#indian!oc

She kisses the corner of his mouth, a quick peck, reaching up to wipe the berry stain of her lipstick from his skin. “Can’t help it,” she shrugs, with an exaggerated pout.

“You don’t look all that bad, baby,” he teases with a kiss to her temple, throwing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her against his side. He was captivated the minute he’d saw her in the foyer of the house, bending down to fasten her heels in her lehenga. It was grey and filled with motifs of deers, peacocks, and flowers with colourful thread. She’s left her hair down in loose waves and had parted her bangs in the middle. She’s opted to forgo jewellery other than her giant jimikis that she’d pinned in her hair behind her ear. 

“If you want to get laid tonight, I’d suggest you work on your compliments, idiot. I’d take words like ravishing and enchanted,” she giggles.

“We both know that -”

“Layla,” Pooja interrupts. “I’m heading to the powder room, do you want to-’

“Yes.”

They both walk towards the restroom when an older man approaches the two of them, calling out Pooja’s name. He approaches the two of them engaging in chit chat, directing a warm smile at Layla when Pooja introduces her as a neighbour of her parents’. He talks about motherhood with his hands clasped behind his back, which only pushes his gut out more, making him look rotund. 

“She’s quite chatty, no? Cooed the whole time I had her in my arms,” he tells Pooja.

“Oh yeah. Baby’s been doing that non stop these days. Almost like I gave birth to a pigeon,” she laughs.

“She’s real cute, ya. It’s a good thing she takes after her dad. We were all worried that she was going to end up a கருப்பு குட்டி (dark skinned baby - derogatory) like you.”

Layla’s jaw drops, watching the older man prattle about how she should add some saffron to her milk to help boost her own complexion. Pooja’s face falls but she doesn’t say anything, opting to look down at her shoes.

“Uncle,” Layla interrupts his monologue. “That’s incredibly rude, what you just did. You just insulted her at her own brother sangeeth, dampening her mood. It’s not okay to say whatever thought that pops into your head. Or did you not realise கறுப்பி (blackie) here also has feelings like you. How would you feel if I called you a bald fat man? I’m sure that even if her baby was dark skinned, they would have loved her just as much as they do now. And I think it’s high time you stopped talking like that to anyone.”

“Look, you’re being disrespectful! Apologise-” he starts before Pooja cuts him off.

“I don’t think she was very respectful with what she just said, Uncle. If anyone was being disrespectful here, it’s you. Now, if you could excuse us.” She turns her heel and walks inside the restroom with Layla following behind her after giving the man a dirty look. 

“Can’t believe I just did that. Feels quite liberating. If I can only muster up the nerve to do that with some of my relatives.” Layla shakes off the pent up energy that was still left over from her confrontation. “Shit, I don’t know if I caused any trouble for you,” Layla tells her, pulling out a sheet of tissue and handing it over to Pooja.

“You didn’t. Thank you so much,” she says, with a sniffle. She dabs the tears away from the corner of her eye before they have a chance to stream down her face and ruin her makeup. 

“It’s just a tissue,” Layla chuckles. 

“No, for standing up for me. I can’t believe people calling me கறுப்பி (blackie) affects me even now as a thirty year old. I’ve been called that a lot growing up and I’ve convinced myself that I don’t care. Apparently, I still do.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that does to your self esteem. I don’t get why people are so hung up on colour. We’re all brown, are we not?” 

“True. Colourism fucking stinks.”

Layla agrees, digging out her lipstick from her sling bag. “You know when I was born my dad told me the first thing he did was let out a sigh of relief because I had a lighter skin. I still don’t get how that could be one’s first thought when they look at their child for the first time.”

“The first thought I had when my daughter was born was ‘not again’ because they’d asked me to push again to deliver my placenta.”

“Gross,” Layla laughs, holding up the berry coloured lipstick wand to her lips. “Don’t let people let you feel like you’re less than just because you have more melanin in your skin. If it’s any consolation, I think you’re very hot,” she feels a warmth spread across her cheeks.

“Oh yeah?” Pooja giggles, adjusting her nose ring.

“Have quite the crush on you,” Layla winks.

“Just the confidence booster I needed. Thanks, babe.”

The rest of the night goes by smoothly without any uninvited comments from strangers. Although Layla noticed the Uncle giving her disapproving nods from time to time, which she brushed off easily. Pooja, Ashwin and Dhruv came over and pulled Harry and Layla to the dancefloor and that’s how the rest of the night flew by - dancing to Ranjithame, Thaikelavi, and Thodakkam Mangalyam. Layla’s positive that all the dancing made her burn off all the parottas and okra fry she’d managed to scarf down from the buffet. Anne, Earl, Vasanth and Abi had all joined in for the cha cha slide and let out surprising laughs when Vasanth and Layla raps Ludacris’s part flawlessly when Yeah played. 

It wasn’t long into the night that Abi, Vasanth, Anne and Earl decided to head home leaving Layla and Harry dancing along. Halfway through the dancing, Kadhal Sadugudu pours in through the speakers. The two blush thinking back to the time Harry had gone down on her for the first time as the familiar strums of the guitar reverberates through their heart strings. 

Harry had ducked down to whisper, “Let’s get out of here,” against the shell of Layla’s ear and that’s how the two of them ended up in the emergency stairwell of the hotel, with Harry pressed up against the wall.

Layla is on her tippy toes, her hands ravenously tugging the locks at the back of his head while their tongues swirl around. Harry mewls when she gives him a hard pull, pulling her face even closer to his with the way his palms cradle her cheek. 

“Fuck, need you,” she pants into his mouth as his lips make their jaw down her jaw to that special part in her neck. 

“You’ve got me, Lails. Right here,” he murmurs with honesty, pointing out that she’s had him wrapped around her pinky and that he’s out here in the stairwell ravenously making out. 

“Oh,” she whimpers, as he sucks on the spot near her jugular and she can’t help but rub on his clothed fattening prick to reciprocate the pleasure singing through her veins. 

“Been handsy with me the whole day. That badly gone for me, yeah?” He smirks against the nape of her neck. 

“Yeah. Been super horny all day, I must be ovulating or something.”

He laughs, the boyish one that makes him straighten up and throw his head back as his eyes disappear behind the crinkles in the corner and his dimples flaunt their full glory. 

“What?” She asks, poking his side.

“Ovulating?” He shakes his head, wiping the tears from his eyes with a toothy grin. “You’re so lucky I’m willing to look past your ineptness at dirty talk because I love you. Now come on, let's get out of here.”

////

The windows of his Range Rover were fogging up despite the frigid temperature of the pouring rain outside. Harry had quickly zipped the two of them to the lookout spot in Chapel Hill. The minute he’d turn off the ignition their lips found each other again with a ravenous lust, as they both climbed to the back seat unceremoniously. They’d been whispering dirty promises and exchanging passionate kisses as For Emma, Forever Ago was crooning through the speakers. 

He licks and nips on her chest as Layla fiddles with the small gold hoop in his ear. “I really like this. Makes you look like an arrogant prick,” she remarks as her chuckle cuts off into a surprised gasp when Harry suckles a mark on the plush of her breast.

“Never not insult me when we’re having sex, dickhead,” he laughs, booping her nose. 

“It’s a rite of passage at this point. Like how you call me sweet girl.”

“I do not call you sweet girl only during sex,” he says with faux defensiveness, swooping her now shoulder length hair away from her neck.

“Ow!” Layla flinches with the tug at her earlobe, hands coming to detangle the hair that had knotted itself in her earring.

“Fuck. Sorry, baby. I didn’t-” Harry begins, his deft fingers help her get her hair out of the way before she rips some of it off.

“No, I should have taken them out the second I got in the car. Not very practical,” she remarks, taking off the giant jimikis and tossing them on the passenger seat. She sighs in relief when she massages her angry red lobes, shoulders sagging. “Now where were we,” she smirks, hands looping around his neck, nuzzling her nose against his.

It doesn’t take long until Layla’s lipstick is smeared all over Harry’s mouth with each heated kiss. Fading berry stained tattoos haphazardly trailed down his unbuttoned chest. They’d both managed to maneuver her poofy skirt and tossed it on the dashboard right next to his trousers and briefs. Layla pumped her fist around his throbbing dick in a tantalising pace that made him blurt out a bead of precum. “Love feeling you get hard in my hands,” she says, swirling the bead around his ruddy pink head as his chest heaves in wanton. 

He grunts when the tips of her fingers tease his frenulum, wrapping his fist around her hair tugging it back as her boobs press right up against his face. “Sit on my face. Sit on my face, Lails,” he murmurs, voice hoarse with arousal.

“Later.” She tells him, searing an ardent kiss on his mouth, as desire voraciously spreads through her body. “Want to fuck you.”

“Yeah?” His fingers dance against her engorged clit, making her choke out a breath.

Even under the dim yellow light from the roof of the car, Layla could tell that his pupils were blown out in desire. She licks down the column of his throat as he dips two fingers inside of her.  “So bad.” She moans when he gets knuckle deep, the cold metal of his rings tingling against the heat from her centre, scissoring them as he savours her warmth. 

“Getting so wet for me,” he pants into his mouth as he speeds the ministrations of his digits, curling them up to coax her sweet spot. “Love you so much you know,” his hot breath washes against her ear and all she could do was give him a garbled moan as her fingernails sinks into his shoulders, using them as leverage when she moves her hips to aid him in sending her over the edge. 

“Gonna come,” Layla warns.

“Want you to come around me, sweet girl.” He whispers, retracting his hand and licking her slick. He makes quick work with the condom rolling it down his length, and tugging himself for good measure.

Layla heedlessly peels off her blouse down her arms, climbing onto his lap. She sinks down on him, as Harry lines himself up, the sensation making the two cry out. Harry scrunches his eyes shut as her scorching hot walls squeeze around him. “Missed this,” he confesses, when she settles against his lap. They haven’t had sex since their fight and Harry wants to travel back and smack himself for acting like a proper knob and pulling his shoulder. 

“Missed feeling you inside me too, Har.” She moans, she’s had him in her many times but the stretch when he slips in was delectable every single time. She raises herself up using her knees but he’s quick to hold her down.

“Gimme a couple of minutes. Haven’t done this for a hot minute and I’m trying hard not to nut.” She gives him her signature evil smile as she squeezes her muscles around him.

“Mother of fuck, baby,” he moans out loud, a hand curling on the headrest of the front seat. “Are you trying to end me?!?”

Layla laughs, and squeezes her pelvic muscles around his throbbing dick again enjoying the way his jaw drops with the way his breathing hitches. “Bet I can make you come with -” She yelps when Harry swats her bum.

“Did you just- Dude, you just spanked my ass!”

“Wanna come with you, dickhead,” he whines, hands tracing down her thighs before making their way up to palm the globes of her ass. 

She presses a kiss on his lips, a gentle chaste one, as she traps his bottom lip with her teeth. She uses the muscles of her thigh to rock slowly, as he helps her along. 

Licentious moans cut through the sound of heavy rain outside as Layla quickens her pace, despite the protest of the muscles in her inner thigh and calves - dancing around in her high heels for a whole night was catching up. She brushes it aside, using her knees to bounce on him to move them to the edge, as his mouth toys with her nipples, suckling them.

“Oh, Har,” she noisily groans, when he thrusts up making her jolt up. 

Layla steadies herself by clinging on to his neck, as she moves her hips in circles, giving her clit the friction it craves. Harry’s lips crash with her, teeth clanging as his tongue greedily licks into her mouth. The heat from their core ravenously makes every cell in their body ablaze with desire. 

He wordlessly brings his hand up to hers, where it was clutching his neck, and squeezes hers as a form of encouragement. “Choke me,” he pleads into her mouth. 

