“We were having dinner at the Spice Mill last night,” Salena Auntie said in a tone that was clearly meant to be casual, but was anything but. “Jana said that Nira said that Deepa said that she had helped you find a sherwani for your fiancé who still hasn’t met the family. Deepa overheard that you were taking him to the Dosa Palace and she happened to go over there to talk to Amina who said that you had a fight . . .”

Despite being a Patel and growing up in the Patel family, it still amazed Daisy how quickly information got around. You couldn’t keep secrets for long when there were family members everywhere and gossip was everybody’s favorite hobby. “That was three days ago. Everything is fine now.”

“Fighting when engaged is not a good sign,” superstitious Lakshmi Auntie said. “Unless you see a brown goat with a white head, fighting early in a relationship portends difficult trials ahead.”

Desperate for a way to divert the conversation, Daisy gestured to the cooler bag. “I’m starving. Maybe we should eat.”

“Is it just us? Or maybe you have a friend over?” Lakshmi Auntie peered up the stairs.

“Now that you mention it, I do smell something.” Mehar Auntie sniffed.

“Nobody is here, Auntie-ji.”

They were the right words, but Lakshmi Auntie seemed unconvinced. “A black cat with one green eye and one blue crossed my path three days ago outside a yellow house. It means bad luck on the second floor. Mehar, you should probably go and check it out.”

“Be my guest.” Daisy waved Mehar Auntie upstairs. “You may also want to check the roof while you’re there. Sanjay used to sneak out at night. You wouldn’t want to miss anyone who might be hiding there.” She couldn’t resist throwing out a little dig at her perfect big brother.

“Sanjay!” Mehar Auntie sighed as she headed for the stairs. “Such a good boy. How is he doing?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t heard from him in months. And did you miss the part where I told you he used to climb out on the roof to sneak out at night against the rules?”

“Such a rascal.” Mehar shook her head, smiling.

“You wouldn’t say that if it had been me climbing on the roof,” Daisy called out.

“You would never have climbed on the roof.” Salena Auntie pinched Daisy’s cheek. “You’re our good Daisy.”

Good Daisy. She’d always been good because there had never been an opportunity to be bad. When it had just been the three of them at home, she’d taken over the household chores—all of which made it easier for her to justify avoiding school dances, dating, and parties. If not for Layla dragging her out, she would have been content to stay at home with her schoolbooks and her video games and her online computer world.

“All clear.” Mehar Auntie joined them in the kitchen, smiling as if she hadn’t just been upstairs checking under beds and in closets for a hidden man. “I haven’t been upstairs for a long time. Daisy’s room looks just like it did when she was a little girl . . .”

Ugh. Why had she never bothered to redecorate? She was twenty-seven and still living at home in the same room and following the same rules her father had laid down when she was a teenager. If her aunties had their way, she would marry a nice desi boy selected by the family and go straight from her house to her married home.

Daisy grabbed a bedmi puri and dipped the crispy Indian bread made of urad dal into the raseele aloo. Jana Auntie always made it with the perfect combination of spice and tang.

“If things don’t work out, Roshan is a lovely boy,” Lakshmi Auntie said. “I had your horoscopes done and you’re a perfect match. He comes from a good family, and he is an engineer . . .”

Daisy shoved another bedmi puri in her mouth as her aunt extolled Roshan’s virtues. Usually she just switched off when her aunties played matchmaker, but today everything they said grated on her nerves. She was a professional with two degrees and a good job. Why did no one even consider that she might be capable of picking a man for herself?

Maybe her perfect match was the kind of man who would propose a marriage of convenience to get her aunties off her back? Or give her a passionate kiss in the middle of the office? Or show up at an animal hospital in the middle of the night after he’d been emotionally flayed by his family?

Maybe she’d stuffed her emotions so deep inside, hidden beneath her lists and rules and lines of code, that she hadn’t realized there was a “bad Daisy” waiting to get free.

• 20 •

 Thursday, 8:07 A.M.

 DAISY: Confirming Date #4, Thursday 6 p.m. Hockey Game. SAP Center. San Jose Sharks vs. Toronto Maple Leafs. Objective: Meet Taara Auntie, Ashok Uncle, and their boys, Nihan and Imran.

 LIAM: Go Sharks!!!!

* * *

• • •

AFTER messaging Liam, it took Daisy a full thirty minutes to get into her flow state. Even then, a part of her brain was still mulling over their encounter from the past weekend and all the things that could have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. What if they’d actually had sex? How could they continue to have a fake engagement after crossing that line? And what if once wasn’t enough? Was she betraying her family by sleeping with the enemy? Or was she putting the past behind her and moving forward?

Only a few short minutes into her flow, Rochelle interrupted with a pop-up message on her screen.

TYLER WANTS TO SEE YOU IN HIS OFFICE.

With a sigh, she pulled off her headphones. Despite the cutbacks, Tyler still wanted to go ahead with their new monthly subscription boxes and a revamped website to reflect the new branding, which meant a whole new level of code.

“What’s up?” Mia looked over from her desk. “I thought this was flow time. I’ve been trying to keep quiet.”