Spice and Smoke (12 page)

Perhaps it was the same thing Vikram was thinking. Because soon enough he found Sam in the hotel’s back gardens contemplating an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker someone had left behind. To his credit, he did not blink at the booze, didn’t leap to ask Sam if he’d been drinking. He looked tired, not as fit as usual. When he spoke, it was with a false note of cheer that made him sound almost hysterical.

“
Woh
Avi
hain, na?
Avi and Michael and their camp? They want us to ‘play nice’. Can you believe?” Viki rubbed the back of his neck, uneasily shifting from foot to foot. “They are a walking advertisement for pornography, and
we
need to behave?”

“I believe it.” Ninety-nine percent of the world was of the “do as I say, not as I do” family. Of course Avinash and company would dole out advice they were not taking. Sam spun the bottle in the grass, acting as though he wasn’t waiting to hear where Viki was going with his chatter.

Vikram had always played the adult in their relationship. Towering over Sam now, he seemed a giant. A very conflicted giant. “What do you think?
Can we be friends?
Mujhse dosti karoge?
”

It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to snidely call him “Bobby”. Viki was the polar opposite of Dimple Kapadia, hulking and muscled and all man instead of soft and girlish. But the look in his eyes…it was just as sweet and innocent as the girl from the cinema. It burned a hole in Sam’s gut. Worse, it turned him on. He suppressed a shiver of anticipation and then rose, dusting off the seat of his jeans. Viki’s gaze was automatically drawn to his arse and Sam nearly smiled. Sure, “
dosti
” was all he had in mind. It would be friendship…with benefits. They only had to negotiate the specifics. “If we’re going to be friendly,
kuch
rules
hona chahiye
. There’ve got to be rules.”

“No drugs,” Viki said, automatically.
Now
he acknowledged the empty bottle of Johnnie Walker. “No drinking. I am done with that bullshit.”

Sam was expecting it, but still it stung. “No Jaidev,” he countered, finding a tiny measure of satisfaction in how Vikram looked wounded. “My life is off-limits to you now. So no asking, no remembering. My son is my business only.”

Minutes ticked by, and a pulse jumped in Viki’s cheek. For a short time it seemed as though he’d call off their little truce. He’d loved Jai, Sam knew. It was cruel to ask this. But it was necessary. The life the three of them had led together—with Sunita’s occasional presence—didn’t exist anymore. Vikram had walked away from it. No way in Hell was he getting anywhere near Jaidev
now
, so they could play coconspirator and chart his goddamn sobriety. “Well?” he prompted. “Is it cool or not?”

Viki exhaled a long-suffering sigh—no doubt he had a bloody arsenal of them, all labeled with his name—and then he extended his hand. Like they were old chums. “Yeah.
Haan
, Sam. It’s cool.”

He clasped Vikram’s fingers tightly.
They
weren’t cool at all. They were like licks of fire. “Then we are friends,” he lied. “
Dosti shuru.
”

Chapter Seventeen

They slipped into the roles of Polite Viki and Polite Sam as though they’d signed a contract. It was strange but not strange all at once.

“Priya Roy is coming in on Friday for an item number. They need me, Avinash and Harsh for the shoot. It’s bullshit, man. I think we’re just going to stand around in the background looking tough while she shakes her hips.”

Vikram frowned, peering down at the script pages as if the scene in question would suddenly materialize there. “Why does a historical drama need an item number?”

Sam shrugged. “
Yaar
, don’t ask me. Ask Joshi. He’s nuts, you know?”

“
Yaar
,” Sam had said so casually. As if they were buddies. The back of Viki’s neck prickled, and his hands balled into fists, crumpling his lines. They were trying to be civil. For the sake of their costars and the crew. But he hadn’t been friends-only with Sam in so long that it was an alien concept.
Kuch ajib
.
Kuch alag
. Something so far beyond normalcy. Sam wasn’t his “
yaar
”. He was his “
pyar
”. His love, his lover, his salvation and his destruction.

