the distance, encroaching on it all. And the sky like an overturned bowl of rose gold above them.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dimple stepped forward, toward the edge of the hill. Rishi’s instinct was to tell her to please step back before she fell off, but he didn’t. She looked . . . peaceful there, the sunset making her black hair glow with red, like she was holding lava inside her instead of blood. Rishi smiled to himself. The fire she had, that passion? Yeah, he could definitely see her being born with lava in her veins.
She glanced over, and he averted his eyes, so he was looking out at the sunset too. “It’s definitely something else,” he said, answering her question just a few seconds too late. “How did you find out about this place?”
“Celia.” Dimple walked closer to him, and Rishi felt his heart speed up merely at the proximity of her. Idiot. He forced himself to count to three before he looked over. She paused, uncertainty passing over her face. And then, in the next moment, she’d extended her hand out. It sat there between them, fog swirling in the spaces between her fingers.
Rishi was pretty sure his mouth had fallen open, so he concentrated on forcing it closed. Was she . . . reaching for his hand? He placed it in hers, no questions asked. And waited, because it seemed like she had something to say. Rishi could tell the words were practically squirming, trying to get out.
“Um . . .” Dimple blew out a breath, and with her free hand, tucked a curl behind her ear. The breeze just blew it out again, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Rishi, I’m sorry if I seemed ambivalent at the restaurant before. What you did, that gift . . .” She shook her head. Her eyes burned into his. “It’s the most thoughtful thing anyone’s done for me. I really liked it. I really like . . . you.” Dimple dropped her gaze again. Her hand was shaking slightly in his, and Rishi covered it with his other hand. Looking back up at him, she said, “I have a hard time with all the feelings stuff sometimes. But I think—I think I want this to be a real date. If you do, I mean.” Her eyes widened slightly. “I mean, I’m not even sure if you’re on the same page. I said I really like you, and you didn’t really respond, and now you’re just kind of looking at me—”
Rishi couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips. But when he saw her face fall, he dropped her hands and cradled her face instead. She was so close he could smell that coconut jasmine shampoo. He felt the warmth of her rushing over him, through him. Her eyes were huge behind her glasses, luminous even. “Dimple Shah . . . I really like you, too.” He pressed his lips lightly against hers as he kept talking. He felt her shiver again, and he smiled against her mouth. “And I would be honored if this turned into a real date.”
Her lips parted against his. And then he was lost in her.
Oh my God. Or as Rishi would say, Oh my gods. They were kissing . Again. Finally. Dimple sighed in perfect bliss, and Rishi’s arms wrapped around her waist in response, pulling her body snugly against his.
He wanted her. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him. It was unbelievable. Dimple had never thought her life would include a boy like Rishi. Was it kismet, like he’d said? Then she felt his tongue against hers, and all coherent thought flew out of her head.
Eventually they broke apart so they could breathe, but Rishi kept his arms circled loosely around her waist. His lips were swollen and red in the fading light. He smiled and rubbed her nose gently with his. “It’s too bad we can’t keep doing that indefinitely. Oxygen is so overrated.”
Dimple’s arms were resting against his chest, but she moved them down to his waist too, so her arms were crossed behind his back. “So is eating.”
“And going to stupid web-development classes.”
“Hey.” She smacked him, and accidentally whacked the top of his butt. There was something ridged and hard like a notebook in his back pocket. “Those classes are my ticket to Jenny Lindt, let’s not forget.”
“Oh yeah. Her. What’s so great about her again?” Rishi pulled away from her, but kept one hand clasped loosely around hers, which made Dimple happier than she wanted to admit. He pulled her down to the ground, and they lay facing each other, heads propped up on their elbows, lower legs tangled with each other’s.
Dimple clasped her free hand to her heart. “Are you serious? Jenny Lindt is a pundit. A beacon. A herald of the coming age of Women in Tech.”