“And you’ve what, worn clothes from Target and paid your own way through college?” He picked a morsel from her lips and popped it into his own mouth.

“I do, as a matter of fact, have quite a few clothes from Target. They’re quite nice. And yes, I did pay my own way through college. I had a full ride. And I worked to pay my rent.”

“Is this a hit on me not having gone to college?”

She wiped the edge of his mouth with her thumb and dropped a quick kiss on his jaw. “No. This is me telling you, again, that you leave yourself wide open, that you have no fear, and that some people can interpret your generosity as weakness and feed off you like a damn carcass.”

“I don’t know if I should be livid or flattered.”

Her smile turned up the giant floodlight that was perpetually burning inside him these days. “Being flattered would be most on brand.”

She thought she was so funny. But he loved how they could talk like this without anger, something intangibly strong letting them push without fear. That didn’t mean he wasn’t getting a little tired of all these allusions to his cluelessness.

“I happen to like being this way. Trusting people, trusting myself, is a gift, and I’ll keep it, thank you very much. It’s so much better than being a cynical old crone.”

She popped the last piece into his mouth. “Did you just call me old?” A teasing smile shone in her eyes. Another favorite.

He went to the sink and rinsed out the Tupperware. She followed him and pressed her face into his back, arms around his waist.

“No, I just called you cynical.” He leaned back into her hug. “You have a serious problem with prioritizing criticism, you know that?”

“I do know that.” Her easy laughter fell onto his back, filled his chest, filled every part of him.

It struck him again, with some force, that for the first time in his life he wanted time to stand still. He wanted to be nowhere but here. He wanted this moment to last forever.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Our project is in the New York fucking Times!” Jiggy Mehta said with his usual self-congratulatory air that made Naina want to drop him off his bungee cliff without a cord.