Annika’s heart was racing, and her mind buzzed with incomprehension. She was still trying to wrap her head around what was happening when Daniel spoke.

“Hoon tho bolu chun, neh?”

He did speak it. He had an accent, but still.

His grandmother harrumphed as grandmothers do and continued in Gujarati. “Yes, but how often do you come to see your grandmother?”

In contrast to his father asking this question, Daniel grinned and answered her back in Gujarati. “I’ll try to come more.”

“So has your father met Daniel yet?” Ba addressed Annika with a slightly crooked smile.

“Ba—” Daniel sounded a bit like a teenager “—can we not do this?”

“You hush, I’m talking to Annika. Besides, you brought her here.”

“Ba...”

She turned to face her grandson. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

Daniel flushed bright red. “Umm...we’re...”

“Friends. Ba, we’re just friends.” Annika helped. Is that what they were? Kissing-type friends?

Ba narrowed her eyes at her grandson. “You did not bring a booty call here to meet your family, did you?” She said booty call in English, and Annika could barely contain her gasp.

“Oh my God, Ba! Stop!” Daniel was all kinds of crimson, much to the amusement of his sister and mother. “How do you even know that word?” Even his father had cracked a small smile.

Annika wasn’t sure what surprised her more: Daniel speaking Gujarati or Ba knowing the phrase booty call. She was blushing, but she managed to keep smiling and looking at Ba, all the while wishing there was a hole she could disappear into. She did not, however, miss the twinkle in Ba’s eye.

“What?” Ba asked innocently. “It’s a question.”

“Well, I think he brought me here to meet you because I caught him doing garba and bhangra like a boss at that wedding last weekend,” Annika said. “But now that I’ve met you all, I see that he’s been holding out on me.”

Ba chuckled. “He always liked fooling people. Look at him—dark brown hair, green eyes. No one would suspect he had an old Gujarati grandmother.”

“Aw, Ba. You’re not old.” Daniel gazed upon his grandmother with such love and affection that Annika almost didn’t recognize him. She’d watched a lot of things play upon his face, but this kind of love hadn’t been one of them.

She laughed again. “I am, but don’t think I’m too old to knock sense into you. About time you came to see Charlie.”

The affection he had for his grandmother never left his eyes, but his face went blank, as surely as if he had put on a mask to cover whatever emotion his nephew elicited.