Mr. Kadam held the door for me, and we walked out into an empty hallway. I was just starting to relax at the elevator doors when I heard a hotel room door close. Ren walked down the hall toward us. He’d purchased new clothes. Of course, he looked wonderful. I took a step back from the elevator and tried to avoid eye contact.
Ren wore a brand new pair of dark-indigo, purposely faded, urban-destruction designer jeans. His shirt was a long-sleeved, buttoned-down, crisp, oxford-style and was obviously of high quality. It was blue with thin white stripes and matched his eyes perfectly. He’d rolled up the sleeves and left his shirt untucked and open at the collar. It was also an athletic cut, so it fit tightly to his muscular torso, which made me suck in an involuntary breath in appreciation of his male splendor.
He looks like a runway model. How in the world am I going to be able to reject that? The world is so unfair. Seriously, it’s like turning Brad Pitt down for a date. The girl who could actually do it should win an award for idiot of the century.
I again quickly ran through my list of reasons for not being with Ren and said a few ‘He’s not for me’s.’ The good thing about seeing his mouthwatering self and watching him walk around like a regular person was that it tightened my resolve. Yes. It would be hard because he was so unbelievably gorgeous, but it was now even more obvious to me that we didn’t belong together.
As he joined us at the elevator, I shook my head and muttered under my breath, ‘Figures. The guy is a tiger for three hundred and fifty years and emerges from his curse with expensive taste and keen fashion sense too. Incredible!’
Mr. Kadam asked, ‘What was that, Miss Kelsey?’
‘Nothing.’
Ren raised an eyebrow and smirked.
He probably heard me. Stupid tiger hearing.
The elevator doors opened. I stepped in and moved to the corner hoping to keep Mr. Kadam between the two of us, but apparently, Mr. Kadam wasn’t receiving the silent thoughts I was projecting furiously toward him and remained by the elevator buttons. Ren moved next to me and stood too close. He looked me up and down slowly and gave me a knowing smile. We rode down the elevator in silence.
When the doors opened, he stopped me, took the backpack off my shoul-der, and threw it over his, leaving me with nothing to carry. He walked ahead next to Mr. Kadam while I trailed along slowly behind, keeping distance between us and a wary eye on his tall frame.
In the car, Mr. Kadam did enough talking for all three of us. He was so excited that Ren could be a man again. It must have been a great relief for him. In a way, Mr. Kadam was just as cursed as Ren and Kishan. He couldn’t have a life of his own. Focusing his time and atten-tion on serving the brothers had become his only purpose in life. He was as much of a slave to the tigers as they were to the curse.
The thought occurred to me that I was in danger of becoming a slave to a tiger as well. Hah! I’d probably like it too. I rolled my eyes at the thought. I disgust myself. I’m so darn weak! I hated the idea that all he’d have to do was crook his finger at me, beckon me to come to him, and I probably would. The fiercely independent side of me flared up. That’s it! No more! I’m going to talk it all out with him when we get back and hope that we can still be friends.
This was pretty much my line of thought for the entire trip home. I’d daydream and then stop, lecture myself, and repeat my stubborn mantra. I tried to read, but I kept re---reading the same paragraph over and over. Eventually, I gave up and napped a little.
We finally got back late in the evening. I took one look at Ren’s beautifully lit-up dream home and sighed deeply. It felt like home to me. It would be very hard to leave it when the time came, and I had a sinking feeling that the time would come all too soon.
Even though I had napped some during the ride, I figured that I should try to get some rest. I forced myself to stop agonizing over my choice and brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. I carefully took Fanindra out of my backpack. Placing a small pillow on the nightstand, I arranged Fanindra’s hard, coiled body as comfortably as I could with her head facing the view of the pool. If I were a frozen snake, that would be what I’d like to look at.
Next, I took out the gada and the Golden Fruit. Wrapping the Golden Fruit in a soft towel, I put it and the gada in my dresser drawer. Looking at the fruit, I realized that I was hungry. I wanted a midnight snack, but I was too lazy to go downstairs to get one. I tucked the fruit in the drawer. I’d have to remember to ask Mr. Kadam to lock up the Fruit and the gada with Ren’s family Seal, wherever that was. We needed to be sure it was safe.
As I crawled into bed, I noticed a small plate of crackers and cheese with sliced apples on the nightstand next to Fanindra. I hadn’t noticed it before.
Huh. Mr. Kadam must have snuck the plate in when I was in the bathroom.
Grateful for his thoughtfulness, I ate my snack and then turned out the lights. Sleep wouldn’t come. My mind wouldn’t let me rest. I was afraid to face Ren the next day. I was afraid that I couldn’t say what needed to be said. I finally drifted off at about four in the morning and slept till noon.
I took my time getting up, which turned out to be the next afternoon. I knew I was avoiding Ren and our discussion, but I didn’t care. I took my time showering and dressing. By the time I mustered the courage to go downstairs, my stomach was grumbling from hunger pains.
I crept down the stairs and heard someone puttering in the kitchen. Relieved it must be Mr. Kadam, I turned the corner and, to my dismay, found Ren, all alone, trying to make a sandwich. He had sandwich fixings spread all over the kitchen. Every vegetable in the refrigerator and almost every condiment were set out on the counter. He was standing there, deep in thought, trying to figure out if he should use ketchup or chili sauce on his turkey and eggplant sandwich. He had tied on one of Mr. Kadam’s aprons, and it was smeared with mustard. Despite my attempt to be quiet, I giggled.
He smiled but kept his attention on his sandwich. ‘I heard you get up. Took your sweet time coming downstairs. I thought you might be hungry and came down to make you a sandwich.’
I laughed acerbically, ‘Ugh, not one of those. I’ll take a peanut butter.’
‘Okay. Umm, which one of these jars is peanut butter?’
He pointed to a group of condiments. He’d separated all the bottles, placing the ones labeled in English to one side and keeping everything else near him.
Bemused, I approached him. ‘You can’t read English, can you?’
He scowled. ‘No. I can read about fifteen other languages and speak about thirty, but I can’t figure out what these bottles are.’
I smirked at him. ‘If you smelled it, you’d probably figure it out, Tiger Nose.’
He looked up, grinned, then set down both bottles, walked over to me, and kissed me right on the mouth.
‘See? That’s why I need to have you around. I need a smart girlfriend.’
He went back to his sandwich and started opening bottles and smelling them.
I sputtered, ‘Ren! I am not your girlfriend!’
He just grinned at me in response, located the peanut butter, and made me the thickest peanut butter sandwich I’d ever seen. I took one bite and couldn’t open my mouth. ‘Weenn, hobouutssomme mlkk uff datte?’
He laughed. ‘What?’
‘Ilkk, illlkk!’ I mimed drinking something.
‘Oh, milk! Okay, hold on a sec.’
He had to open every cupboard in the kitchen to locate a cup, and, naturally, they were in the last cupboard he chose. He poured me a frothy glass, and I drained half of it immediately to clear the sticky peanut butter out of my mouth. Pulling the slices of bread apart, I chose the one with the least amount of peanut butter, folded it in half, and ate that instead.
Ren sat down across from me with the biggest, strangest looking sandwich on the planet and dug in. I blinked at it and laughed. ‘You’re eating a Dagwood.’
‘What’s a Dagwood?’
‘A giant sandwich named after a comic strip character.’
He grunted and took another big bite. I decided it was a good time to talk when he couldn’t talk back.