Spice and Smoke (14 page)

“Man, I don’t have those ‘coming out’ issues. Half the world knows I’m gay by now. So just leave it,” he spat, trying to concentrate on the peace of filling his lungs with the only drug he was allowed.

But Michael wouldn’t be deterred. “Just answer the question, Sam.”

It was hard to deny a man who looked like a god and sounded like a telephone sex operator. “Nine. I was nine, okay? I was totally mad for Mithun in
Baadal
.” In retrospect, he blamed the tractor. He’d always been soft for men who weren’t afraid of hard work, who didn’t mind getting a little dirty.
Like Viki.

“When did you take your first drink?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Ten, maybe? I broke into
Dadaji
’s liquor storage. Got sick on brandy he’d had in there forever.”

“Your first smoke?” Michael prompted.

Sam was fully humoring the line of questioning now. “Cigarettes? Thirteen. Marijuana, fifteen. I did my first line of cocaine in a beach club in Mauritius when I was seventeen. Is the history tour over now, Austin-
sahib
? Satisfied?”

Michael slid down the low wall to sit next to him. “No. I am making a point, Sam. You have never been gay and sober at once. I think you are scared.”

He felt his spine stiffen even as he laughed aloud. “Scared of what? Not getting high? Because,
yaar
, you better believe I got over that in my very expensive rehabilitation center.”

“No, you’re scared that Viki won’t love who you are without the drugs. That you can’t love
him
without the drugs.”

He didn’t know what to say to that except, “Fuck you, man.”

Michael didn’t blink. “That pleasure is reserved for Avi, and it didn’t come without pain. I had to put myself out there, knowing he is married.”

“How long has this huge risk been playing out, Romeo? A week?” he snorted, derisively. “That’s so cool. So very romantic.”

“Thirty-eight days.” Michael’s know-it-all façade slipped a notch. Despite not feeling particularly generous, Sam patted his thigh.

“Relax,
yaar
. It’s cool. In queer years you are nearly ready to get a dog and move in together. He’s mad for you. Anyone can see that.”

Hell, the crew had a front-row seat for
all
their drama, which pretty much made them the worst actors ever assembled on one picture. Perhaps Joshi needed to chuck
The Raj
and sell the backstage stories instead? Michael shifted, staring up at the gathered clouds. “Viki’s crazy for you, too. Or did you not hear him announcing it to the public?”

“I know. I heard. I hear it even when I’m not listening.” Sam watched a single bolt of lightning arc across the sky. The rains would begin again at any moment. “He loves me. He’s always loved me. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“Then just believe it. Because that’s all any of us has got.” Michael returned his thigh squeeze, and then stood, climbing back onto the roof proper and leaving him alone.

That’s all any of us has got.
All he’d ever really had was Jaidev and Viki. That was all that had ever mattered in his life. Shit.
Shit.
Michael was right.
Son of a bitch.

Rahul Anand and Harsh were the ones who came after him…following him out to a secluded veranda. He had the absurd thought that such a team-up was alien after Harsh and Michael constantly dogging his footsteps like they were as inseparable as Butch and Sundance or Munna Bhai and Circuit. But, then, everything was alien, wasn’t it? Sam had ripped his heart from his chest and he was still walking. How was that even possible?

“Vikram, don’t worry. This will not leave Bihar. There won’t be gossip.” Oh, so
that
was why Rahul had presented himself. “Joshi and I will straighten everything out.”

The ironic choice of words made Viki choke back a laugh, and he leaned against a pillar, covering his eyes lest they see the less-than-mirthful tears in them. There was a sympathetic squeeze of his shoulder that could only be courtesy of Mathur the Monk.

“Come on, man,” Harsh murmured. “It’s okay.”

“Okay? How? How can this possibly be okay?” When he allowed himself to meet it, Harsh’s pale gaze was unbearably compassionate. “You heard what Sam said out there. He hates me. He resents me. He thinks I’m the same as heroin or cocaine. That I’m his drug.”

