"Red roses, Ric?" Zubin asked, watching Diane walk into the kitchen, holding the flowers loosely in her arm.
Ric looked over at him, an innocent expression on his face. "I don't know what you're trying to suggest, Zubin, but I just bought those roses because Diane likes them. No ulterior motive." He knew that he'd gone red, and he knew that Zubin didn't believe him for a second.
"Whatever you say…" He shrugged, putting his feet up on the coffee table.
Ric sat down on the sofa across from Zubin, and tried to meet his look. "Zubin, I mean it. I'm not trying to suggest anything to her."
Zubin nodded. "Good."
Ric shot him a startled look. "What?" he asked, looking slightly insulted. Surely Zubin couldn't mean that the prospect of dating Diane was so awful? Surely they weren't so mismatched? He personally thought that they would be great together. He thought, believed, knew, that they would fit together, they did, they already had and they would again. It was fated, predestined.
"I didn't mean it like that, Ric." Zubin sighed. "I mean that neither of you are in a position to be starting a relationship right now."
"You think I don't know that?" Ric demanded, staring down at his hands. "I know that she's vulnerable and I'm not exactly the best guy to help her through this, but I just want to be there for her, okay? I don't want to take advantage of her or make her fall in love with me or anything like that. Got that, Zube? I care about her, I'm her friend. That's all."
"No, that's not all, is it? Ric, you think no one else in the world sees the way you look at that girl? Do you think that no one sees the way you act around her?" Zubin lowered his voice so that Diane wouldn't hear him from the kitchen. "She's twenty years younger than you."
Ric sighed, picking at a loose thread on his shirt. "Zubin, the age gap didn't bother me before and it doesn't bother me now." He looked up. "It just wasn't an issue."
"It's not like you had a serious relationship with her, age doesn't matter when it's just…" Zubin was beginning.
"Just…? Do not finish that sentence, Zubin." Ric's voice was icy, and his look could have killed. "I loved her, she loved me: we were in a serious relationship. Do you know that I proposed to her?" he added, coldly, looking straight at his friend.
"You proposed to her? To Diane?" Zubin was shocked: all he had known was that Ric and Diane had dated. Dating, that had just meant a bit of fun, Ric having a midlife crisis and dating a twenty three year old colleague. Maybe Zubin hadn't paid much attention; after all, this had been about the time that Mumtaz died. Evidently he had missed out on an important detail of Ric's life.
"Yes, to Diane." Ric looked back down at his hands. "I was head over heels in love with her and wanted to marry her. She said no, she moved away, I got on with life, then she came back and I realised how great she was again." He bit his lip, not wanting to say any more. He didn't want to say anything about how her laugh made him laugh too, how when she cried he died inside because he wanted so badly to be able to make her happy, about how just being around her made him feel wonderful, about… her.
Zubin shrugged slightly. "I'm sorry. I never realised."
"Yeah, well…" Ric didn't want to say that it was fine, because it wasn't. It was nowhere near fine that Zubin thought of them that way, thought of her that way. How could he think of Diane as just Ric's bit of fun? She had never been that, never ever. She had been his everything, had been and always would be.
"What are you two boys so deep in discussion about?" A falsely perky smile on her face, Diane stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, instantly commanding the attention of her friends. Zubin, looking at her, noted how young she looked; her hair fell about her face, her eyes looked sleepy and somewhat scared, and she looked as vulnerable as a child. Looking at her, he wondered how Ric could love her in that way.
Ric, holding out a hand, gesturing for her to sit next to him, took in all of those details and more. And the question running through his mind was different. How could anyone not love her?