‘You’re the smartest person I know,’ he replied, peering ahead through the windshield at buildings on both sides of the road. ‘But your memory’s rubbish. You had to pee, remember? Oh, here we go.’

He turned into the gates of J.W. Marriott Hotel.

The shiny marble in the lobby made Gehna’s trainers squeak in an embarrassing way. She glanced over at the two petite women in perfectly draped sarees, who were manning the front desk. I’ll bet they can tell that the pregnant girl is here just for a free pee. Well, they can just suck it up. If anyone deserves to be cut some slack it’s us bearers of future generations. She squared her shoulders and braved the vast, silent expanse of the lobby.

On her way back, she spotted Eram hanging around the coffee shop and headed over. Gehna thought that The Pune Baking Company was a rather grand-sounding name for what was basically a few round tables arranged in front of a pastry counter. It had a playful vibe though, with wall shelves in the back displaying cookie boxes, vintage glass bottles and jars of artisanal jam. Fanciful flower arrangements in tall vases on a trestle table to one side added more colour.

As soon as he saw Gehna, Eram grabbed her arm and led her to a table.

‘Sit,’ he said, shooting a furtive glance over his shoulder.

Gehna frowned. ‘You’re being highly shady,’ she said. ‘Let’s go, let’s go. We have to reach the beach by sunrise. Tick-tock, tick—’

She broke off because the pastry counter guy was bringing them a large, perfectly round Sachertorte with two forks. Eram pronounced it ‘sucker-tort’. Gehna didn’t correct him.

‘It’s apparently a Viennese cake that’s supposed to be really famous,’ Eram said. ‘It was either this or sticking a candle into that vada pav outside. Happy birthday, G.’

For all the fuss Gehna made over her birthday, she had forgotten all about it in the excitement of the impromptu road trip. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be celebrating her eighteenth in a vacant coffee shop with a boy she didn’t even know back then, that she would be pregnant and on an unplanned trip to Goa for a poker tournament, she would not have believed it. She would have believed even less that she would be happy.

‘It’s got my name on it,’ she said. ‘Or it’s almost got my name on it.’

When Eram leaned forward to look at the cake, he saw the word ‘Gehana’ scrawled on it in white icing. ‘Whatta guy, dude! I even wrote it out for him.’ He smudged away the extra ‘a’ with a finger and reached for a napkin, but Gehna caught his hand before it got there.

‘Don’t waste cake,’ she said. After a quick look around to check that no one was watching, she put Eram’s fingertip in her mouth and quickly sucked the chocolate off.

The jury was out on which of them was more shocked.