“What was
inside
those words, Vikram? Did you hear
that
? Because I think everyone else did.” Harsh tossed a look over his shoulder, as if confirming that Rahul, too, had gained whatever brilliant insight he was about to impart. “Sam Khanna’s in love with you,
yaar
. I think he’s been in love with you this whole time.”

If that was the case, Sam’s definition of love was total
bakwas
. Viki shrugged off Harsh’s hand, casting a baleful glare at him and also at Rahul. “Sam’s love is like poison. It’s codependent and dysfunctional.” God help him, he sounded like the literature they passed out at addiction support groups.

“Maybe that’s the only way he knows how to love.” Rahul’s usually friendly, open face darkened like a thundercloud. “Maybe what he needs is all of our support, no matter how badly he behaves. Did you ever think of that, Vikram? That he needs us to
not
walk away?”

Yes, he’d thought of that. Of
course
he’d thought of that. It was an enabler’s lullaby,
na
? “I stood by him,” he assured, roughly. “I believed in him when no one else did
. Hum saath-saath the.
We were together in everything. In all the darkest times.”

“Then stand by him in the light,” Rahul said simply. “Be with him now, when he’s finally back on track. Because I think he needs a little push in believing that he’s better.”

A little push? Sam was the kind of stubborn little shit who needed a tight slap and a hard shove. But he
was
better. Viki couldn’t deny that. Working on
The Raj
had proven it. He was clean, sober, ready to work and play and laugh…if he could only stop seeing everything as part and parcel of his addiction.

“What’s more important,
yaar
? Protecting yourself or taking a chance on him?” Harsh asked. Viki knew the question came from a personal place. For hadn’t he taken a chance on Trishna? Tossed caution to the winds? “Do you really want to leave Sam again?”

Yes. No.
Never.
Vikram scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand, as if he could banish both the tear tracks and his conflict. Rahul and Harsh wore matching expressions of compassion. “Love doesn’t come around often,” Rahul pointed out, and something in his eyes called to his own story. Whatever had happened with Priya Roy…it was still paining him. “What if this is your last chance to make it right? What if this was all meant to be?”

Was it? They’d gathered quite a motley crew on
The Raj
, hadn’t they? Somehow, everyone had paired off, two by two. Even Mili the makeup girl and Mohan the driver…they’d gone off on holiday to Gol Ghar and climbed all one hundred and forty-five steps. Could he climb a much smaller number for Sam? Could he take the first, crucial, step?

Viki knew questions would not suffice. Now, all he needed was answers.

Chapter Twenty

The thunder of horses’ hooves heralds the coming storm, the noise growing louder with every passing tick of minutes. At any moment, the
sipahis
will be upon them
…
will
finish
them.
They are outnumbered
,
crippled, both in spirit and in body.
This is not a reckoning. It is a slaughter.

“Take her,” Varun whispers, hefting his sword. “Take your woman and go. Leave this terrible place. Find happiness where you can.”

But Alok cannot abandon those he loves, the men he respects, to the fate he knows awaits them. “No, brother. I am with you. Nishta is with you. We are all in
Ishwar
’s hands now.”

A Roman emperor had once fiddled while his city burned. Trishna found herself dancing while her film was, quite possibly, crumbling. It was her
bewakoof
husband’s idea, of course. She’d paced back and forth in the hall like an expectant father in a hospital ward, wearing grooves into the floor until Avi diverted her by pulling her into the set where they’d been filming the item number. Empty of extras and crew, now just a cavernous room of dormant cables and silenced smoke machines. He’d demanded she show him some dance steps, because he was still feeling a bit off tempo.

“Now
you
want a revolution?” she grumbled.

“No, I want peace after all the
tamasha
.”

“I will give you a piece…of my mind.”

They practiced for perhaps twenty minutes, but it felt like hours until Harsh and Michael returned from their respective missions, looking like two bearers of miserable news.

“What happened?” She stopped mid-whirl and Avinash, still copying her, stumbled off balance. “Are Vikram and Sam all fixed up?”