She cautiously presses her hands to the sides of his neck to create more pressure and it makes him whimper. Her pace stutters as one of his hands slips down to rub harsh circles on her clitoral hood and that’s all it takes for her to pulsate around him. 

“Say it,” he whispers as he pushes a few rouge strands of stands away from her sweaty face. They were both so close to tumbling over the edge, hearts pounding against their chest, sweat dripping down their backs, wet sound of skin slapping against each other as they move in tandem, stealing each other's moans as they tumble out of their mouths. 

He didn’t need to clarify what he wanted her to say, she knew it and her hands migrates from his neck to cradle his face in her palm as her eyes flicked up to him. “I love you,” she says with sincerity, as she comes, quivering as the waves of her orgasm wash through her.

“I love you too, sweet girl.” He follows suit immediately after, from her words as her walls flutter around him, he thrusts up three times before burying his head in her chest as he spills into the condom. He could feel her heart pounding against his cheek, a heart that has now fully let him live inside. He knew they belonged in each other's heart, so it was easy for him  to bare it to her, and now she did too. He softly kisses her chest, right over her heart, closing his eyes as they come down from their highs as the speakers in the strums of the guitar echo the last lines from Re:Stacks.

It’s the sound of unlocking and the lift way

Your love will be

Safe with me.

////

“This is a great sign,” Layla declares, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she stamps her coral cream blush onto her cheeks.

“How so?” Harry pokes his head out from her bathroom, turning off the noisy hair dryer. Beads of water trickle down his chest from the shower and her eyes follow their journey to where he has a white towel secured dangerously low around his hips. 

“Corrections mean they are willing to print it in their journal.” 

Anne and Harry had come over to Layla’s to get ready for the wedding. Anne needed help with draping her saree and Abi suggested that they get ready together, and Harry had just followed suit thinking he could hop in the shower to get a quickie in with Layla. But when he’d walked in, she was already sitting on the floor in her robe, doing her eyeshadow with her hair meticulously braided and pinned back.

“It seems like a lot to do with their deadline. We have to run the stats again,” he says, walking over to stand behind her, teasing his hair with his fingers and setting them in its place.

“They’ve given us a week. We just need to eliminate some outlier scores and run the t-test again. I don’t know why I didn’t catch on to the fact that the tests didn’t come out significant despite the difference with standard deviations,” she shakes her head, before dropping her brush and picking up an egg shaped sponge to blend out her blush.

“I was the one who ran those tests. I should have figured too,” he mumbles. They had woken up to an email from the publisher asking them to make a few corrections to the paper they had submitted. 

“It happens to the best of us,” Layla shrugs. 

“I have two shoots this week.” He grumbles.

“I’ll do it. If I focus, I can finish it in a day tops.” She spritzes her face with some setting spray, and fans her face with her hands. 

“That’s not fair to you. We’re coauthors.”

“I'm not gonna take away your credit or something,” she chuckles, twisting back to look up at him. 

“Do you not want me to do it with you?”

“I didn’t say that, Harry.”

“I feel like you did. You did this all the time in college, did you not? Work on group assignments yourself because Layla’s the smartest and professors worshipped the ground you walked on.”

“You’re turning this into a me problem,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I offered to help. You don’t get to do that. Check yourself.” She gets up brushing past him, picking up the saree that she’d laid on the bed.

“Just tell me that I’m not smart enough, so you’d rather do it yourself,” he tells her. “Come on, Layla. You know you do.”

“I never said that, I’m sorry you feel that way. But none of what I said was intended to make myself seem smarter than you. I just didn’t want you to stretch yourself thin. I know you have a job and I didn’t want you to feel like it was your fault to fix.”

Harry takes a shaky breath in, “Sorry, it really fucked with my head that most of the edits were the parts that I did. I’ve had a long break from academia and I’m terrified that I’ve fallen off the wagon and I can’t get back up again.”

“Come here,” she pats the spot on the bed and Harry sits. Layla drops her saree and settles next to him. “I’m terrified that I won’t be able to get back into the groove too and I only took a year long break. You can’t think like that. You still update yourself with new research, you read books - cut yourself some slack, you haven’t finished undergrad yet. There was no one I hated more than Kothari because Research Methodology was the one class I had to work my ass off. My professor held my hand through the entire journey of my first ever paper. You’ve done so much all on your own. So, I’d say you’re smarter than me-”

“But you helped me,” Harry cuts her off. 

“I helped after you put in the hours to understand. You did a giant chunk of the heavy lifting. Don’t demean your work like that. This paper would not have existed if not for you, babe.” Layla squeezes his palm to provide reassurance.

Harry sighs but she continues. “It’s minor corrections and it’s a good thing. This is not a subpar journal where they publish anything that gets emailed to them. It’s one of the leading journals for behavioural science. Ecoanxiety is such a hot topic at the moment. We have an edge over other papers - we're looking at things from an earth science and mental health point of view. The fact that they gave us time to tweak stuff means they liked it enough to feature it in their next quarterly print.”

“You’re right. I just got too in my head…”

“That’s okay,” she tells him, leaning up to place a soft kiss on his cheek. “We’ll talk about it more when we get back.”

On cue, Vasanth pokes his head in the room after a sharp knock, looking at his niece and her boyfriend who were still in their clothes. “Kutti, why are you two not dressed? Aunty and Anne are almost done! You’re gonna make us late!”

“It’s a quarter to seven. Calm down, we have lots of time!”

“The ceremony starts at seven thirty, Layla! Get your ass up and put your clothes on,” he says, walking into the room, fully dressed holding one of his veshtis. “Go change in my room. Aunty is in there and will help, otherwise you’ll take forever.”

“Ugh! You need to chill. We’ve got forty five minutes-”

“No, we don’t! The drive to the venue takes twenty minutes-”

“Fine. I’ll go,” she grumbles, picking up the green silk fabric and walking out of the room.

Vasanth shakes his head mumbling to himself in Tamil. “Here,” he hands the gold fabric to Harry. “The straps have velcro on them, so it’s easy to wrap around.”

“Can you give me a hand, please?” Harry asks nervously, he watched a tutorial on YouTube but still was unsure on how the veshti was going to stay in place.

“Of course, Harry.” Vasanth locks the door as Harry heads to the bathroom to put on his boxers. 

 Harry wraps the cloth around his hips as Vasanth helps him tug and tuck it firmly into place. “There,” Vasanth says, stepping back to check if things look okay. “You can let go now, Harry.” He notes chuckling at the way Harry’s clutching their makeshift skirt to his body.

“Is it okay if I wear a belt?” Harry asks, eyes wide. “What if it comes undone?”

“Well it won’t unless you step on it but I think it’s better to be on the safe side. Mine did come undone once.”

“Really?”

“Yup. It was my first time wearing a veshti. It was at my cousin’s wedding and my Dad had helped.” He chuckles, shaking his head. 

“No way! Did you step on it?” Harry asks, lopping a belt around his waist and shimmying it down to the gold border.

“Layla did. She just started walking - it wasn't so much walking, it was more waddling. I remember it so well,” heat floods his face from the embarrassing memory that was etched into his brain. “I was laughing with my cousins at the back of the room. She was calling for me, squirming from her mothers arms and reaching for me. Her mother put her down and everyone’s eyes were on her because it was the first time the extended family got to see her walk. She managed to toddle all the way across to my feet but tripped on the carpet and came tumbling down. She managed to grip onto my veshti bringing it down with her.”

“Shit,” Harry says, pursing his lips to hold his laughter back.

“You can laugh,” Vasanth says. “I’d managed to hold onto it before I flashed my underwear to everyone. No one cared though, they were busy tending to her crying. My cousins never let me live it down though. One even managed to film it.”

Vasanth noted that Harry skipped the matching gold silk shirt of his and had buttoned on a satin green shirt. Harry gave him a shy smile and told him that he’d wanted to match Layla. The master walk in closet was filled with giggles and the strong scent of hairspray for it being very early in the morning. When the boys walked in to hurry them along, Harry caught Layla pinning jasmine onto his mother’s hair. She was wearing the same outfit from Vasanth’s wedding -  sans the heavy jewellery, it made Vasanth sigh wistfully thinking how quickly years flew by. Vasanth had hurried over to his wife, kneeling down to help her fix her saree pleats, and to help slip on her wedges. Abi had clipped on a nose ring on Layla that she pulled off in minutes, saying it made her feel like she was about to sneeze. Harry and Layla had even managed to sneak into her room and recreate the Gucci and Crocs pose - one of Layla sitting on his lap, Harry’s hands looped around her waist as Layla cradles his face smushing their noses together. By seven fifteen, everyone was ready and was herded into the car by Vasanth, they’d made their way to the venue. 

////

The bright orange and yellow leaves had been replaced with barren branches. Everywhere Layla looked had small mountains of dried leaves piled in the corner of people’s yard. The days were becoming shorter and colder. The temperature in the evenings dipped down to a four and two and Layla was learning to adapt to it. There were patches in her face, where the skin felt stretched thin and started to hyperpigment, Abi had given her one of her heavy duty moisturisers to help curb it. Layla had been begrudgingly using the thick cream on her face, cursing her water like gel moisturisers for not being occlusive enough. The plunge of the temperature also came with Layla complaining that the heating was not enough for her at night. Instead of turning the thermostat high to warm up the whole house, Vasanth purchased a portable heater that she religiously plugged in, next to her bed, at night. 

On the other hand Layla was delighted to drink soup almost everyday. She had access to many cuisines here than she did back home, so this particular afternoon, she had ordered a tub of Tarhana Çorbası and vegan shawarmas for Harry and Earl. Harry had popped in the For Emma, Forever Ago vinyl - he’d picked up earlier that day from the store - on the record player, and the croons of Creature Fear filled up the room. 

“So, he made this album by himself in a cabin in the middle of nowhere?” Earl asks Harry.

“Uh huh, he got his heart broken and moved to his father's cabin in the middle of winter and wrote this to help himself heal,” Harry replies, spooning some soup into his mouth.

The two were in deep discussion for the past hour, and Layla was happy to sit back - wrapped in a fluffy throw - listening to the two talk animatedly about the arrangements, the use of stripped back production and how the scratches in the recording added a level of intimacy. 

“That’s not entirely true,” Layla chirps in.

“So Emma is not his girlfriend?” Harry asks.

“I think she is but Justin Vernon said that it was more of a headspace. The pain one gets stuck in.” Layla picks up the oyster mushroom that had slipped out on the plate from her roll and pops it into her mouth.

“Interesting,” Earl says, reaching forward to grab a glass of water. “The lyrics are very vague. Hard to discern.”

“Layla has all sorts of theories. She was the one who introduced Bon Iver to me. She’ll ramble for hours.”

Layla laughs. “I only went on a deep dive for re:Stacks. It is such a sad song-”

“I don’t think it is. I think it’s a very hopeful one,” Harry cuts her off, cheeks staining a deep red as he remembers their moments of passion in the backseat of his car.

“I disagree. I think it’s of him finally making his peace with sadness and acknowledging that it will always be a part of him. But I can see how it could be hopeful as well.”

“Isn’t that hopeful, Layla. Coming to terms with distress?” Earl asks, scratching his brow.

Layla brows furrow when she notices Harry’s lips move downward in a frown but doesn’t linger on it, turning her attention to Earl.

“Again art is subjective and this is my two cents, but I don’t think sadness passes nor does grief. Speaking from experience, it’s like a tidal wave at first consuming every cell in your body. You get pulled in by the current and when you manage to break through to the surface and take a breath, everything is wonderful and then after sometime there’s another wave. And I think that’s how it is until one day the waves become weaker and you’re becoming better at paddling away. It doesn’t mean the waves aren’t there and it won’t pull you under if you stop paddling,” she explains.