Joshi wasn’t the only one who was nuts. This whole sorry production was a
paagal-khana
, an insane asylum. He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair and letting his script flutter to the floor. Sam mistook the gesture, or at least the reason behind it, scooting forward across the bed. “
Arre
, tension
maat karna
, Viki. We’ve only got a few weeks left. It’ll be over soon.”

The shoot was
not
the source of his tension. Before he could give voice to this, Sam’s hands were on his back, working the knots that had gathered between his shoulder blades.
Bahenchod.
This wasn’t “civil”. This was intimate. But Viki couldn’t help the way he leaned into the massage, how his head fell forward and he groaned as Sam rubbed at the tightness with his thumbs.

That little noise made Sam go still, curse softly. The filthy word was hot against the curve of Viki’s ear, making him instantly hard. Then Sam chased it with, “Come here,” and that was all it took. They were in each other’s arms. Sam was pushing him flat on the mattress; their limbs tangled, mouths crashed together in the fiercest of kisses.

Sam tasted like smoke and mangoes, bitter and sweet, and Vikram tried to surge up, to take control of the kiss, of this moment, but Sam had him pinned. To buck him loose would be to hurt him…and that…that was something Viki could not bear. So he gave in, he succumbed, dutifully raised his arms when Sam wanted to rid him of his shirt and didn’t resist when he tugged his belt through the loops and shoved down his trousers. Something was driving Sam, something wild and angry. Perhaps this was just another version of his hate for those last weeks of their relationship. Perhaps he was mad at himself for initiating things yet again. Viki tried to read his eyes, but Sam averted his gaze, reaching into the night table for condoms and lubricant and setting them within reach.

“Let me,” Sam whispered. “I want to…” The request was broken by his gasps, by how he reached down and gripped himself through his jeans to keep from coming too fast. But Viki still knew what he was asking. Sam, always content to be taken, wanted to lead, to drive into him as though he was in control. His thighs parted in invitation; his knees bent to say, “Yes.”

With such permission granted, Sam’s fury seemed to calm, and he stretched atop Viki, settling between his legs and kissing him at a much more sedate pace…pressing his mouth delicately to Vikram’s cheek, his jaw, his pulse. The tenderness was almost worse than rage, certainly more puzzling.
Nahin
, he wanted to say.
Tehro
, he wanted to plead.

“What do you want from me, Sam?” he questioned instead. The heat between them was as it always was. But Vikram knew there was something different at play. He felt it in his gut, in his bones.

“I don’t want anything,” Sam insisted, his breath warm against Viki’s neck. “I don’t want anything but this.
Sirf yeh.
Sirf tum.
Just you.”

Sam had
never
wanted just him. It was him-and-hash or him-and-Johnnie or him-and-cocaine. Now Vikram
did
push at him, fingers curling around his shoulders, demanding space. But Sam held fast, the rough denim of his jeans chafing Viki’s bare skin. They struggled, like they were being directed by the fight master, until it wasn’t a struggle anymore and Viki gave in. He would
always
give in. Maybe it wasn’t just Sam who was the addict. He buried one hand in Sam’s fine, too-straight hair, sending the other to attack Sam’s zipper. “Bastard,” he said. “Now,” he pleaded.

Sam undid his jeans the rest of the way, kicking them aside and reaching for protection so he could sheath himself. His slicked-up fingers were cold as they prepared Viki…cold and then unbearably warm and gentle—again that mysterious kindness that he couldn’t understand. But soon enough it didn’t matter, because Vikram wasn’t
capable
of understanding anything except how his hips rose off the bed, how Sam pushed inside him, and how Sam was
so damn beautiful
with his features painted by pleasure. Viki’s knees should’ve ached from the strain, from how Sam pushed them back against the mattress, but he felt no pain. Just rightness. Just completion.

Their voices were a mingled chorus of groans, English insults and Hindi endearments. When Sam thrust into him one last time, before the hot rush of climax washed over them both, all he said was, “
Bas
.”
Enough.

And it was. Because, within minutes, Sam was leaving him to go wash…making it clear that company was not welcome. As though they’d done something that was not worth lingering over.

