Less Than Perfect

Prologue

Tanwir Sarker

There were a lot of mysteries that I had yet to solve in life, but the most peculiar one was why my esteemed brother-in-law begged me to take him to eat spicy ramen when he knew that he could not handle the burning roar in his mouth nor could he handle the fire breathing smoke that came with each slurp.

His green eyes watered, breath coming in short pants. "Why... did you not tell me... that I could die like... this?" he struggled through the pain.

I pursued my lips. "Well, someone wanted to take an unnecessary risk."

Damon was my little sister's husband. We weren't too far apart in age since Amira, my sister, was only three years younger than I, but her life was much more ahead than mine. At a young age, she married the man she loved and they quickly started their lives together. It would be any day now for my nephew to be born, hence why Damon insisted on challenging himself with food before his baby came.

I found it amusing.

Damon glared at me, bright, evergreen eyes narrowing at my remark. "I can't help that I wasn't fed peppers from the day I was born. Cut the white guy some slack, man," he said, gulping a glass of water. He squeezed his eyes for a moment, blinking through the haze of spices. "Why do I feel like I made it worse?"

"You're supposed to drink milk if something is too spicy."

"How was I supposed to know?"

"Common sense."

Damon frowned, though there was a light still hidden in his eyes, a sign of jest. "Why are you so mean to me, Tanwir? Be nice to your nephew's father."

I raised a brow. "He isn't even born yet."

"Yet is the key word here," he grinned.

Leaning back against my seat, I gave him a long look, wondering how such a goofball and egotistical man managed to gain my little sister's approval. There were often times where I thought marriage would be too constricting for Amira, too distracting from her life goals.

However, Damon proved time and time again how he would do anything for his wife, how he would sacrifice his own life for hers, how he would follow blindly behind her if it meant that she would stay by his side forever. Not to mention that his company would allow an escape from my perfunctory life.

"Are you really changing jobs?" I asked.

Damon nodded, stirring his bowl of ramen. "Yeah. Amira wants to be closer to your parents while the baby is born. I don't want to keep her away from them because of my job. Also, with the arrival of a baby, we'll be way more busy than usual. Having your parents help would be a giant blessing," he admitted, inhaling deeply as he stared at his fork. "Let's try this again."

I chuckled to myself. "You're going to regret this, man. If you couldn't handle the spice the first time, you can't handle it the second time."

"Shut up. I'm doing it anyway."