“You can swim to an island. Just saying,” he shrugs. “Some people choose to be in the water, almost like they want to romanticise suffering.”

Are you implying that I do that? Is the question Layla wanted to ask but she holds back, settling on arching her eyebrow at him instead. “I suppose, but swimming takes up a lot of courage. Just food for thought. The island thing makes sense too.”

Earl clears his throat. “There’s no wrong answers in art. How far along are you with the edits on your paper?” 

“We’re almost done. Just a few more hours,” Harry says.

The two tell him more about their paper, and Layla tells him that this is her first paper where the coauthor is not one of her professors. Earl lets Harry and Layla know that he’s proud of them and that he has a bottle of champagne in his fridge they’d open once it’s their paper gets published. The conversation turns to the wedding and Layla explains some of the traditions that happened in the ceremony for Earl, using Google to confirm certain things. When they’re done eating, Layla throws their takeout containers in the trash as Harry loads up the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher. Earl hands his wife’s cookbook to Layla and she quickly takes a snap of the Crawfish Étouffée recipe she wanted to try out for dinner. Harry runs to the loo before they head out to the post office as Layla heads over to the living room and slings her tote - one with the three paintings that she needed to ship - over her shoulder. 

 “Shopping?” Layla asks, handing over the green Gucci bag that he’d asked her to get from his office.

“Yes but not for me. It’s for Harry.”

“Cute,” she chuckles. “You already wormed his way into his heart with Gucci.”

“Harold,” Earl calls out, when he hears the flush in the bathroom.

Harry saunters into the kitchen island, looking at the two with expectant eyes. “Hmm?”

“I know I bought Layla tickets to Disney as a thank you for helping out, so I thought I’d treat you too.”

“You did. The trip to Disney World. I’m going too,” he shrugs, looking over to Layla wordlessly asking her what he had up his sleeve.

“Yeah but I still wanted to get you something. Here,” Earl hands the sage green bag over to him. 

“Gucci? Uh… thank you. This must have been so expensive,” he says, looking into the bag.

“It’s not like I’m taking my money to the afterlife. Open it, will you,” Earl urges.

Harry pulls out the small box in the bag and undoes the white bow. His eyes bug out of his head when he pulls the lid off, and bites down on his bottom lip to keep himself composed.

“It’s a charm. I didn’t know what to get, so I’d settled on the one fruit you beeline to when you visit me,” Earl explains. “I’m not familiar with jewellery. Hell, I hadn’t bought one since my wife passed. But you pull them off so well and -” he’s interrupted by Harry’s snickering.

“Harry, stop laughing! You’re being very rude,” Layla says and Harry bursts out laughing, hand coming to clutch his peck as his green eyes disappear behind the crinkles, dimples stretching out as the two blocky front teeth make their full appearance.

He wordlessly pushes the box over to her and she sneaks a peak and starts giggling along with him. “Earl! It’s a-” she breaks out in a cough, which only seems to spur on their laughter. “That’s not a ban-” Harry howls, wiping down the tears that escape from his eyes.

Earl picks up the luxurious box that Layla had abandoned on the counter, and squints to get a better look at it. It was an oxidised silver charm, with a pop of yellow for the peel. It looked like an ordinary banana, he didn’t get why the two were on the hunched over his counter gleefully giggling.

“Glasses,” Layla manages to get out. “Please put them on,” she barks out.

He slides the pair that was hanging off the pocket of his shirt and pushes it up the bridge of his nose. The tiny charm comes into focus again, and this time he notices the subtle grove at the tip of the fruit, and it was something he hadn’t noticed while he was ordering from his computer screen because he didn’t have his glasses on. Instead of it being an innocent gift, it  had turned out to be a phallic symbol. “Oh dear,” he mutters feeling the heat flood his face.

“It’s a penis,” Layla snickers.

“No. No. A banana penis!” Harry chakles. 

“We can return it,” Earl says. “We could get something else. There was this ring-”

“No returns! I l want my banana penis!” Harry interrupts, taking the charm and sliding it on the chain with Layla’s help, adjusting it until the banana penis proudly hangs in front of the gold cross against his chest.  

////

Despite a thick duvet covering the two of them, Layla had the air conditioner turned on in the home theatre room in fear that the PlayStation would overheat and explode. It wasn’t an irrational fear, but the whizzing of the fan got noticeably louder with each passing hour as she played. But the machine had quietened down when she’d turned on The Blair Witch Project. The DualShock no longer had a blue glow it did settling into nothing as it powered down after several minutes of inactivity. 

Harry was splayed out on top of her, quietly snoring into the crook of her neck, nestling in between her breasts as one of his hands clutched the material of her ratty tshirt. He’d strolled into the home theatre room late afternoon in a hoodie and the tiniest shorts and flopped on top of her grumbling about taxes. She’d  pulled up the movie on her console to help him unwind, only to find him out cold forty minutes in. She wonders if it’s due to exhaustion or if he was freaked out. Mitch had  told her found footage horror gives Harry the ‘heebie jeebies,’ when they were watching Paranormal Activity on FaceTime - where he snoozed through the second half of the film. She wonders if it’s a way to get out of watching the movie; she rarely ever woke him up and he ended up blissfully unaware.  

When the infamous scene with an up the snotty nostril shot of one filmmakers, her phone repeatedly buzzes. She squints at the display, eye slowly adjusting to the bright screen from the dull cast of the projector, to find that it was a group FaceTime request and it doesn’t take long for her thumb to swipe across the screen. Her friends’ face beams from the rectangular squares echoing a varied response of hellos. 

“Wassup wassup?” Layla says quietly, reaching for her controller to pause the movie. 

“Are you sleeping? We can barely see your face right now,”  Heidi says. 

“Why are you whispering?” Grace asks. 

“Was watching a movie and someone’s fast asleep,” she replies, tapping the button to flip the camera to show them the brown locks of Harry’s crown. She flips it back to her face soon after, the free hand that’s not propping up her phone slithers inside the hem of his T-shirt to draw aimless teardrops down the skin of his back. 

“She’s such a hypocrite,” Ramya shakes her head. “She’s such a snob about watching movies with us and her boyfriend gets to droll all on her when the movie’s playing.”

“I’m not a -”

“You are!” Susan cackled. “You kept shushing us every five minutes when we watched It at Sathyam.”

“You all were making jokes from the minute it started. It ruined my immersion,” she shrugs. 

“You and your immersion. You ruined clowns and the circus for me, you fucker.” Heidi flips her off. 

“Why did you come to the movie about a murdering clown then?”

“Shut up,” Heidi sticks her tongue out at her.

“I guess taking sexy pictures and posting them online is laborious,” Ramya comments at Harry snoozing away.

“Okay. That’s enough,” Layla’s eyes narrow.

“It was a joke! Not judging,” Ramya throws her hands up.

“He actually works hard, which is wild to me because I thought OnlyFans was the easiest thing to do. Like he works out everyday because he feels like he needs to because people are paying him to look a certain way, and then there’s the planning of the shoot and the editing. The editing takes forever,” Layla sighs. “He was telling me yesterday that there was this user who was being demanding with him, that it crossed a lot of boundaries.”

“Can’t he just block them?” Grace asks.

“It’s not that easy. This dude has been tipping him - quite generously - and been a subscriber for a while now, so if he did block him, he’d have to give back all the money he’d ever sent to him.”

“That fucking sucks! That’s the site’s policy? I assumed for it being one of the main platforms of adult entertainment, they’d have more stuff in place to protect the creators,” Susan sighs.

“Yeah. I read some of the messages and it’s scary but he’s dealing with it. This is not his first time, apparently.”

“How long does he see himself doing this?” Grace asks.

“I don’t know. He started it to not be financially dependent on his mum after the move. And education is fucking expensive here, unless you get a good scholarship - which I am sure he would. But he likes doing it, I think. His shoots are quite creative and I think he likes the idea of expressing himself…so I don’t know,” Layla shrugs.

“Did he manage to save up? Or..” Ramya trails off.

“Oh yeah. He’s managed to save up quite a bit. His closet has a good chunk of designer stuff - Gucci especially. He owns a two bedroom flat in London that he rents to his friends. He drives around in a fucking Range Rover. He gets me expensive things… He has an accountant and all. He had a meeting with him earlier this afternoon. I think they have to file taxes in two months, so he was talking about W2 or 1040 or something. He’s rich. Scrooge McDuck rich. Richer than all of us,” Layla whispers, emphasizing the last part. Right before he’d flopped on her - tired from his meeting - he'd told her that he’d got a great return from the IRS.

“Speak for yourself,” Heidi chuckles. “I just saved up all my money from Wollys and invested in three gold biscuits.”

“You never told us,” Grace says.

“Yeah and I live with you!” Susan accuses.

“Appa (Dad), sends me money every month anyway for everything. So I saved up all my Wollys money and asked Appa what’s the best way to freeze it because with each passing day I just wanted to spend it, so he’d bought gold biscuits.”

“Next time you decide to be all wise, let us know, so we’d make sound finance decisions too. I was just gonna put all the money the college is paying me in the bank,” Layla says.

“I managed to save two lakhs from my alary and I put it in a fixed deposit,” Ramya says.

“I haven’t even thought of how I am going to save,” Grace says. “And I get paid next week.”

“Next week?”

“Oh yeah, Susan, I get paid bimonthly.”

“How was your first week at your first proper job?” Layla inquires. 

“Fun. Scary. Felt like a proper imposter the entire day. Especially the first day when my manager was showing me around and telling me about all the departments, I was like what the fuck am I doing here with all these smart people.” Grace replies, “Especially since I was the youngest. The clothes helped a bit. Thank you for that by the way.”

They had got on a call three weeks ago to help Grace decide on her best officey outfits, what to keep and what to return. Layla had been no help half asleep in the middle of the night telling her that she’ll look great as long as everything was black. 

“Did anyone compliment your outfit?” Ramya asks. 

“Nope. They all wear jeans and T-shirts. My manager was wearing ripped jeans when she was showing me around. I was told by my coworkers that it’s casual unless they have to be in a meeting with a third party. So I’m glad I only kept three outfits and returned the rest.

“But I’m still figuring out what I’m doing and the office culture and all that but with each passing day, I surprisingly handle it,” Grace tells them. 

“Alright! That’s how you kick ass! Watch out New Zealand government, Grace is coming!” Heidi exclaims. 

“Speaking of kicking ass at the workplace,” Susan says, “Ramya here looked so much like a teacher on her story yesterday!” 

“Oh my god, yes! That kaajal bleeding down and smeared, and her hair in that unflattering bun,” Grace agrees. 

“That bindi and her jhumkas. Everything was so perfect!” Heidi chimes. 

“Yes, I’m so glad that you find my underpaid, overworked teacher at an NGO look hot,” Ramya says dryly. “Now stop flirting with me.”

“Don’t be like that! I need you to teach me a lesson, mommy,” Layla teases. 

“You’ll be a good girl now, won’t you?” Ramya giggles. 

“Yes. I. Will.” Layla says without missing a beat, making everyone crack up. 

