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You love a good scheme.
It would ordinarily be a terrible opening, accusatory and insinuating, but when the person it was directed to was Kaz Brekker, it was perfect. So when Inej walked over to their dining table, cousin’s wedding invitation in hand, that’s exactly what she told Kaz, who was sipping his morning cup of black coffee over the newspaper.
Kaz put down the newspaper and his mug, eying her with interest. “I’m listening.”
“I need Aunties to stop asking me when I’m getting married, or looking at my pityingly if I come alone to weddings,” Inej stated, matter-of-fact, slamming down the white wedding invitation on the table (‘it’s eggshell, actually, didi,’ she could already hear her cousin Safiya say). “I need someone to play my devoted, very committed boyfriend, so I don’t get thrown at someone’s nephew.”
Kaz only gave the offered invitation a quick glance, before his eyes flickered up to her face again, bored. “Ask Jesper.”
“I did,” she countered immediately. “But it’s falling on his and Wylan’s anniversary dinner.”
He hummed, crossing his arms across his chest as he leaned back in his chair. “What do I get out of it?”
“What do you want?” She knew better than to think that Kaz Brekker would ever agree to a deal where he got nothing out of it, but considering that she was on her Plan B already, she genuinely didn’t know what to offer Kaz other than having her owe him.
She really didn’t want to be accosted by any ‘well-meaning’ relations this wedding.
“You’re offering me a free favour to cash in whenever I want?” Kaz asked, disbelief clear in his voice and the beginnings of a smirk pulling at his lips. “That’s a dangerous bargain, Wraith. You must be desperate.”
Inej ignored the curl of heat at the bottom of her belly at the way his gravelly voice rumbled over his words. Kaz was being an asshole, and that wasn’t hot, it was annoying.
Now if only her stupid hormones caught the memo.
“Draw this out any longer, and I will go to Nina and risk the wrath of coming out as gay to my family,” she threatened, fixing Kaz with a challenging stare. His eyes narrowed, shifting ever so slightly in his seat.
“I’ve met your parents, they would be understanding,” he said, aiming for dismissive. But Inej had long since grown adept at distinguishing the microexpressions of Kaz Brekker, understanding how the faintest of twitches of his mouth and his straightened spine betrayed his annoyance at the idea of losing whatever bargaining power he had, alongside the discomfort at the idea of Inej putting herself in such a vulnerable position to spite him.
“But log kya kahenge?” she replied airily, fighting hard to suppress her smile when Kaz’s dark brows furrowed over his charcoal eyes, confused. “What will people say?” she translated. “So what’s it going to be?”
“I do love a scheme,” Kaz said slowly, grabbing the invitation and twirling it between his long, slender fingers. His dark eyes met hers, full of unsaid challenge. “The deal is the deal.”
The wedding was that of her little cousin Safiya, and if it were anyone else's wedding, she would have made her excuses – ‘work is busy, no time-off, hope you enjoy the ugly teapot set you had on your registry that I only bought for you because it was the cheapest’ . But they had always been close and Inej was actually looking forward to the event. However, as Wedding Season of the year prior had taught her (five wedding events of friends of the family, and, she suspected, what literal hell incarnate felt like), the torture she was subjected to by the constant barrage of interrogating questions was not worth most desi wedding functions. She suspected it would be even worse at Safiya’s wedding; her cousin was two years younger than her, only highlighting the fact that Inej Ghafa, unmarried at 26, was practically an old crone who had no chance of ever being happy.
Hence, her insane idea of bringing along a friend to pose as her significant other to help field off any questions.
Having Kaz Brekker play the role of her boyfriend, however, was not part of her original plan.
They met in university, falling into the same friend group (and hypothetically, running some low-grade criminal schemes together), and had remained friends ever since. Considering how Nina and Matthias were constantly travelling the world together, and that Wylan and Jesper had become a serious, live-in relationship, they both found themselves out a roommate and looking to split a lease, and had become unexpected roommates.
They were both private, quiet people, making for an easy sharing of their living space, especially since she was used to rooming with Nina Zenik, and he, Jesper Fahey, who were both antonyms of introverted. All things considered, it was the dream arrangement. They both had nocturnal sleep schedules, kept their space neat and tidy, and gave each other plenty of space.
