When Faults Collide (Faultlines #1) (13 page)

I walked up front to check out when a basket nicked mine.

“Oops, so sorry!” a voice called. A voice I recognized.

Mandy.

I plastered the fakest grin I could muster. “Hey, Mandy. No problem.”

“Oh, Asha. Hi honey! How are you?” she said, voice dripping with contempt.

“Great, great. You?” I asked politely.

“I’m good. You know, Gus and I aren’t together anymore,” she said.

Well thank heavens for that
.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that,” I said looking around, hoping to get away from this awkward conversation.

“I’m sure,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Okay, well I better get going. Nice to see you again,” I said, swerving my cart around hers to make my way to the checkout.

She followed suit and got in line behind me.

“So, you and Blake huh?” she asked.

I turned to look at her. “Yep. Why do you ask?”

She shrugged, feigning impassiveness. “Just curious. I didn’t think you were his type, is all.”

My mouth dropped at her rudeness.

“Well, what ‘type’ do you think he had?” I asked incredulously, turning towards the cashier.

She shrugged again. “Oh you know, someone with better breeding...that’s all.”

My hands gripped my cart, knuckles turning white before I whipped around again.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are, you little bitch, but my father is the CEO of Harris Industries. Your parents are veterinarians. And you do not know Blake at all. So please don’t pretend to know his ‘type’ or what’s important to him, or pretend to know my breeding,” I seethed.

I turned and began to set my groceries on the belt, ignoring her completely as she stood dumbstruck from my boldness.

After the cashier finished ringing me up, I swiped my card, and as I was taking the receipt she had the audacity to whisper, “At least my mother wasn’t a whore.”

I whipped around again and pushed her cart out of the way, getting about an inch from her face.

“Don’t you
ever
talk about my mother. Don’t you
dare
speak
one word about
something you can’t even
begin
to possibly understand. Let me explain something to you. Because I have class, I’m going to count this as your warning. I present well. I
have
‘good breeding.’ But I had to learn at a very young age how to defend myself. So if you ever so much as breathe a word in my direction again, you’ll learn very quickly about the fiery rage that I have inside me. I
dare
you to test this theory. In fact, I look forward to it,” I said with a slightly maniacal grin.

I backed up, blew her a sarcastic kiss, put my groceries in my cart, and walked out, leaving her standing there with her jaw on the floor.

Bitch
.

I drove home with no music, just stewing on my own anger.

I went inside and put everything away, made myself a sandwich, and then went upstairs to work on Shine’s logo.

A few hours later, logo completed, my anger long gone, I decided to start on dinner.

I pulled out my dutch oven and started browning the beef with onions and tomatoes in oil.

While the beef browned, I peeled and chopped the potatoes and minced up the garlic.

I added a little beef broth, garam masala, cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and turmeric to the beef and then turned the heat down to low.

I boiled the potatoes while I chopped up the cauliflower. I drained the potatoes and combined them with the cauliflower, the garlic, some diced onion, a little oil and ghee, then added some garam masala, cumin, and seasoned salt before dumping the mixture into a casserole pan and popping it into the oven.

Then I peeled and diced up the eggplant, tossed it with oil, added some diced onion and the same spice mixture that I put on the potatoes, putting it all on a baking sheet and into the oven to roast.

I poured the rice into the rice cooker, added water and turned it on before doing the same with the lentils in the pressure cooker.

I made myself a latte to sip on while everything cooked and sat at the dining room table scrolling through social media, liking and commenting as I waited.

The timer went off and I took everything out to check it.

Perfect
.

I made a plate for Blake, covering it and putting it in the microwave, then made myself a plate. I set it on the counter while
I packed the leftovers into containers and cleaned everything up, setting all the dishes in the sink.

As I sat down with my plate to eat, my phone rang.

“Hi Dad,” I said as I put my first bite in my mouth.

“Hey, babygirl. What are you doing?” he asked.

“Eating,” I said with a full mouth.

“Oh, should I call you back?”

“No,” I said, swallowing. “It’s just me. Lily is at Tom’s and Blake won’t be here for a while still, so it’s just me.”

“Blake, huh? So, y’all are like... a thing?” I could tell by his voice he was treading lightly.

“Yeah. We kind of are. Actually, I want to bring him over on Sunday...is that okay?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes! That’s good. I can rough him up and put him through the inquisition,” he said, teasing.

I giggled. “Ok dad. Really though, is it okay?”

“Oh, yes. Marcy will die. This is great, Asha. Really,” he said earnestly.

“Cool. Well then, we will see you Monday. I’m going to get back to my food now, Dad.”

“Okay, honey. Love you.”

“Love you too, Dad. Bye.”

I disconnected and finished plowing through my food, completely happy with the results.

Other than lentils, rice, and maybe the occasional mutton, my Indian cooking knowledge was pretty limited when I left Kolkata.

Since my dad was all about me keeping my heritage, he had enrolled me in an Indian cooking class and I loved it.

Of course, I only took a few classes; one day my teacher touched my shoulder unexpectedly and I went into a full episode, requiring
my dad to leave work and come get me...again.