They ask Ramya what her plans are for her birthday and she tells them that she’s planning to take off from work that day to try and sleep in, go out for lunch with her parents and brother, and head to a slam poetry event she was performing at. When asked why she didn’t want a party, Ramya told them that she would most likely go to some afterparty thing at one of the performers houses - parties with those types of crowd were invariably filled with cigarettes, tetra packs of Old Monk Rum, plastic bottles of coke, and  one person pulling out a guitar to sing along. Layla despised that crowd but she did go to one of those after parties once on Ramya’s insistence, only to book it home thirty minutes later - when her wheezing flared up from the incessant huff of tobacco smoke of the crowd -  after her mother’s face lit up her phone screen and three texts from her father. She was eternally grateful for having the world's strictest parents that day. Meghna and Ramya had officially parted ways, Meghna didn’t want to get into a relationship with someone who didn’t want to be with just her and Ramya respected that. She had been dealing with the heartbreak better than what Layla and her friends anticipated. They’ve chalked it up to all those videos that Ramya had sent of them detailing the tantric sex escapades she’s been having with Krishna - who was tagging along with Ramya to the afterparty. Layla sniggered while watching them before agreeing with everyone that all of Ramya’s hippie dreams are materialising with her new girlfriend.

“Guys please tell Heidi to stop making friends with the men I bring home,” Susan exasperatedly groans. 

“Excuse me?!? Fuck you! What do you expect me to do when there’s a man standing in his ஜெட்டி (boxers) in my kitchen early in the morning?” Heidi counters. 

Layla sucks in her lips to keep herself from laughing at the two, but Ramya and Grace giggle.

“You need to stop Heidi,” Grace says, “It makes it harder to boot them to the curb.”

“I thought you didn't bring boys home. You usually go to theirs and slip out no?” Ramya asks.

“I did but this boy-”

“Okay! I’m gonna tell them!” Heidi cuts Susan off.

“Don’t you dare bitch!”

“She’s bonded with this boy,” Heidi whispers to her friends, like Susan wasn’t on the call and in the room right next to hers.

“I have not!” Susan vehemently shakes his head.

“You don’t bond with anyone!” Grace whisper screams. “How?”

“Because he-” Heidi stops bursting into a fit of laughter.

“What?” Layla, Ramya, and Grace all ask in unison.

“It’s nothing,” Susan insists.

“It’s not n-noth-nothing,” Heidi manages to sputter between bouts of giggles. 

“Tell us!” Ramya insists.

Heidi takes her glasses off to wipe the tears that have streamed down her cheeks. “Last week-”

“You promised not to tell!” Susan says.

“Don’t listen to her. Tell us!” Layla urges Heidi.

“So, Susan was doing it with his guy last week and I get a call at like one in the morning-”

“I swear to God,” Susan groans, hurrying up from the bed, leaving her phone to flop over and have the camera point to the white popcorn ceiling. Three seconds later, they see Heidi’s door burst open to have Susan stomping over and Heidi’s camera frame shakes as a squabble breaks out in Tamil.

“They were fucking so hard and he managed to yank her earring and split her earlobe in two!” Heidi howls in laughter and Susan smacks her shoulder, cursing her.

“Aiyo! Christ!” Layla gasps.

“Fuck! Are you okay?” Grace asks concerned.

“How did it even happen?” Ramya implores. 

“I made her promise not to tell,” Susan mumbles, falling onto Heidi’s mattress in defeat.

“Why not? It’s just us,” Ramya says.

“It’s embarrassing! People in the emergency room were laughing,” Heidi snorts. 

Susan lifts her hair up and out of her face to show them her right ear lobe, which now had a white bandage taped over it. “It doesn’t hurt. Had to get my lobe sewed together though. The doctors said they’ll take out the stitches in a few days and I can wear earrings after it fully heals. It happened so fast. We were doing it hard and fast doggy style and I think he bent over to pull me up or to grab onto my hair - anyway and the next minute there was blood and he had my hoop in his hand. Safety tip from now, if you’re wearing big earrings, especially hoops, take them off before you have sex,” she mumbles sheepishly.

“I had to go to the emergency room and thank fuck for insurance but after I knew that she was okay, I laughed for like ten minutes, because I thought she was dying or something,” Heidi explains.

“I wish I did. It was mortifying,” Susan buries her face in her hands. 

“Ever since then, the dude’s come over a lot since then and he's also Tamil and likes Vijay movies, so my friendship with him  was instantaneous,” Heidi shrugs.

“A man with a fine taste,” Layla agrees. “I’m with Heidi on this one. Anyone who’s a fan of Vijay is an automatic friend.” 

Susan rolls her eyes, when Grace beats her before she says something, “Is he feeling guilty? Is that why he’s coming around?”

“He is definitely guilty but we just sit and watch 80's Tamil movies together now.”

“Who knew that ripping Susan’s earlobe in half was all it took to ignite some type of feels,” Ramya chuckles. “What happened to that white British boy you were hooking up with from your class?”

“Oh, he’s been avoiding me like the plague because he insisted on anal and I told him it’s only fair that I get to do it to him before he does it to me,” Susan shrugs. “I think it’s a fair trade.”

“It totally is. Dudes should know what the experience is like. Jake has been trying to do anal with me  for like three months now and I can just about tolerate the second biggest buttplug,” Grace says. 

“And you don’t wanna?” Layla raises her brow. 

“God no. I like giving up the reins when I’m having sex. Like the bed is the only place when I love being submissive.”

“I don’t think I’d survive being with someone who owns a penis,” Ramya grimaces. “I don’t know how you all do it.”

“What’s their obsession with putting it up your colon? Like is the one designated hole not enough for you?” Heidi rolls her eyes.

“I have no clue either. But I think Layla and I are on the right track with these Brits though,” Susan says.

“What track might that be?” Layla questions.

“Colonising the colonisers,” Susan’s eyes glint mischievously, and everyone bursts out laughing. 

“Colonising the colonisers,” Layla repeats her pun, shaking her head as she snorts and guffaws. Harry startles awake from the way her body convulses beneath him.

“Wha’?” He blinks lazily, propping himself up to look around.

“I’m sorry, babe. Susan said something funny. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she softly says, cradling his face, cooing as she gets him back on her chest. 

“Huh,” Harry lets out a small sound, eyes already drifting shut from the way Layla’s fingers move his hair away from his eyes, and the lazy scratches, from blunt nails of her other hand, down his back. 

“It’s okay. Go back to sleep, Har. It’s alright.” She lulls him back, waiting for a few moments after his breathing evens out before picking up her phone to find her friends pouting.

“Who knew you could be so gentle,” Grace teases.

“Can you come put me to sleep like that?” Heidi chuckles.

“Okay. Okay. Shut up.” Layla rolls her eyes. “I’ve become a softie. Let’s move on.”

“How does it feel to have a buttplug in your bum?” Ramya asks Grace. “How do the logistics work?”

//// 

Deepavali in Chicago looked vastly different from Deepavali back home in India. If Layla was with her parents, then the entire house would be in shambles - cardboard boxes everywhere, piles of old books, newspapers, and clothes to give away. Her mother scrubbing every crevice of the house, her father up in the lofts demanding that Layla hold on to the step ladder so he could get down. Her grandmother vigorously sifting rice flour and prepping to make poli, achumuruku and thattu vadai to gift friends and family. Her grandfather calling her every three hours asking her what firecrackers she wants from the shops, even if it’s been years since she had the desire to light up a sparkler. Distant sounds of boom and a gleeful laugh of children echo from the street on the days leading up to the day, praying out to the gods to part the grey clouds for sunshine, so they can burst all the new crackers they’ve stashed away.

Layla had chalked up Deepavali at Apex to be more of the same with the neighbours and the throng of Indians her Uncle and Aunt were friends with; she'd even imagined lighting up a sparkler with Harry in the evening. Her notion of an almost homey celebration was dispelled the minute Vasanth had told her they were leaving for Chicago to celebrate with Senthil, his first cousin. They’d initially planned to pop over to Layla’s other Uncle’s after the New Years but that quickly fell through when her flights got preponed a week. So, they packed their bags and flew over to spend four days with Senthil. 

His two bedroom flat was sparsely decorated, the grey walls had nothing lively bouncing from them to permeate guests with warmth. Layla tutted with disappointment when she walked into his bedroom to find him still sleeping on a blowup mattress. 

“You’ve been here for ten months and you didn’t have time to buy a bed?” She’d asked him. 

“I sleep in the hospital, kutti. You think I have time to come home, much less decorate it,” Senthil reminded her. He moved to the States for a three year foetal and neonatal surgery program at Leurie’s. 

Being the youngest of the cousins, Senthil practically was closer to Layla’s age. So, when he’d taken Layla, Vasanth, and Abi to see the lit up trees at the zoo their first day of visiting, he begged Layla not to call him Uncle in front of his friends. But Layla being Layla came up to him as he was waving his friends off, “Can we head to the gift shop and get the giraffe soft toy, Uncle?” She tugged at the end of his coat sleeve, giving him and his friends her sweetest of smiles. 

When his friends’ brows dipped, gazes moving to and fro from Layla to him, “I became an Uncle when I was seven,” he muttered sheepishly, readjusting the scarf around his neck. 

When they’d left, he locked his arm around her neck, yanking her to him to twist her ear. “Happy now, குட்டிச்சாத்தான் (demon baby)? Come I’ll get you your toy,” he rolls his eyes, walking in the direction of the gift shop.

“I don’t care for one,” she giggled. “Just wanted your friends to know that you have a grown ass niece.” She shrieked, running towards Vasanth and Abi for cover when Senthil chased after. 

Deepavali morning consisted in all of them bundling up heading to the Chicago Bean and bimbling around the neighbourhood, in the early hours. Grey clouds and sticky skin was replaced with biting frigid wind and pink noses. They started on making lunch - or a very late breakfast - getting on FaceTime calls with Layla’s mum and grandmother to guide them along in making the dishes, so they’d taste like they were cooked back home. This Deepavali was quieter, less about celebration but more of enjoying each other’s presence. Layla could not remember the last time she did that with the people back home. Layla was grateful that she wasn’t given the lecture of why paying respects to the Gods is vital from her parents and grandparents and disapproving of her atheism. As much as Chicago’s Deepavali was distinctive from the one’s she’d had back home, she finds herself missing the chaos and fanfare of Chennai. 

“So you’re not going to be a clinician and practice?” Senthil asks, peeping at Layla’s laptop screen; she was filling out applications for schools.

“I didn’t enjoy my clinical or counselling internships. The fun ended right after I figured out the diagnosis. I’d much rather work behind the scenes, plus it’s not like I won’t get to use my psychotherapy skills in research, especially with participants.”

Vasanth turns around walking towards the two, with a ceramic bowl in hand. “Admissions have started ah?”

“Yeah. They have been for the past week. Already done applying to University of Boston and UMass. Thought I’d apply for Northwestern when I’m in Illinois.” She picks up the bowl from Vasanth, and starts mixing the hung curd, honey, and turmeric into a paste with the spoon.

“We’d be so close! Northwestern is like thirty minutes from here!” Senthil exclaims, adjusting the flimsy plastic shower cap on his head. “I could drop you off everyday.”

Layla laughs, noting the way Vasanth frowns at the corner of her eye. “Don’t go making plans yet. It’s a private uni and it depends on my stipend and fee waiver.”

“Yeah and you're heading back to India in two years, so she’d have to look for apartments smack in the middle of her doctorate when your fellowship is done,” Vasanth reminds him

“Or she can just stay here and find a flatmate,” Senthil tells him. “Four more applications to go. Deadline’s the first of December. Seems like you got this,” he pinches her cheeks, before grabbing the television remote. 

When Abi keys into the apartment, with a plastic bag containing all the ingredients they need to make Mysore Pak, the sight in front of her cracks her up. She had all but popped over to Trader Joes for two hours and was mystified about the things that transpired in that short time span. Senthil had a transparent shower cap on and Abi could make out the slick paste of black hair dye underneath. Vasanth had his hair pushed back in one of her hairbands and had a thick goop of pastel yellow paste spread evenly on his face and neck. Layla’s hair was oiled, tied into a braid with her bangs clipped away and donned the same yellow mask on her face as her Uncle. Abi’s sure this is all her niece’s handiwork; she had a knack of making her Uncles bow down to her whims. The three were dancing in the middle of the living room rapping Madai Thirandhu from the noughties. 