Viki untangled himself from the bedding. He tried to focus his mind on anything but the sense of loss as he cleaned himself with a corner of the sheets. Dialogues. His upcoming filming dates. When none of that worked, he turned to yoga. He practiced his breathing, folding his legs into the lotus position and clutching his knees as if they were life preservers. It was ludicrous to think he could attain any peace now, when his heart was still racing and he ached in a thousand places. But it was all he had.

He filtered out his hurt and his confusion; he listened instead for the drone of mosquitoes, the slice of the ceiling fan cutting through the humid air. He heard the water beating punishment down on Sam’s skin. He heard raised voices through the walls. Avi and Trishna were fighting about something. He could not make out the exact wording, but the tone…
hai Bhagwan
, it was familiar. He and Sam had argued that way. Sam and Sunita had argued that way. Sam likely argued that way with
everyone
. Vikram was almost glad that he’d run off to the bath. That he was not privy to this echo, to Viki sitting on the bed with his fists clenched as he wondered what he’d got himself into.
This
, not some silly item number, was madness.

Chapter Eighteen

Avi and Trishna were not arguing so much as they were expressing themselves very, very loudly. As two people with passionate tempers, they’d had some really powerful back-and-forths over the years, invigorating spats that invariably landed them in bed. Those around them couldn’t really tell the difference between such exchanges and the ones of a truly bickering couple. Avi would have been happy to give a lecture course on the how-to, were he not occupied talking his dearest wife down off a metaphorical ledge. “You see, it’s simple,” he would say. “If you hear no vases and glasses shattering, it’s perfectly safe.”

The only thing shattering in their rooms this week was Trish’s heart. For all the steel and cellophane tape she’d wrapped around it, it was still fragile. “How can Harsh leave me?” she demanded, gesturing with her hairbrush. “Just now, when it is all working out? It’s not fair!”

“He didn’t leave you. He has to dub for another film, and he’ll be back any day now,” Avinash reminded her. “You know this. You’re a professional. So why all the dramatics? Come on, Trishna. Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

It wasn’t often that he was the rational one. Ninety percent of their life together had involved Trishna scraping
him
off the ceiling after some crisis or another. She was the one with all the answers, with all the keys, with all the control. Except, it seemed, when it came to Harsh Mathur. Prolonged exposure to Harsh Mathur was turning her into a madwoman.

“Darling,” he simpered, in that teasing way that was designed to get under her skin and distract her. “Are you afraid he is going to dump you for some other girl he meets between Bihar and Bombay? Because that will not happen. You only get dumped for men. And even then, it’s by
me
. And not really dumping, because I’m still with you.”

“Shut up, Avi. That is not funny, and that is not what I’m afraid of. What if this isn’t real?” she demanded. “What if he comes back deciding we can’t do this? What if we are all fooling ourselves and the magic goes away once we leave here?” She was the one who had waved the proverbial wand. Now she was doubting the magic?

“Not a chance.” Thank God for Michael, who knew precisely when to keep quiet and when to speak up. Sprawled in a chair by the windows, wearing a faded pair of jeans and one of Avi’s NYU T-shirts, he was the most beautiful thing in the room. “Harsh is out of his mind in love with you. He has been for years, even if you didn’t know of it. He’s not going to develop amnesia just because he’s in Mumbai.
Harsh par bharosa karo, bhabi
. Believe in Harsh. He will come back to you and only you.”

“What happens in Bihar does
not
only stay in Bihar,” Avi added, companionably drawing Trish into his arms. He would always love her, always want her…but, more than that, he would always want her to be as happy as Harsh made her. And as happy as Michael Gill made him. “We’ve changed here, Trishna. For the better. I won’t leave any of it behind, and I will never let anyone leave
you
behind.”

She clung to him for only a precious instant, and then brushed his cheek with her lips. “Thanks, big shot,” she whispered. “You’re the second best man I know.”

“Third!” Michael corrected from his seat. “I’ll have you know I’m quite the catch.” Quite the catch who was a
terrible
catch. “Ow!” Trishna’s hairbrush bounced off his shoulder and clattered to the floor.

Avi looked at the two people he loved most in the world and knew that no matter where they ended up—Patna, Mumbai, Kolkata, London or Timbuktu—as long as they were together, it would be home.