I sighed at the memory. Maybe I had come a long way.

Chapter Fourteen

I sat perched on my porch swing, swaying slightly in the wind, reading my book and enjoying the night air an sound of leaves blowing down the sidewalk.

I saw Blake’s car pull up and park in front of my car on the street and smiled as I spotted him getting out.

My smile faded when I saw the angry look on his face and gave him a confused look as he walked up the stairs. He saw me and smiled weakly, then came over and gave me a quick kiss.

“Hey, beautiful girl. You are exactly what I need right now,” he breathed.

“Mmm. Rough night?” I asked, picking up my legs so he could sit.

He sat and then pulled my legs into his lap and leaned his head back on the swing and let out a breath.

“Yeah. A couple of idiots got drunk and started fighting. The cops got called, we got a citation...just a mess.”

I sat up and rubbed his arm. “I’m sorry. Sounds like a sucky night. Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Yes. I’ve subsisted off a bag of almonds today.”

I stood up and went in the house to heat up his plate. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and took both to him outside before sitting cross legged on the swing so he could eat.

“Oh my God...so good. So, so good,” he said, practically shoveling the food into his mouth.

I giggled. “Thanks.”

When he finished, I took the plate inside to put it in the dishwasher. When I came back outside he was looking at my book.

“Louis Pasteur. He invented pasteurizing for milk, right?”

“Yes, and the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He’s pretty awesome,” I said before sitting to join him again.

“I think I read an article about his germ studies in college,” he said, turning the book over and then handing it to me.

I set it down on the porch and nodded. “Yep. He won a ton of awards for them.”

“Yeah, there was a lot of mention of him and his practices in the biography I read on Robert Koch. You should read that one when you are finished. Then maybe I can borrow that one.”

I smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

He rubbed my knee. “Can I just say that I think it’s incredibly hot that you read biographies?”

“Right back at you, handsome,” I said, winking.

“So I was wondering if you want to come down to Shine tomorrow night? I have to stay for tomorrow’s show too, but my bouncers have been grilled to the max to not allow bullshit like tonight happen again. I’d like you to come down and check it out,” he said smiling.

I nodded. “Sounds like fun. What time?”

“Around 7pm, the show starts at 8pm.”

“Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. I’m doing my usual morning, then lunch with Lily, then I see Katherine at 4pm, but I’ll be done with plenty of time to get there.”

“Who’s Katherine?” he asked curiously.

“Oh. Um...my therapist. I see her every Friday.”

“That’s cool. I’m glad you have her. I could never find a counselor that worked for me,” he explained, shrugging.

“But then how are you so okay? You don’t seem to have near the baggage that I do. How did you manage that without therapy?” I asked, shocked by this.

“Well, I was in therapy, I just never felt it did anything for me. And I have baggage. Everyone does. I dealt with my past in some really unhealthy ways, but Amy and Dave helped me a lot. I was really into drugs; I wasn’t an addict, but I definitely had a problem. I used drugs to numb the pain and to try and push people away. When I got placed with Amy and Dave, actually, they picked me up from juvie. I was doing a short stint for possession. And even though—Lord knows—I did everything in my power to push those two away. Stealing, property destruction, running away, sneaking out, just being an ass and refusing to cooperate...they didn’t give up on me. They taught me healthier ways to cope with my pain, and no matter what, even if I had just done something really messed up, they were always there to talk anytime I wanted to. They forced me to go to group therapy and other programs thinking it would help, but honestly they did more for me than any therapist could.”

“So they were your Katherine,” I said, understanding.

He nodded. “Yeah, they were.”

We sat and talked for another hour, enjoying the serenity of the
night and the company of each other.

I covered my mouth and yawned.

He leaned in and kissed me softly.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” he asked in barely a whisper.

“In your house?” I asked.

He nodded. “Like last night. Nothing else.” He was nervous.

I smiled. “Sounds wonderful.”

I leaned in and kissed him again.

We stood up and he walked over to his door, which was a pale off-white in contrast to my bright purple door. He opened the door and led me inside.

It was laid out the exact same way as my house, just mirrored.

I noticed his living room, which was definitely bachelor pad-ish with a black leather couch and glass end tables. He had a large flat screen with multiple gaming systems on a glass TV stand. He had no art or photos on the walls, but had an abstract rug covering the dark wood floors.

He held my hand and led me up the stairs to his room, which was like my room in layout, including the second attached room.

He had a king size bed on a platform base, painted black nightstands, and a black dresser. I walked into the adjoining room to check it out and realized it was his library. The entire room had shelves lining the walls and a comfy chair sat in one corner with a floor lamp next to it.

“Your library,” I said, impressed.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m gonna go change; be right back,” he said, kissing me on the cheek as he went into the bathroom.

I walked around the room and scanned the shelves, finding that while we did have a lot of the same books, he had easily five times what I had. If this was how many he had in print, I was curious to
know how many e-books he had. I had ten times the e-books that I did print. Especially since so many of the classics are free.

He came out of the bathroom with basketball shorts and a muscle tank on.

He smiled and I smiled back shyly.