////

Harry refreshes his inbox again, maybe his MacBook was glitching. He rubs the sleep away from his drowsy eyes, making sure his brain wasn’t playing tricks on him. Maybe it was just a dream, the kind that starts out with rolling out of the bed with unruly hair, reaching over to his pen and journal from his nightstand, and being distracted by a chime from his laptop. 

A notification pops up on the top right of his screen signaling that Layla had sent him an image, he clicks on the text instead opening up his iMessenger screen to a selfie of Layla standing underneath the Chicago bean. Her hair was up in a ponytail, bangs pushed to the side, her face being swallowed by a fuzzy red scarf as she winked at the camera.

Layla: happy deepavali from the bean!

Harry: Morning Morning! How’s the celebration coming along?

Layla: we’re just planning to eat until our stomachs are ready to pop. oh and senthil uncle says hi!

Senthil had swiped through Layla’s photos from her trip to Wilmington as she was animatedly talking about her much needed beach day. He found the picture of Harry making kissy faces at the camera on the oyster boat, and Layla immediately snatched the phone away as a knee jerk reaction. He’d laughed when she went teary eyed beseeching him to not tell anyone in India. Senthil was surprisingly cool with it, but it didn’t mean that Layla was spared from the lecture about relationships and responsibility.

Harry: Hello to Senthil Uncle! He’s the one who was in fourth grade when you were born right?

Layla: affirmative. miss you lots 🙁

Harry: We FaceTimed last night, remember? 

His face floods a wash of pink recalling their desperate whines and lewd grunts as they helped each other relieve themselves. He went to bed with a dopey smile on his face when he’d pressed the red button wishing her happy dreams.

Layla: how could i forget… made me lose my bearings from 800 miles away 👀

Harry: And don’t you forget it!

Layla: i’m being shouted at… gtg. see you tomorrow morning! i bloody love you babe 😘  

Harry: Love you too Lails!

He closes the program to be met with his inbox again. Letting out a heavy sigh, he opens the email again frowning when it doesn’t change. As eyes scan the words ‘Dear Mr. Styles,” his stomach churns knowing what's coming next but before he could read it again, he’s gunning it to the toilet slapping a hand over his mouth. 

“Good morning,” she beams at him, sitting down at the edge of the bed as her fingers move angst the prickly five o’clock shadow against his jaw. 

“Morning, sweet girl.” He pushes himself upright using his arms, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her cheek. “What’s all this?” He asks. 

“Your morning coffee,” she replies, bringing the mug in between the two. “And,” she tilts her head to the side and his gaze  follows to find a bowl of oatmeal topped with berries and apple slices, scrambled eggs and a glass of water on a wooden table. “Breakfast in bed.”

“And what did I do to get my breakfast to come to me?” He grabs the ceramic mug from her, blowing on the dark liquid to cool it down. 

“Nothing,” she shrugs. “Just felt like doing it.” 

“How lucky am I?” He smiles, fluttering his eyelids dramatically. 

Layla lets out a hearty giggle. “Don’t go thanking your lucky stars yet, earth boy. I still don’t know how to work the fancy coffee machine.”

“How can one fuck up black coffee?” He laughs, taking a sip from the mug, grimacing immediately. “Lails,” he coughs, “Did you add sugar in this?”

“What? Are you not supposed to?” 

“No!” He exclaims, setting the mug aside on the bedside table. 

“Well jeez! You like drinking that every morning? Dude, that tasted like ass before all that sugar.”

“Hey!” He pinches her sides playfully, making her swat his hands away. 

“I’ll never understand coffee,” she shakes her head. “Maybe a sip of this would help,” she picks up the glass next to his oatmeal. “Uncle left tender coconut water in the fridge for the two of us. But know that if I made filter coffee right now, I would have knocked your socks off.”

“I don’t doubt it. Thanks for breakfast, by the way.”

“No problem. The breakfast was to just butter you up,” she admits with a coy smile.

“For?” He arches his brow.

“I’ll tell you later.” She says, getting up and making her way to the door. “But wash up and meet me downstairs. Aunty will be back from work soon and then we’re going to the salon with your mum.”

“What time is it?” He asks. 

“Half past ten. We’re the only ones home.” She tells him.

“Can’t be…” He turns around to find his phone and figure out why his alarm didn’t go off. 

“I turned your alarm off. It bloody woke me up at five in the morning,” she rolls her eyes. “You need a day off from running for your shoulder.”

“I didn’t run yesterday,” he defends himself. 

“We still went on a walk.” She reminds him. “Plus, I’ve got a great lazy day planned for us.”

////

“I thought you guys were going to get facials done?” Harry asks, stepping into Layla’s bathroom. She had a makeshift spa set up with fluffy towels, a scented candle, and colourful tubs of skincare. 

“We are,” she replies, coming up behind him with a brass cup on top of a white hand towel. “You and Uncle refused to come get facials with us-“

He moves out of her way, so she can set it on the counter. “I don’t think I need it. My skin looks good from just using your skincare. And Vasanth laughed when you sugg-“

“Don’t be fooled by that.” Layla interrupts. “He acts like salons are a scam. He refused to go get a facial before his wedding because he thought he was too cool. He bought those facial kits two days before his reception and begged me to give him a facial. I bet my ass he’s gonna come knocking on my door for a sheet mask at least tonight.” She cocks her head to the wooden stool she’d dragged from the master bathroom. 

Harry sits down. “So, I’m getting a spa day because you think I might have certain inhibitions to walk into a salon?”

“Nope. I’m pampering you for the burn you suffered at the carnival yesterday,” she laughs. 

“Oh please! We both know that shot was a fluke,” he argues. 

“It wasn’t! I’ve got the skills,” she insists, sticking her tongue out at him. 

“What skills?” He asks her exasperatedly, throwing his hands up. 

“Hello! All the hours I put into Call of Duty. It must have rubbed off on me in real life.” She clasps her fingers together, sticking out her middle and index at him, bringing it to her eyes as she pretends to shoot him. Blowing out the tips of her fingers like one would a gun in old cowboy movies. 

“You can’t be serious!” He rolls his eyes. “Baby, that’s so stupid.”

“Says the idiot who’s car now houses the giant stuffed bunny I won,” she arches her brow at him.  

“Shut up,” he sticks his tongue out at her. “Those games are rigged, you know,” he adds, hoping to discount her win.

Despite her boyfriend's attempts to try and gloss over her victory, Layla finds herself smiling - the kind that makes her dimple dip into her cheek. “So what you’re saying is that you weren’t strong enough for the high striker?”

“No!” Harry replies quickly. “I won that fair and square! I am a man of wit and brawn!” 

Layla laughs. “Whatever you say, Hercules,” she dismisses, leaning forward to press a kiss to his temple. “Alright, I have two facial kits. Do you want the fruit enzyme or the pearl one?”

Harry regards the boxes on the counter, like he knew the organic chemistry behind it. Prior to Layla all he did was moisturise and now he had managed to swipe all of her tubes and tubs that were nice smelling. His skin was a lot softer, the tingly red goopy masque that Layla pipettes onto his face every week got rid of all the blackheads on his nose. His forehead was a lot less angry, with the red zits only popping up occasionally but disappearing as fast as it came. So, he really didn’t think he needed any one of the boxes but it was appealing to kick back and let her dote on him. After all, she deemed it to be his lazy day. “The fruit one,” he answers.

“Did you just pick the colourful box?” Layla chuckles when he gives her a sheepish smile as she runs a comb through his hair to work the knots.“Can’t believe you cut your hair,” she complains, running her fingers through the shorter brown locks. When he’d turned up to her Aunt’s flower braiding ceremony with trimmed hair, it made her bottom lip visibly jut out in a pout.

“It was getting long and difficult to style.” It was. Harry’s hair coiled around the nape of his neck and it made him look shaggy. “You’re just whining ‘coz you don’t have a lot to grab onto when I’m eating you out,” he smiles up at her salaciously.

Warmth flushes across Layla’s chest, rising up to her cheeks and the tops of her ears. He really did have a filthy mouth. “It’s not just that,” she admits. “Your curls are gone,” she states. The short cut - especially after styling - made his hair look straight, almost like the stylist had a vengeance to get rid of them. There was still a dusting of curls left behind near his ears and it was incredibly cute when they peaked out of whatever beanie he was wearing. She can’t wait until they grow back and coil again and she was going to do everything in her power to make them sprout faster.

“What’s that?” Harry asks, as Layla reaches for the small brass bowl with a sap green liquid. 

“Oil. Aunty’s hair and mine have been falling off in clumps lately, so we called grandmum and asked for her hair oil recipe. Is that okay? It’s ayurvedic.”

“Yeah. Was this your ploy all along? Trick me into growing my hair out faster?”

She chuckles. “No, actually. I was just giving you a head massage.”

“What have you got up your sleeve, Lails?”

“Nothing. Now just shut your eyes and prepare to relax.”

She gently scoops out the oil, mindful to not spill it on the floor, and works her blunt nails in small circles on his scalp. He moans quietly, and it makes her chuckle as she puts a shower cap on him. Step one: complete, she smiles. 

Harry likes getting a facial, he decides. He has not got one before but he concludes that this is the best. His girlfriend’s soft touch as she lathers up his face with a cleanser, the soft bristles of the brush that paint his skin with a thick orange paste, and he got to lean back against her chest. All made a content sigh escape from him. 

Their trip to the autumn carnival was a ball of fun. They got there after lunch and went around playing loads of games. Layla won the shooting game and ended up picking a humongous bunny plushie - one that the two could not tote around, resulting Harry to jog to the parking lot and throw it in the backseat of his car. Harry tried his luck at ring toss, skee ball, and bottle toss, only to lose every time. He pouted the whole time they walked around the fair, because he deemed it unfair that his girlfriend won and refused to give him the bunny as consolation. Layla pestered him to buy them a turkey leg, which she spat it out right after taking a sizable bite because it was ‘so fucking disgusting that even cavemen would choose to die to starvation than to eat a turkey leg.’ He ended up eating the whole thing, while she stuck to a corn cob. They ended up taking lots of pictures and even waited for an hour to get on the ferris wheel. When Harry leaned over to give her a kiss at the top, the structure creaked making their pod unsteady causing Layla to panic shove him back into his spot. He almost peed his pants laughing when Layla walked face first into her reflection - after proclaiming she had a penchant for this - while they were trying to find their way out of the mirror maze. She gave him the silent treatment and shot him dirty looks the rest of the evening until he’d bought her a cotton candy that was twice as big as her face. Layla learnt that toddlers had a better grasp of eating cotton candy compared to her boyfriend, whose mouth, nose and cheeks grew stickier and pinker with each passing minute. Just as they were about to leave she’d convinced him to try out the high striker. Even if Harry was reluctant to lose again, her sugary kiss convinced him to give it a shot and he did, using a little of his body weight and most of the gravitational pull to drop the hammer into the designated red pedal. The red light meter grew higher and higher, causing him to throw his hands up high in sweet victory, pulling his girlfriend in for a bone crushing hug - spinning her around - muttering how he had ‘science and muscle on his side,’ smearing all the sticky sugary pink treat onto her face. Layla picked out matching key chains as the prize - a clay polymer of two peas in a pod, a nod to his favourite vegetable. The key chain now held his car keys and Layla had slotted it into her house key fob.

