Page 12 of Driven By Desire

O ld hindi songs played softly from the phone resting on the wrought iron table.

Max hummed to herself, even as she frowned over the part she was currently working on.

Stopping abruptly in mid hum, she started to mutter to herself as she examined it more carefully.

Kishore Kumar continued to croon melodically in the background unaware that he’d lost his previously captive audience.

“Do you always talk to yourself while you work?”

Startled out of her preoccupation, Max looked up to find Krish watching her. In cream coloured cargo shorts paired with a faded, well-worn open necked black t-shirt and ratty old sandals, he looked both relaxed and mouth wateringly delicious. Max put the part down carefully and got to her feet.

“We need to source another electrical fuel pump.”

“Okay.”

“We can bid for it online on Ebay and few other portals that I know of.”

“Okay.”

Wondering at the easy acceptance of the unexpected expenditure, Max said, “I can explain why.”

“Do you have to?”

The pained grimace that accompanied the question had Max grinning. “Don’t you want to know why I’m spending your money?”

“Max, I don’t even know what the hell an electrical fuel pump is. If you think it’s needed, go ahead and get one. You’re the expert.”

Warmth sliding through her at his finally easy acceptance of her expertise and knowledge, Max asked. “What are you going to do with it when it’s restored?”

“Hopefully, drive it. Probably on a Sunday when traffic is less. We have a farmhouse close by. The highway leading to it would make for a gorgeous, easy run. And someday, I’d like Pooja to have it.”

“Pooja? Not your brothers?”

After a beat of silence in which he ran his hand gently over the bonnet of the MG, he answered, “We have our memories. Even Adi, young as he was, remembers them. Pooja doesn’t.

I can tell her about mom and dad. About how much they loved us.

How we were the center of their world. How they always put us first. Before work, before their social life, even before each other.

But I can’t give her those memories. I can’t make her remember. ”

“So you’re giving her a piece of him.” Her heart softened and did a slow turn inside her as she watched him continue to slowly stroke the car.

The soft glow of his memories softened and eased the lines of stress normally carved into them.

The urge to reach out and wrap her arms around him wrapped its tentacles around her heart making her fists clench at her sides.

Unsure of his reaction to that gesture and unwilling to let anything shatter the moment, Max kept her unruly hands to herself and leaned back against the table behind her and waited for him to continue.

“Of them.” Smiling softly, he looked up and over at her. “My dad courted my mom in this car. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No.” Immersed in stories he hadn’t thought of in ages, Krish barely heard her soft murmur.

“It used to be in a condition to drive back then. Mom claims she fell more in love with the car than him.” Grinning now, he added, “I have the strangest suspicion I was conceived in this car though I try really hard not to think about it. Especially given the fact that it’s a two-seater.”

Laughing, Max was about to reply, when Pooja erupted out of the back door yelling, “I’m bored.”

“Already? Didn’t you just get back from school?” The dry question from her brother had Pooja checking her headlong rush towards them.

“I was bored in school too,” she shot back cheekily. “And I’m hungry.”

“Eat a fruit. I don’t want you spoiling your appetite before dinner.”

“Usually it’s dinner that spoils my appetite.” Laughing at her brother’s mock growl, she retreated to a position of safety behind Max. Confident she was now out of reach, she intoned gravely, “And on the menu tonight is burned vegetables with wet rice.”

“You little brat.” Laughing, he swiped at her and missed as she dodged around Max. “Just for that, you’re eating Maggi Noodles tonight.”

“Really?” Giving a loud whoop of joy, she danced around the two of them. “Best punishment ever!”

Chuckling as she watched Pooja do a victory lap, Max said, “Next time, try oats.”

Wincing, he said, “That’s just vicious. No crime is awful enough to deserve oats.” Snagging Pooja’s collar as she ran past him one more time, he added, “Go inside and change out of your uniform.”

“Later.”

“Now.”

Recognising the steel in his voice, Pooja shrugged in defeat and turned towards the house. She managed two steps before turning back. “Why are you in home clothes?”

“I stayed home today.”

“I had to go to school while you got to stay home?” The genuine outrage in her voice had them both burst out into loud laughter. Unable or unwilling to see the humour in the moment, Pooja’s face started to set in familiar mutinous lines.

