Sure, I was pleased, but I'd expected more of a fight. Much more. I gave him a once-over, noting the brush of purple under his half-open eyes, and the lines of fatigue sketching his face as he lay on the couch next to me. It was a little too languorous to be just tiredness, a little too carefully disguised to be careless partying. "How you doing there, tiger?" I asked.
Rohan took a breath, looked at me, then looked away. When his smile came back, it was a bit strained, and it seemed like he'd been on the verge of saying something else. "I'd forgotten … "
I leaned forward, awaiting the rest of the sentence. There was a polite knock at the door. Startled, I lost my balance, and tumbled sideways against the sofa cushions. "Samson?" I asked.
"Room service. I ordered in. I hope that's okay. I wanted to eat in peace." He opened the door and a waiter rolled in a cart with two covered plates.
With a flourish, I lifted the first cover and sagged. It was steamed fish with steamed veggies. Ugh with a side of ugh. "This looks –"
Rohan started laughing before I could figure out how to lie my way through the rest of that sentence. "Lift the other cover," he said.
My eyes lit up at the enormous piece of schnitzel accompanied by a heap of gravy-drenched mashed potatoes. No greens in sight.
"I did good?" he asked.
I held my wine glass up to him in cheers.
By mutual unspoken agreement, we didn't discuss work, the Brotherhood, Ari, or us. Instead, Rohan entertained me with music biz gossip.
Wine snorted out my nose at one particularly outrageous anecdote. "She did not!"
Rohan put his hand to his heart. "Swear. Toe hickeys. Her exact instructions were ‘Suck them hard enough to open my third eye.' Which was wrong on so many levels."
I screamed in laughter. "What did you do?"
"Told her it was the wrong chakra."
"Was it? The wrong chakra?"
"Fuck if I know." A pious look flitted over his face. "I may have implied that cultural appropriation for western sexual kink purposes was frowned upon by Indian gods and would end in badly blocked energy. Then I blessed her with a namaste and got the hell out."
"How upstanding of you, Mr. Mitra."
"Some of us do have a moral compass."
I jabbed my fork at him. "Hey! I have a moral compass."
"Yeah, with Hell as your true north." But he said it teasingly so I stuck my tongue out at him.
His phone beeped with a text. Rohan glanced at it. "Samson."
I laid down my cutlery and wiped my mouth. "Seems our bubble is broken." I didn't want to go. I hadn't had this much fun with someone other than Ari or Leo in ages.
"Seems so." He didn't sound any happier about it than I did. Rohan pulled his ever-present tiny tin of candied fennel seeds out of his pocket and popped a few in his mouth before offering them to me.
I crunched a few, the sweet licorice freshening my breath. "Pace yourself, baby. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night."
10
"Are you sure this is the right place?" I asked.
We stood at the mouth of an underground passageway that would have looked sketchy by the light of day. At night, with no one around, it looked flat-out disreputable. Small shops with windows filled with tourist crap took up most of the corridor, while a sign pointed the way to the Museum of Torture.
"That looks promising," Rohan deadpanned. He strode into the passageway. "Lolita. It's over here."
I blinked at the name, having forgotten about my persona during dinner. It had been so genuinely Rohan and me, instead of Lolita and rock star. Stiffening my spine, I arranged my expression in Lolita's state of ennui and sashayed after him.
Rohan stopped well before the stairway leading up to the museum, halting next to a nondescript black door with a small sign reading "Chill."
A hostess met us inside. After verifying that our name was on the list for this thirty minute reservation, she fitted us with thermal jackets. "It's roughly minus twenty celsius inside," she informed us. "We're one of the colder ice bars in the world."
I put the jacket on over my own coat, glad the thermal one came almost down to my knees. But I was still bare-legged. "I may not manage the entire visit," I told Rohan quietly. Since Samson had paid for a twenty-minute slot, it would suck to bail and wait outside until they finished up, but frostbite would suck harder.
"Let me know if you need to leave." He placed a hand on the small of my back. "Ready?" His touch helped steady me against my rush of nerves and off we went.