He’s pulled back to the now, when he feels a warm washcloth wipe off the enzyme mask that was sitting on his face for twenty minutes. “There,” Layla says, stepping back. “Now, before we hop into the shower, I want you to rate this experience.” She steps back, leaning against the sink.

“Five out of five,” he answers earnestly, opening his eyes to watch her telltale evil grin spread across the entirety of her face. “Oh no,” he mutters. 

“Oh yes!” She beams. Opening a drawer, pulling out a spool of white thread, “Since I’ve given you an ace of an experience, you’re gonna help me with threading my eyebrows by being my dummy.” Harry watches her pull out ten inches of thread, bite it, knot the end to make a loop as she winds one hand around to create tension in the middle.

“No! No no. You buttered me up for this?!? No way. Piss off,” he leans backwards and shoves her hands.

“Come on,” she whines. “I’ll just thread the extras. It’s not like I’m gonna shape it. I need to practise.” 

“I’ve seen you thread your face before. What practice?” He grabs onto her hands - clutching them close to his chest, halting her advances. 

“Yeah for my moustache and the hairs on my chin! Not my eyebrows! It’s so bushy. Come on, please.”

“You’re going to the salon. Get it done there.”

“I’m not trusting anyone to thread my eyebrows but the parlour Aunty back home. She’s the only one who gets it right. Anyone who’s not desi is not gonna touch my eyebrows. Let me just practice on you, so I can try and do mine. I tried to thread my eyebrows a few years ago and ended up pulling out the hair from the arch and I can’t afford to fuck up with the wedding festivities starting tomorrow,” she reasons.

“And I’m the guinea pig that could stand to lose a bloody eyebrow?”

“You won’t lose an eyebrow,” she chuckles. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“No way! Here I was thinking you wanted to pamper me but you were trying to get me all putty in your hands, so you can rip out the hairs of my brow.”

“Please,” she tries again, jutting her bottom lip out, blinking rapidly to get a film of tears over her eyes, voice honey smooth.

“No,” Harry says firmly, closing his eyes to not fall for her glassy doe eyed trick. Her loud sigh makes him open up just in time to see her bottom lip quiver. “Anything but my eyebrows, baby,” he concedes. Fuck she is persuasive. 

“Fine,” she huffs out, wiggling her trapped hands. “Let me pluck out the three hairs that sprout from your mole at least,” she pokes the mole at the corner of his mouth.

“I do not have hair growi- Fuck off, dickhead.”

“You just said ‘anything but the eyebrows,’” she quotes, drawling out her voice to mimic his accent. 

“What are you? A lawyer? Using my own words against me,” he shakes his head. “Fine, anything but threading. I’m game for anything but threading.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” he confirms. 

“Then… Maybe take me to this seafood restaurant?” She proposes, looking into his eyes expectantly.

“Deal. I’ll take you on a date to this restaurant. That’s it?”

“That’s it. All I want is the Cioppino.”

“We’ll go next week and make a whole day out of it.” She claps, abandoning the thread. “Deal?” She stretches out her pinky.

“Deal! Can’t wait,” says as he loops his pinky with hers and brings it  to his lips.

“We can make a whole day out of it.” She declares, walking over to the glass partition and turning on the rainfall shower head for hot water. “I bet I can call ahead and get us on those boats that take people to the sea to taste fresh oysters. We can laze around the beach for the rest of the day and I’ll make a reservation at Seabird in the evening.”

All of what she’s saying sounds very rehearsed, Harry’s eyebrows knit together and his eyes narrow. The place they were staying was landlocked; far far away from the nearest beach. “Lails, where’s Seabird?”

“In Wilmington,” she answers, with a giggle. 

Wilmington, a two and a half hour drive from Apex. A journey that Harry would have made her drive. He’d been driving her around the bloody country, and it’s only fair that she drove him around too. Ever since she told him that she was licensed to drive around multiple countries, in Vermont, he’d told her that they were gonna tag team for longer road trips. Of course, he’d drive her to and fro in a heartbeat but with each passing instance he found himself enjoying the role of a passenger princess - shovelling snacks into their mouths, curating playlists for their journey, fondling her thighs and chuckling at the sheer unwavering concentration she mustered while driving. And it was the experience he would have got while driving to the restaurant if not for her cornering him into this deal.

“Hey you conned me! This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” He accuses, standing up straight with his hands on his hips. Although his gaze was accusatory, the smile that tugs the corner of his lips was one of pride by being outwitted by his girl.

“No backsies!” She lets out a gleeful laugh, stripping off her clothes beckoning him to follow.

////

“Hey, come on in,” Vasanth greets Anne and Harry, stepping aside to let him in. “Abi’s almost done getting ready. You guys need anything before we head over? Water?” It was still dark outside, with the first few rays breaking over the horizon.

“We’re good. Never got dressed this early for a wedding event in my life,” Anne chuckles, smoothing down the fabric of her floral shirt. “Does it always happen this early?”

“Yeah. The பந்தக்கால் முகூர்த்தம் (Pandakaal Muhurtham) usually takes place at dawn. We woke up at three in the morning to get the house set up for mine.”

Harry beelines towards the stairs in his aqua trousers and his white shirt mumbling about checking to see if Layla was ready.

“Harry.” Vasanth calls out. “Layla’s in the family room. She isn’t coming today.”

‘Why?” He asks, hand on the bannister as he steps down.

“She’s ill. Allergies,” he explains.

“Oh no. I didn’t know she was allergic to anything. Is she alright?” Anne enquires.

“Miss. Genius thought it would be a grand idea to get some persimmons from the tree in the backyard in the dead of the night-”

“She’s allergic to persimmons?” Harry asks.

“No. She’s allergic to the gypsy moth caterpillar. They’re pretty rampant in fall, which is why I zipped her up in my biggest jacket I could find everytime she stepped out of the house.” He points to the Tide jacket that was hung on the coat hook. “I think it fell on her when she was picking the fruit and she barged into our room wheezing and claiming that she was dizzy.”

“Oh dear. Let me go check up on her,” Anne says, giving her coat to Harry, marching towards the room. 

Layla is on her side, hands tucked under her cheek, breathing stuttering as she intently watches a show on her laptop - that was whirring like it was going to launch into space - with AirPods in her ear. Her lower half was swaddled in a fuzzy red blanket and her camisole showed them the red welts all over her shoulder with small irregular bumps that decorated her skin. 

“Sweetheart,” Anne coos, sitting on the coffee table. 

Layla smiles up at her, tugging off her AirPods as she reaches over to hit the spacebar - pausing her show. “Good morning. You look really nice!”

“Thank you, Layla. How are you feeling? Do you have any trouble breathing now?” She inquires - caressing her hair - from the whistle sounds she makes when she inhales.

“Nope. Just itchy,” her eyes flit to her splotchy skin on her forearm; she can feel Harry’s gaze - who’s hovering behind her - bore into the back of her skull.

“Did you go to the emergency room?”

“No. I bought my meds with me. I took an antihistamine, applied calamide on my skin. Wheezing has gone down considerably and I have my inhalers right here if it flares up again.”

“You came prepared?” Anne chuckles.

“Yeah. It’ll clear up by the afternoon. That’s what usually happens; I used to get them of-”

“You’ve been super allergic to them your whole life and you still haven’t learnt your lesson,” Vasanth scolds her.

“What lesson?” She coughs out.

“Do not go near trees, especially when it gets dark. Everytime-”

“Vasanth,” Abi chides in, walking into the room with a green linen saree, smelling like the jasmine that she’s pinned in her braid. “She’s sick. Don’t scold her.”

‘But she-,” her husband starts.

“Yelling at her is not going to get her better.” She tells him. “Nice pants, Harry.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, smiling at her.

“Nandhini Aunty called. I think we’re running behind,” she informs them. “You’re gonna be alright alone, kutti?”

“Uh huh. You guys go have fun,” Layla shoos them away. 

“Okay. Call if you need anything okay,” Vasanth reminds her, bending down to kiss her hair. Layla nods.

The party makes their way to the front door, shuffling on their coats when they hear her call out, “எனக்கு காலை உணவை கொண்டு வர மறக்காதே, சித்தப்பா! (Don’t forget to bring me back breakfast, Uncle!)”

“ உனக்கு எதுவும் இல்லை! (None for you!) You’ll only get food after you drink the Neem juice!”

“Yuck!” She grimaces in disgust, making them all laugh. “I’m not doing that!”

“We’ll see about that when I get back. Get some sleep!” Vasanth shouts back. He grips on the door handle about to shut it when he sees Harry hesitate at the threshold, toying with his socks. Abi and Anne have already made their way across the street. “Everything okay?”

“Um no. I think-,” he stammers, running his hand through his hair. “I’m gonna stay with her. You guys go ahead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Fair warning, her allergy meds knock her into a comatose state and the one time she couldn’t sleep because the house was noisy she picked a fight with my dad - who had the TV on - and bit him.”

“Really?” His eyebrows raise up.

“Yep. She turns into a rabid dog if she’s not left alone to sleep. She still threatens to bite me if I wake her up before the alarm. I think it’s best to leave her be. Don’t tell me I didn’t give you a heads up.”

“I think I can handle her,” he replies, cockily making Vasanth shrug before closing the door. 

////

Forty five minutes. It only took forty five minutes for Harry to want to eat his own words. Handling her was something he’s not sure how to do anymore. His original plan was to lull her to sleep, so she was less likely to be cranky but he did not expect her to swing in the opposite direction. The minute Layla heard him walk back, she buried herself under the blankets - refusing to come out. She announced to him with firm conviction that she was not going to fall asleep until Vasanth, Anne, and Abi got home and filled her in on all the details that happened across the street. He’d tried everything with her: he was stern to which she responded back by blowing a blaring raspberry at him, she whined like a brat when he tried to slot himself on the couch, she managed to quickly swipe her AirPods and her laptop from the coffee table when he’d made his way to the kitchen to make her some chamomile tea, and most of all she dismissed him with one word answers when he proposed that he’ll drive her to a lake if she turns off her show and listen to him.

And that brings him to now, forty five minutes later with a child coffee cup in hand, hunched over the end of the couch on his knees, a loud sigh escaping his mouth when he sees that the upright figure of his girlfriend cocooned in the blanket. She is so bloody stubborn, he thinks wordlessly tugging on the corner of the fleece fabric. She quickly tucks it under her thigh, mumbling underneath her breath about wanting to watch Neeya Naana in peace. 

“Layla,” he groans out, placing the mug on the table next to the thermometer. “What’s the debate topic this episode?” He asks. He’s watched an episode or two with her when they were vegging out on the couch. Layla had told him that the show helps break her bubble of privilege by giving her a glimpse into the opinions of the general public. And most of the time Harry sees her watching, eyes wide mumbling about how bloody backwards everyone is. 

“Housemaids versus Employers. It’s not not even a debate anymore; they’re just yelling at each other and the moderator is trying to shut them up.”

“Can I watch with you?”

“No,” she responds after a few beats, with a shake of her head. 

“Why not?”

“Go to Nandhini Aunty’s house, Harry.”

“I’m not gonna leave you! Baby, what’s wrong? I just want to take care of you. You were there when I was sick, why can’t I do the same?” He implores, gently placing a hand on her thigh, caressing the fleece of the blanket.

“It’s just allergies. It’ll go in a few hours-”

“Layla,” he cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter. Just let me under the blanket?” He pleads, giving a reassuring squeeze to her thigh.

Layla takes in a loud breath in. “I look hideous,” she admits quietly. “I have welts all over my skin. My face looks like a bumpy road. I don’t want you to look at me like this. You’ll laugh.”

