Page 88 of The Encore’s Crown

“Truly? You mean it?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes shone. Something close enough to tears that it made my chest feel strange. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She looked at me as if the answer should have been obvious. Because this was serious and meeting her parents wasn't the same as meeting her in some anonymous hotel room halfway across the world. A week in her home meant being seen beside her in daylight. At meals with her family. With no checkout time waiting to rescue us. Because people who met parents were supposed to be considering what came next. We both knew it, but neither of us said it.

Radhika smiled slowly. “Well, if you're certain… I'd like that.”

“So it's settled. And you’re sneaking into my room. Every night.”

“You'll be lucky if my father lets you inside the gate. He'll sense your intentions.”

“He’ll love me. I’m incredibly charming under pressure.”

She laughed openly then, loud and joyful. There it was, that sound I had crossed countries for. I smiled back at her, young and stupid enough to believe wanting something was the same as being ready for it. She looked at me through the screen, glowing with happiness, and I grinned like we’d just planned a holiday.

Not like we’d set our feet on a road straight through her family, her faith, and every future she imagined for us.

A road we'd follow so far that by the time we understood how it changed us, there'd be no way back.

Chapter 36

Rockefeller Levels

Kiri

The flight from Los Angeles to Mumbai, plus the connection to Udaipur, was long enough for me to regret every drink I’d had the night before, every decision I’d made since birth, and the fact human beings had ever looked at the sky and decided we belonged up there.

Radhika had been in India for nearly three months filming, sending me photographs from the set between takes and calling whenever the time difference allowed. Sometimes she appeared on my screen in full costume and jewelry, looking like someone carved out of history. Other times she was wrapped in a robe with half her makeup removed, complaining about fourteen-hour days while someone shouted for her beyond the trailer door.

Now I was crossing an ocean to enter the part of her life I had only ever seen through a screen. A week in the home where she had grown up, surrounded by people who knew her before the rest of the world did.

I had played festivals in front of eighty thousand people with my hands shaking. I had walked onto stages after throwing up from nerves, stood across tables from label executives who could erase careers with one phone call, and once performed an entire encore with blood filling my boot after splitting my heel open on a lighting rig.

None of that felt as dangerous as meeting Radhika’s father.

As the plane’s wheels touched solid ground, I’d convinced myself it would be fine. Then a man in a dark suit addressed me by name and guided me through a private arrival process I hadn’t known airports offered. Outside, a black car was waiting to take me from Udaipur airport to the Malhotras’ ancestral estate, nearly an hour into the Aravalli hills.

The second I stepped outside, India hit me all at once. Color everywhere. Saris flashing pink, orange, yellow, red through crowds that seemed to move in every direction at once. Motorbikes threading through gaps I would have sworn weren’t wide enough to exist. Cars leaning on their horns, people calling to one another, luggage carts rattling over pavement, families squeezing together beneath the heat. I’d toured some of the biggest cities in the world. I knew crowds. Traffic and noise were nothing new to me. But I’d never experienced anything with this much movement packed into every inch of space.

It was fucking beautiful. It was also so intense that when the driver reached for my duffel, I held on to it. We had an awkward staring contest.

Eventually, he said, “Sir?”

Right. Rich people hospitality.

I released the bag. “Sorry.”

He nodded with the patience of a man who had probably dealt with far more difficult guests than an overtired bassist emotionally attached to his luggage. By the time I climbed into the back seat, I was grateful for the sudden quiet. I didn't want away from everything outside, but my body needed a minute to remember how to breathe before all that color and humanity made me pass out in the middle of it.

Inside the car, there was bottled water waiting in the console, along with fruit, cold towels, and a handwritten note from Radhika.

Wear the blue shirt tonight. I like you most in that one.

I laughed for the first time since leaving Los Angeles. For the journey I was wearing an old band shirt with the collar cut low enough to expose the top of my chest, two necklaces resting against my skin. It looked like me. More importantly, Radhika had spent enough time on video calls staring at that exact strip of skin for me to know she approved. The confidence lasted until the city began thinning around us. The roads widened. Walls appeared, then gates, then properties hidden behind trees and security posts. Our car turned onto a private road lined with flowering trees. I looked out the window. The road kept going, and going.

I leaned toward the driver. “Are we still on their property?”

“Yes, sir.”