Michael caught Avi, setting him right and slinging an arm around his shoulder like they were chums. They would fool no one. No friends looked at each other with such trust and affection. “I did my best,
bhabi
. It’s up to them to fix each other.”

Harsh was more helpful. With his eyes alone, he told her volumes. He’d spoken in a similar way when he came back from Mumbai, telling her that he missed her and loved her and that all her fears were baseless. “They are very proud, very tough. But
bahut pyar hain ooske beech main
. There is a lot of love there also. That will win out in the end.”

“
Sach
? Oh, really, Saint Harsh?” She gently pushed at his shoulder. Not the hard shoves and sharp slaps of so many weeks before. “How do you know? What made you so smart?”

“You did.” He cut a quick, careful, glance round the room before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It won with the four of us,
na
?”

Trish felt Avi’s gaze on her then. Sober, serious, just a little bit sad. And she understood. In this, too, he’d had to be shown the proper steps. Perhaps he would never master the moves completely, but he was trying. They were
all
trying. She didn’t bother checking the room for prying eyes before looping her arm through Harsh’s. Before bringing them close to Avinash and Michael in an absurdly silly, but absurdly
right
, embrace. “It won because we fought for it,” she told her boys. “Because it’s worth it to continue fighting.”

Forget
The Raj
. Love was the only empire that mattered.

When Sam finally got it in his head to follow in Michael’s wake, he climbed slowly over the parapet and back onto the roof. It felt like it had been hours, but it had only been minutes since the lecture session. He half-expected the perfect Mr. Gill to be waiting for him. But it wasn’t Michael who greeted him at the top of the stone staircase that led back down into the
haveli
.

Viki looked like he’d gone ten rounds with the fight master. His broad shoulders were slumped, his eyes brimming with exhaustion. Sam didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Sorry? Forgive me?
Main
world class idiot
hoon
? He turned away, tilting his face up to the first drops of rain, hoping the water would somehow flush away the last two hours.

“Harsh, Avinash and Trishna have smoothed things over with Joshi and Anand.” Vikram sounded as beaten as he looked.
I did that
, Sam thought sickly.
I hurt him.
“They swore the crew to secrecy. None of our little drama will go to the public. I just thought you should know.”

“I’m not worried, man.” It was true. The crew selling their saga to the Bollywood tabloids was last thing on his mind. “I’m worried about us. About you. About what the hell we are doing here.”

Arms encircled him from behind, and Sam felt the weight of Viki’s chin on his shoulder. It was more than he deserved at this moment. But, then, Vikram had always given him that,
na
? Even on that very last day…when he’d found him tripping from a bad batch and they’d screamed the studio down around their ears.

“I’m sorry,” he began, but Viki cut him off with a shake of his head and a soft noise of dismissal…followed by an even softer kiss to his bared throat. “Don’t talk, Sam. You’ll only hurt us both. Just…feel.”

Just feel. Wasn’t that how he’d got into this mess in the first place? Always going in pursuit of the next rush? For years and years, all he’d done was feel. Recklessly. What he hadn’t done enough of was
think
. Or
believe
. Viki’s hands were linked around his waist, and he covered them with his own, leaning back against the solid wall of Viki’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “For all of it,
yaar
. Everything.”

He felt the tremor go through Vikram’s body. “Don’t call me your ‘
yaar
’, Sam. I am not your friend. I’m never going to be just your friend.”

“Then what are you?”

His laugh was shaky, his day’s growth of beard rough against Sam’s cheek as he nuzzled him. “Incomplete,” he admitted. “
Tumhara bin adhura hu.
I am not whole without you. God help me. I tried to be. I
really
tried to be.”

“Maybe you need a rehab. I can recommend you several.” He twisted in Viki’s arms, going in for a short, closed-mouth kiss. Viki kissed him back; he would always kiss him back, but it was as though Viki was keeping part of himself away. Giving Sam what he thought he needed…and taking nothing for himself. Treating the recovering addict with delicacy, in case he exploded at him again.