Harry can’t help but laugh, making her pinch the skin on the back of his hand in response. “Ow!” He snatches his hand from her, rubbing over the spot. “I’m sorry. You’re being ridiculous, Lails. Do you really think I would laugh?”

“No,” she whispers. “What if you look at me now and just can’t get hard… like ever.”

“That’s preposterous. I get hard every time I think of you. Like sometimes I see you walk into my room with a smile on your face and boom - instant semi,” he admits, tugging the corner of the bed sheet, and slipping his hand in.

She giggles. “Your love boners,” she recalls, her hand clasping Harry’s that sneaks in, enjoying his warmth.

“Plus, I’ve sneezed on you - like a properly disgusting snotty sneeze and you’ve seen me pee! You still have sex with me,” he reminds her.

“That’s true! I’ve seen you pee like seven times now.”

“Just let me in, baby. I’ll close my eyes. Would that help?”

“No. I’m being silly again. Sorry.” She closes her laptop shut, and tugs her bed sheet off her with a big sigh, letting it pool on her lap.

Harry immediately helps her place her bulky old laptop on the ottoman along with her AirPods. She smiles down at him, and Harry can’t help cup her splotchy cheeks. She was warm, like she was running a slight temperature, her face was pink - with the calamide spread all over. Ruddy welts everywhere except for her nose and lips. The angry red bumps continued all over her neck, chest and down her arms. Her breaths were still accompanied by a faint whistle and all her hair was pulled into a messy bun, away from her skin.

“What on earth made you think that three in the bloody morning was a good time to eat persimmons?”

“I don’t know. I was thirsty and my water bottle wasn’t on the nightstand, so I came downstairs to get it from the kitchen and the tree caught my eye. I figured why not have a snack and you know I’ve never tasted persimmons before and Uncle had been holding me off from the tree until they got ripe.. So I figured why not?”

“And when did the fuzzy worm fall on you?” 

“I picked three and there was a really big ripe fruit high up, so I set my phone’s flashlight down and jumped to get it and ended up knocking it from the branch. It fell on my face,” she frowns. “I thought nothing would happen since every time those fuckers triggered my allergies it was back home and they were native species but I guess all the fuzz of caterpillars don’t agree with me.”

He can’t help but let out a boyish giggle at the thought of her itty bitty frame jumping up and down in the dead of the night trying to get a fruit. “This is why you should stay away from worms. They’re absolutely vile.”

“Hey! Just because I’m allergic to one particular demonic worm does not mean you can hate all of them. They’re so cute and slimy when they crawl around.”

“Whatever. Make bad choices and love on worms and snails.” He shakes his head, muttering under his breath, “Freak.”

“Hey!”

“Did you enjoy the persimmon at least?”

“No! They were so disappointing! Not worth all this at all,” she explains, scratching down her collarbone.

“No itching,” Harry reminds her, prying her fingers away from her irritated skin. 

“But it’s scratchy,” she complains. 

“I know.” He coos, kissing her hand. “Come on, scoot over,” he tells her, stripping down to his underwear.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a cuddle?”

“Go put on some trousers. Don’t want them coming home with you in your tighty whities.” She snorts out a laugh, pointing at his underpants.

“Nice to see that all your dickhead skills are intact despite your illness. He flips his middle finger to her, making her bark out a louder wheezy laugh. 

“I just folded a pair of your shorts and hoodie in my closet.” 

Harry quickly bounds up the staircase  and slips on his olive green hoodie and his black running shorts. By the time he gets downstairs, Layla’s already shuffled to the end of the couch, looking up at him with big bleary eyes. He hastily settles on the cushions, pulling the blanket around them, slotting his legs between hers while bringing her close to his chest.  That’s all it takes for Layla’s eyes to flutter close, reveling in the feeling of his fingers rub soothing circles on her scalp.

////

Abi wanders into Ganesan's kitchen to get a break from all the ruckus in the living room. She needed to get away from the ruckus. At first the conversation was flowing and easy between the guests as the women waited for their turn with the henna artist. She was sandwiched between the Ganesan’s dog and her husband, talking to the guests about their trips to India - about the new buildings erected and new hangout spots in Chennai as Jeans played in a muted volume. But as the women started trickling away, the conversation turned more mind-numbing, the TV switched to the sport channel that broadcasts cricket highlights from ten years ago, and somehow the conversation turned a corner to alligator hunting from the bride’s uncle from Florida. Vasanth mentioned that he and Layla ate some alligator on their trip to New Orleans and the people immediately went into all the gory detail of skinning the reptile and she did not want her breakfast to make its way up.

While the rest of the house was clean and meticulously decorated with fresh flowers and paper lanterns for the mehendi ceremony. But the kitchen was a mess. There were plastic bags everywhere, food containers out in the open, the sink was overflowing with glasses and dishes, a trail of food wrappers dotted its way from the pantry. The kitchen counter was transformed into a makeshift station with an ineffectual assembly line of Aunties making goodie bags for the guests to take home.

“Do you guys need any help?” 

“Yes, kanna,” Nandhini smiles. “Can you put some chocolate in each bag?”

“Here, you go,” an older lady politely hands her a box of Ferraro Rochers, and Abi gets into action.

“How far along are you?” The older lady asks, her curly hair frames her face and the grey strands provide a stark contrast against her deep skin tone.

“Five and a half months. Baby is due in the first week of March.”

“Abi’s all set to get a promotion at work in the New Year,” Nandhini adds, patting her back. 

“It’s nice that the women nowadays get to do it all,” an old grandmother adds, who wasn’t really contributing much but more so supervising the assembly line.

“Sometimes, I wonder how different my life would be like if I wasn’t made to discontinue college to get married,” the curly haired woman muses.

“Do you regret your life choices?” Another woman asks, who was standing across from them.

“I don’t regret my children or my husband but sometimes I wonder what life would have been like had I finished college. Maybe I too would be a working mother like Abi.”

“It’s not too late now, Aunty, you can sign up for some classes. There are some great certification courses online,” Abi tells her.

“Yeah but my brain is not brand new like it was before,” she chuckles, making the group laugh.

“I’m glad I stayed at home. I couldn’t not bring myself to leave my children in a creche,” Nandhini Aunty says.

“To each their own.” The grandmother gives the ladies a crinkly smile. “But it is nice that the young girls get a chance to establish themselves before marriage.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nandhini says.

“What makes you say that?” Abi asks.

“I was reading this interview from a famous divorce lawyer back home and she credits the rising divorce rates to women being allowed to have their own careers and build lives before marrying. Think about it, say someone gets married at thirty. The young girl already has a fully developed belief system, she has a good savings put away, she starts spending how she wants and it’s very hard for them to compromise and bend to the life she is building with her husband.” Nandhini explains. “You know, because they will be set in their ways, it’s so much more likely for both of them to have massive egos and fights leading to a separation. Which is why I think women should get married soon.”

“Doesn’t that apply to men as they age too?” Abi asks.

“But boys are going to be boys. Can’t expect them to be mature. Which is why, Abi, I want you to talk to Layla about marriage - start seeding the idea, you know? I talked to your mother-in-law during the flower braiding ceremony and she was asking me if I knew of any good matches for Layla.”

“But she’s-” Abi starts.

“I think Layla and Ashwin would make a great pair. They are looking for brides for him. He’s in tech in San Francisco. He earns six figures. He’ll be able to handle her spunky personality. This is his mother,” Nandhini points to the curly haired woman she was conversing with.

Abi stares dumbfounded at the women in front of her cradling her baby bump, not knowing how to respond. Nandhini Aunty has backed her against a corner by having Ashwin’s mother also present in the conversation. She hates it. She hates Nandhini Aunty for being sneaky and crafting this exact moment. She hates that she essentially walked into this conversation. She also hates the fact that this is how the woman was raised and she’s trying to do a good thing - at least from her perspective.

“I’ve told her lots about Layla and from what she’s seen today, she likes her.” Nandhini continues. “Talk to your family about it and don’t let a good opportunity slip by.”

“I really appreciate it, Aunty, but we aren’t really looking for anyone at the moment. Plus, she’s seeing Har-”

“It’s a lapse in her judgement. She’s just seeking out new experiences. She is having fun now but what will happen when she gets more mature? She will want to settle down with someone similar - someone from her own culture. We should be the ones to guide her away from bad decisions,” Nandhini tells her, halting the conversation about Harry.

Abi chuckles. “Even if that is the case in the future, her number one goal right now is to get into a good PhD program. She’s only turning twenty three next month and she just started her first adult job this week. We're also starting to discuss the idea of marriage and hopefully find someone before it’s too late, you know how it is - good matches are hard to come by and I’m sure that’s why her grandmother is spreading around the word. Just not immediately,” she tells the women, shooting apologetic smiles at Ashwin’s mother, who nods along with the rest of the women.

“What program is Layla applying to?” Ashwin’s mother asks Abi. The conversation smoothly moves into the women’s children’s experiences with applying to grad schools until Anne informs Abi that she’s done and it’s her turn with the henna artist. 

////

One of the best things about getting your mehendi done was the feeling of the sharp plastic cone tip tickling the palm of your hand for hours, depending on the design. Layla certainly didn’t make the henna artist's job easy by giving her a neatly folded A4 sheet with the sketch of the design she designed. But the artist beamed -  when she unfolded the sheet of paper with an apologetic smile - as she was rubbing a few drops of eucalyptus oil on her palm to prep her skin. She has been sitting with the artist for an hour now, chatting with the henna artist about all the designs she had done on her clients so far. Anne and Abi were deep in conversation with their palm outstretched in front of a table fan, aiding in the drying process. 

“Lails,” Harry calls out, wandering into the living room to where she’s sitting on a round cushion on the floor. The backdrop was one with netted pink and bright yellow netted fabric draped all over with colourful paper lanterns hanging from the fairy lights strung above.

“Hmm?” She turns around to find him sauntering next to her clad in his monotone ivory kurta set. It was criminal how good he looked with the plunging v neckline, that exposed the slight dusting of his chest hair with his swallows peeping through on either side and the chain that glimmered around his neck. Her eyes can’t help wander down to how the gathering at the bottom of his pants only accentuated his graceful legs. The pale skin only accentuated the tan of his skin, making his jade eyes and raven tattoos.

“Can I drop my camera with you? Vasanth and I are heading over to Raleigh in a couple of minutes.”

“Where are you two going?” She asks and Harry Harry has to resist the urge to pinch her cheeks. Her allergies had subsided last evening, but there were still patches of pink on her face. She opted to not wear makeup - other than lipgloss and bindi - to the event to help her skin breathe and soothe before she had to glam up for the sangeeth and the kalyanam (ceremony). It didn’t matter to Harry because he had never seen someone so radiant in her flowy mint green anarkali, jhumkas dangling from her ear, her bangles tinkling as she pushed her hair behind her shoulders. The same bangles that were tucked away in his pocket when she sat down with the henna artist.

“He didn’t say but we’re picking up Earl along the way too.” He kneels down next to her, finally getting a peak at the drawing on her palms that the artist was doing her final touches on. “Wait- are those…,” he tilts his head, trying to get a better view.

“Elephants. Lots and lots of elephants!” She exclaims in a toothy smile that carves out the dimple on her left cheek. “How awesome is this!?!”

“It’s so pretty!” He carefully lifts her forearm - the one that was finished - to inspect the intricate line work. 

“Of course it’s pretty. Elephants tend to have that effect on people.”

“Especially you - wait, my phone’s buzzing,” he tells her, putting her hand down to rest on her knee before fishing it out of his pocket. “It’s Vasanth. I gotta go.”

“Itch my nose before you leave, please?”