Digging an elbow into Krish’s ribs to get him to stop laughing, Max gestured to her overalls and said, “I worked.”

Raising an eyebrow at the glare he was receiving, Krish said, “Not that I’m answerable to you but I worked from home today. What are you whining about anyway? The weekend starts tomorrow.”

“And I’ll be stuck in the house while all three of you do your own thing. It’s BORING.”

The decibel level of the whining was rising at the same alarming rate as Krish’s temper. “We’ll figure tomorrow out later. Go in and change. Now.”

The quiet whip of his voice had Pooja’s next complaint dying silently on her lips. Accepting defeat for the moment, she ran towards the house in defiant silence.

“Damn.” The fatigue in the almost inaudible mutter had Max wincing in sympathy.

“It’s just a phase. It’ll pass.”

“You think?” The desperate hope in the glance he shot her would have been amusing if it hadn’t been so poignant.

“I know,” she replied, firmly. “She’s just testing boundaries. Time, patience and, when required, a little firm discipline should sort everything out.”

He couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice while asking, “How do you know so much about kids, Oh Wise One? You have some tucked away that I don’t know about?”

Turning, she kept her back to him and started to pack her tools before replying, “No, but sometime in the distant past I, too, was a sad, angry, motherless teenage girl who traumatized her poor, clueless father.”

Silence greeted her pronouncement and she was almost done packing up for the day before she heard him say, “I’m sorry. It’s easy to forget in the face of your confident, well-adjusted personality.”

Tossing him a smile over her shoulder, she said, “If I am any of those things, it’s because my father never gave up on me. And Krish?”

She waited for him to meet her eyes before saying, “As Pooja has a brother who will fight just as hard for her, I can tell you in all my wisdom that she’ll be just fine.

” The strength of the emotion swarming his eyes made her ache to comfort him but she kept her eyes trained on her tool box and her arms resolutely at her side.

Trying to discreetly give him time to compose himself, she continued without waiting for a reply, “I’ll come in to work a little early tomorrow.

Say about eight? I’ll be winding up for the weekend by two in the afternoon. ”

“Sure.” He nodded before stepping back to make way for her to leave. Lost in their own thoughts, they made their way to the front of the house in silence. Max tossed her tool box into the back seat of her car and opened her door preparatory to getting in.

“Max.” A firm hand on her arm stayed her from sliding into the driver’s seat. “We need to talk.”

Uh oh. Those were never the words you wanted to hear from the man who’d kissed you senseless the previous day. Hoping the smile she pasted on her face passed for jaunty and carefree, Max managed an enquiring, “Anything important?”

“It’s about us.”

“Is there an ‘us’?” Desperate hope had her insides twisting as she waited for his reply.

“There can’t be.” The conviction that underlined the response had any fanciful dreams she’d nurtured dying a brutal death.

“Right. Thanks for the update.” Getting in to the car, she slammed her door shut and started the ignition.

Bending, Krish reached in and wrapped his hand around hers, turning the car off. Keeping his fingers around her own fumbling ones to stop her from turning the key again, he said, “I never meant to hurt you. Give me a chance to explain.”

Pride had her stiffening in her seat. “Relax, Krish, it was just a kiss. There’s really no need to make such a big deal about it.”

The warmth of his strong, long fingers seeped through the stiffness of her own making a mockery of her words. Acutely aware that all she needed to do was turn towards him to align her lips with his own and remind him of the magic they made together when that happened, she stared blindly ahead.

“Whatever else it was, Max, it was not just a kiss.”

Turning now, her furious eyes clashed with his stormy ones. “Step back, Krish.”

“Not till you listen to what I have to say.”

“Go to hell.” Shaking his hand off, she turned the key in the ignition starting the car with a roar.

Shoving the gear into reverse, she spun the car around missing his feet by carefully calculated inches.

She kept her eyes averted from the stiff figure standing in the driveway and on the road ahead through sheer determination.

As she sped away, she vowed that the one thing she wouldn’t do was look back.

---***---

Krish stood at the large bay window in his bedroom that overlooked the backyard and watched Max work.

True to her word, she’d arrived at eight and was working at a pace that spoke volumes about her hurry to finish and get out of there.

Taking another sip from the enormous coffee mug he held, Krish sighed.