That was, if it weren’t for her annoying feelings that had developed for the man.
She cursed her libido for waking up last year after years of dormancy; it took one day accidentally stumbling across a freshly-showered, shirtless Kaz Brekker for Inej Ghafa to suddenly feel the heady rush of desire her body and mind had been suppressing for years. Her eyes had been embarrassingly fixed on the way droplets of water were running down the lines of his surprisingly wiry body, on the dark ink of his tattoos stark against his pale skin, suddenly possessed by the urge to trace the ridges of his muscles with her teeth, when she realized where she was.
It was devastatingly embarrassing, honestly.
Perhaps that’s why she went to Jesper first with her proposition. Recruiting a fake boyfriend seemed like the most effective way to get meddling aunties off of her back with the least effort required, and Inej knew she could safely take Jesper as her date without compromising their friendship whatsoever while still having a fun night with one of her best friends. As gorgeous as Jesper Fahey was, he was like a brother to Inej and happily dating Wylan.
Unfortunately, as eager as Jesper was to play up at being Inej’s attentive and adoring boyfriend for her family, always eager for chaos and the dramatics of it all, the date of her cousin’s wedding fell on the only weekend Wylan and Jesper could have their anniversary dinner at some high-end, impossible-to-reserve restaurant downtown, and she refused their offers to move their plans for her.
Which left her to repeat some affirmations to herself in the mirror as she did her makeup, determined to not let this fake-dating business change anything between her and Kaz. She could put a lid on her feelings, she had done it for months already. If she took a little longer than ready to get herself dolled up, picking out a light blue lehenga she knew made her glow, that wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. Oh honey, he won’t know what hit him, Nina texted when Inej sent over a picture of her finished look, followed by a string of emoji filled texts that balanced the fine line between supportive and suggestive in the way only Nina Zenik could.
“I never recalled agreeing to dress up for this,” Kaz flatly told her the moment she stepped out of her room, from the doorway where he was waiting for her.
“You’re going to a desi wedding; that was almost implied. The deal is the deal, Kaz,” she reminded, trying to tamper down how delighted she was at his indignation.
He continued grumbling about his clothes, offended by the idea of wearing colours. Inej easily waved off his complaints; he looked achingly handsome in his blue kurta, the darker embroidered sherwani to wear over top, hanging over his arm. Even if it was somewhat disconcerting to see Kaz in pastel colours, he wore it extremely well, the fabric sitting over her frame perfectly, accentuating the broad line of his shoulders, the sharp angle of his jawline. It was unfair, that he was able to get ready in the matter of ten minutes and still look incredibly attractive, while she had slaved away at her appearance just to content herself with almost balanced eyeliner.
She was extremely thankful she chose this outfit for him when he grumbled, “You couldn’t have given me a black kurta if nothing else?”
Her mouth immediately went dry at the thought, mind traitorous conjuring up the image of Kaz in a black kurta immediately. That would’ve been a terrible miscalculation on her part, and she thanked the gods above that she hadn’t made such a misstep.
“Because black kurta screams fuckboy, and we’re trying to sell you as a happily taken man,” she offered lamely, mind racing to come up with an explanation that wasn’t ‘I’m afraid I would want to immediately jump your bones if you did’, because that wasn’t a very polite thing to say. “And I wanted to wear this,” she tacked-on, gesturing to her own outfit. She rarely got the chance to dress up in traditional wear, despite the countless links and pictures to sarees and lagengas and salwaars that her mom slept sending her on WhatsApp, eager at any opportunity to dote on her only child. As dreadful as the attention of all her extended family on her was, she had always delighted in wedding season since girlhood, buzzing at the chance to dress up and dance and witness the bright festivities.
“Fine,” he relinquished, holding the passenger seat door open for her to sit inside his car. “You do look nice,” he added, not daring to look at her as he softly shut the door, making his own to the driver’s side.
She was glad he couldn’t see her; the sincerity in his voice, the uncharacteristic shyness as he complimented her, made her flush all the way up from her toes.