Mom and Mina Kaki both squeezed Rico’s cheeks and kissed his forehead.

“That’s how desi grannies show their affection,” Mishka said, and this time her father ruffled her hair and asked her to behave.

“What? At least I didn’t say anything about how excited everyone is that Ashi Maushi finally found a boyfriend.”

Ashna squeezed Rico’s hand. He looked entirely unfazed by the circus, which made her press into him. A move not a single one of them missed.

“So actually.” Ashna cleared her throat. “He’s not a new boyfriend.” She looked up at Rico and his eyes were intensely focused on her, his breath held. “Rico and I knew each other in high school.”

“Knew?” Trisha said.

“Biblically?” Mishka said, and this time Nisha gasped and slapped a hand across her daughter’s mouth. “What?” Mishka said, undaunted. “Trisha Maushi said she and DJ Kaka knew each other biblically when you guys were talking.”

Rico started shaking with silent laughter against Ashna.

Ashna ruffled her niece’s hair. “We were in love. We still are.” She went up on her toes and kissed his lips, quick and full and tender, right there in front of everyone.

Shobi was the first one to start laughing. “All right then.”

Mina turned to her. “She told you?” She sounded somewhere between offended and delighted.

An avalanche of questions came at Ashna. “You didn’t tell us!” “So this was your junior year? See, I knew something was up. You were never home.” “Did you go to Paris with him?”

“We’ll talk later,” Ashna said. “But we broke up at the end of senior year.”

The mention of her senior year silenced everyone for a moment.

“Did you get on the show because of her?” Yash asked.

Rico’s arm was still tight around Ashna. “Never stopped missing her. Googled her. Saw the announcement for the show and bullied myself in.”

“That explains a lot!” Ashna said and kissed him again.

One of the assistants made an announcement for everyone to start getting back to their seats. The judges had finished deliberating and had their results.

Yash threw Rico a look Ashna couldn’t quite interpret. “Thanks for the email you sent me about the news pieces being the start of a smear campaign. You were right, we’ve been able to trace some pretty tenacious digging. I was wondering if you had any ideas about how to address it. And, well, if you had any interest in helping with the campaign.”

Rico looked at Ashna like a child thrown into a ball-pit of candy.

Really? She widened her eyes at him.

He shrugged. You okay with that?

Was he kidding? This was perfect.

“You’re bringing him to dinner tomorrow,” Mina Kaki declared before everyone was ushered back into place.

“Welcome to the family,” Shobi said, and gave Rico a hug.