Page 139 of The Encore’s Crown

Radhika’s driver is waiting outside when we leave.

He's not the same man who used to collect us from airports and film sets ten years ago. This one is younger, broad through the shoulders, dressed in a black suit tailored well enough to disappear into the night. He opens the rear door without looking at my split knuckles or asking why half the party seems to be collapsing behind us.

“Take us home,” Radhika tells him quietly.

The ride is silent as Los Angeles slides past the tinted windows. As the seconds pass, I look at her and then I catch her doing the same. Neither of us seems to know where to put the first word. We keep searching each other’s faces for some decent footing, something old enough to stand on without falling through. Eventually, we find it in the silence.

There's always been something grounding about sitting beside her. Even now, after everything. Radhika never fills empty space because she’s afraid of what might live inside it. She lets it exist until the truth gets uncomfortable enough to speak for itself. Another gift from her father. The driver turns through a set of gates and stops beneath the covered entrance of a house I’ve never seen before.

Radhika reaches for the door, then pauses. “Come inside.”

I look at her.

“I have a few things to say to you.”

I’m sheepish as fuck climbing out of the car, but I follow her anyway. I have things I need to say too. Her house is warm inside, dark wood and golden light. Nothing feels staged, despite the art that was probably imported from all over the world and the windows overlooking half the city. Radhika slips off her heels by the door. I follow suit, tugging off my boots and placing them beside hers. She points toward a chair in the sitting room.

“Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you still take your chai black with no sugar?”

I nod. She disappears before I can offer to help. I lower myself into a chair opposite a long, fancy sofa and inspect my hand. The swelling is already rising across the knuckles. The skin split over one of them has begun bleeding again. Nothing feels broken, which is something. Radhika returns carrying a tray with two cups on delicate saucers, and an ice pack wrapped neatly in a towel. She hands me the tea first, then the ice.

“For the nerves and the swelling.”

She sits across from me on the sofa. Poised, elegant and precise. Even barefoot, with her earrings gone and strands of hair falling loose around her face, she looks like she belongs on a throne. I take a sip.

“This place is cozy.”

She nods and drinks from her own cup. Then she simply looks at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re in love?”

I scoff, set my tea down, and press the ice pack against my hand. The cold bites through the towel. I look toward the ceiling before my eyes find her again.

“Does it help if I didn’t really know myself until tonight?”

She shakes her head, but a small smile touches her mouth.

“Don’t.”

Her smile disappears.

“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t give me kindness and compassion when I don’t deserve it. I don’t think I can handle that right now.”

She lowers her cup carefully onto its saucer.

“Ah. And here, after that confession at the Meridian, I thought you were finally moving beyond all this self-loathing.”

I scoff again.

“I’m serious. You should throw that tea in my face, Radhi.”

“This is expensive chai.” She makes a joke of it by clutching the cup to her chest like it's a precious treasure. Normally I'd laugh but I'm too upset with myself for that tonight.

“I mean it, not only for what I did to you. For dragging you into this fucking mess tonight.”