He chuckles, going to scratch the tip of her nose. “Oh, and Abi,” he says, making her turn to face him.

“Vasanth told me to tell you that he has the cotton balls soaking in sugar water with lemon juice in the fridge for the three of you.” He waves to her and his mother and heads out.

“You’ve trained him well,” Layla laughs.

////

“Layla, wait up.” Ashwin calls out, jogging over to the Sathish’s driveway.

Layla, Abi, and Anne had bid their goodbyes to the wedding party at the Ganesan’s and had made their way across the road to their house. It was a chilly afternoon, especially with the frigid winds blowing up her gown. Indian wear – especially occasion wear - was not designed with colder temperatures in mind. All she wanted to do is head back to her room and turn on the portable space heater near her bed. “I’ll be a minute,” she tells Anne and Abi, as they go into the house through the opened garage.

“Hey, what’s up?” She asks, holding her arms up in front of her, cognizant to not smear the henna on her fancy clothing.

“I didn’t know you owned a camera,” he notes, gaze moving down to the camera that was hanging around her neck. 

“It’s Harry’s,” she tells him. “Everything okay?” 

“Yep yep. I have something for you and in hindsight I should have given it before you sat down for the mehendi,” he tells her, tugging his sweater.

“Yeah, I can’t really hold anything right now. Although, you can just put it there,” he points to the shelf in the garage, where Vasanth keeps his tools. “I can get it later when I’ve rubbed all of this off,” she nods to her hand. 

“Okay,” he nods, patting his pocket to fish out the object.

“What is it?” She asks. 

“Remember when we were talking about toys on our way to the jewelry store?”

She nods.

“I asked my cousin who was flying from Colombo to get these,” he tells her, opening his palm to reveal a small aluminium tube and a short plastic straw.

“Plastic bubbles!” She gasps. “They still make these?!?”

“Yup. I had forgotten all about them until you brought it up in the car.”

“Thank you so much, Ashwin. This is the sweetest. I would give you a hug if I could.”

He laughs. “Yeah, don’t fancy getting henna stains all over my clothes.” He walks over putting it on the shelf.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” She trails behind him.

“Yeah.”

“Do you, um - This is going to sound stupid. But, um, do you do this with everyone?”

“Sorry?”

“Get thoughtful gifts. Offer to take them places. Maybe you’re a wonderful person who’s kind and is just friendly but I’d just like to make sure that we’re on the same page. I’m sorry if this comes across as rude but I think what I’m asking - Well trying to ask, I’m doing such a shitty job of it is-”

“Yes.” He tells her quietly, feeling his heart thud in his ears, fingers busy picking out a phantom thread from his sweater. “I think I might have a crush on you.”

“Oh.” His confession stuns her. “Why?”

This makes Ashwin laugh. “What do you mean why?”

“No, I mean. We met ten days ago. You don’t know me.”

“I feel like I do know you, to a certain extent at least. It wasn’t like some instant crush or anything. Nandhini Aunty started talking about you to me after we first met and she er… she told me your family was looking for a groom and she was on my ass to get married. She was telling me how we would make a great couple and - you look disappointed,” he notes.

“I’m not. Just finish your story.”

“My mom was also looking for girls and you were pretty cool with basketball, golf, and video games… I liked you and Nandhini Aunty pushed me to talk to you and the more we interacted I thought ‘why not her,’ so under her instructions I started to woo you,” he admits, looking down at the floor. “The more she said that we would make a great couple, the more I believed.”

“Wooed me?” She chuckles. “Let me get this straight, you bought me stuff and are nice to me because your Aunty told you to?”

“No no. I mean I’m not gonna say it was all her. I wanted to, too. She just influenced my choices.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Layla shakes her head, blowing out a long breath. “Actually I do. If you really know me, you’d also know that I’m only twenty two and I’m not done studying. I don’t want to get married to you or to anyone. Would you wanna be ‘wooed’ at twenty two for a lifelong commitment? Plus, I’m dating someone. Harry. Did that get lost in translation or something?”

“Oh. You’re only twenty two.” Ashwin steps back. “I didn’t know you and Harry were a thing. I really didn’t, I swear. Nandhini Aunty told me you two were friends. I’m sorry. I do admit I was a bit jealous that you barely considered my invites to hang out in favour of him but I thought of him as your friend. If I had known he was your boyfriend, I wouldn’t have asked you out. I would never want to put anyone in such a position. I didn’t know you were not interested. From what I was told, it seemed like you were open to it. I really am sorry. I crossed so many boundaries. I just got sucked into the whole marriage spiel with the wedding and all.”

Layla stands quietly for a few minutes. Had she been that blind to not know that someone was expressing interest in her. Harry was weirdly right, she thinks. He wasn’t being jealous for no reason, he did pick up on Ashwin’s hints and she just thought it was him being irrational and upset because she was speaking to another man. Fuck. I owe him an apology. She feels terrible that Harry went through all that - unearthing insecurities - when she could have stopped it all. But a little part of her was glad it happened because she didn’t know the complexities of his relationship with his father and she felt a lot closer to him after that night. 

“Did I lead you on?” She asks.

“No. I’m sorry about this whole thing. It’s just a giant misunderstanding.”

“It is. For the record, my interest is with the portals for PhD applications. They open in a few days-”

“Hey, I get it. You don’t have to explain anything. I’m sorry about all of this but for mostly, making you uncomfortable in any way-”

“You didn’t,” she let him know, with a smile. “Hey, besides I get it, Aunties try to talk us into a lot of shit.”

“Agreed. I do carry some blame in the mess here but I hope we can be friends. I would hate for you not to come over for the movie night because of this.”

“I’ll be there with Harry. Will Pooja be there?” Layla barely got to see Pooja today because she had to be there at the venue to oversee decorations with her father. Her lack of presence was a gaping hole for Layla today, who was looking forward to seeing her decked up in the brightest of yellow clothes. 

“Of course. They are on their way home actually. She’s the last person and then the henna artists leave. She was the one who picked out Love Today.”

“I can’t wait to watch. I saw a sneak peak on YouTube and I had flashbacks to Amma (mum) yelling at me for constantly being on my phone.”

“I know right! Raadika is doing such a good job with her mother characters. See you two tonight.”

“See you.” She waves to him as she walks out of the garage. “Thank you for the plastic bubble!”

////

“You are surprisingly good at that,” Layla announces, with a mouthful of her lentil salad, watching him perfectly flick the pebble onto the body of water.

“Why is that surprising?” He questions, cocking his head to the side. The pebbles skips on the water four times, before sinking, leaving a path of concentric ripples in wake of an otherwise still sight.

“You’re so clumsy otherwise,” she shrugs, scraping the remaining contents of sprouted lentils onto her spoon for the final mouthful wishing she had access to raw mango like she did back home. That would have made her breakfast a million times better.

“Hey, I haven’t bumped into anything today,” he chuckles.

“Yet. It’s only seven in the morning. You’ve got lots of time,” she teases, making him spin around to face her with his hands on his hips.

Beautiful, wasn’t enough of a word to capture the sight in front of Layla. The distant silhouette of barren trees lined up on the hazy horizon in a stark contrast of dark. The sun was making its ascent up the distant woody lining, making the sky bleed a vibrant yellow. The yellow that was slowly growing over the dark violet of the night's residue. The pink rimmed clouds were now faintly disappearing as a brighter colour weaves its way into the expanse of the atmosphere. The water slowly stills again becoming an unobstructed reflection of the beauty of the cosmos. It’s almost like the water knew that it needed to capture the beauty it experienced every day and so, it became a mirror - telling the refracted light and photon of its allure. But that wasn’t it at all. What would have been another scenery of daybreak becomes something that is inexplicably Layla’s because of the boy standing at the edge of the shore. It’s almost empyrean in his black trousers - that had somehow ended up with a smudge of dried paint, a ringer t-shirt, and an unbuttoned Gucci cardigan. He’s looking down at her with a faux cross look that he can muster but his resplendent dimples always give him away. 

He’s keeping his promise of driving her to Lake Jordan for a breakfast picnic in exchange for her complacency when her allergy flared up. And here they are two days later, Layla is sitting on a blanket in his solar system themed jumper and yoga pants with a thick comforter wrapped around her to protect herself from the cold. “Come sit with me,” she nods to the spot next to her by the scrunched up foil - the one that he abandoned leaving behind morsels of the bagel egg sandwich she threw together earlier. 

He walks back over to her, slotting himself behind her, draping the comforter over his shoulders and cradling her against his chest, so she’s wrapped too. “It’s a bit nippy today,” he notes, resting his chin on top of her head.

“Hmm,” she sighs in contentment, leaning her head back against the slope of his shoulder.

“Are you having a good time?” He asks.

“Hmm.”

“Thank you for breakfast.”

“Hmm.”

“Your mehendi stains pretty dark. I love your design.”

“Hmm.”

“It makes your hands smell nice too. Not that I’m sniffing your hands or anything.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re not listening to me, are you?”

“Hmm.”

He smiles, tilting down to give her a kiss on the messy bun she’s pulled her hair up in. “I liked your outfit yesterday,” he tells her, rocking her from side to side. “Especially your hair. I didn’t get why you made such a big deal about my haircut but when I saw you with shoulder length hair I almost felt this pang in my chest. I love running my fingers through the length of your hair, it’s very calming. I mean it’s not like I can’t do it now but - anyway what I’m trying to say is that as much as I miss your old look. I love your new look just as much, if not more. It’s gonna take some getting use to. But it does make your cheeks super chubby.” He playfully pinches the apples of her flushed cheek.

When Layla went to the salon with Anne and Abi, she spontaneously decided to chop off her hair. She was getting tired of it. There was so much of it and it was all over her face and it was falling in clumps with the sudden change in weather. It made her nervous, in a lot of ways her hair was her security blanket, so instead of doing something drastic. She settled on getting two subtle layers with wispy bottleneck bangs. She immediately regretted the decision when she saw her hair on the floor of the salon. Several inches of her hair that ran all the way down to her waist, now sat right under her collarbone but the heart that Harry had replied with as a response to the picture she sent gave her a semblance of ease. 

“Hmm.”

“What?” He chuckles. “Are you sleepy? Not very talkative.”

She doesn’t reply, instead she tilts her head up from the crook of his neck to gaze at the sharp line of his jaw, and the moles on his neck - right next to the vein that bulges out when he sings, lifts or cranes his head. She can’t help the dopey smile that spreads across her face at the sight of his double chin and the crease of his smile line and the craters of his dimples.

“Layla, you’re staring,” he points with a matching loopy grin. He looks down at her with heavy lidded eyes and notices her fingers clasping the tiny elephant pendant around her neck as she moves it side to side.

“I’m sure this is all romantic in your head,” he says, giving her a loving squeeze. “And it would have been the same for me too but all those slasher movies you made me watch has me thinking that you’re gonna stab me with a screwdriver any second now.”

She lets out a sweet peal of laughter, melting into his chest planting a wet peck on the side of his neck as his cheeks grow a tinge of pink at the admission. “I’m not thinking of murdering you, babe. Far from it actually. I was trying to string together a speech.”

“Speech? For what?”

“You. From the minute I got into the car. I’ve been trying to come up with something perfect but I’m nowhere done, so there’s no way for me to know if it’s all rambly-”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“What?’

“Let’s hear it. You’re not gonna know it’s perfect until you practice, so go on,” he encourages her.

“Okay.” She exhales slowly, the hand that was not fiddling her necklace, weaves itself on top of his hand. “It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. The more I think about it, the more befuddled it gets. I’m not supposed to be here. Like I’m not supposed to be here with you. I’m supposed to be in Singapore. I had the whole trip meticulously planned to the hour. I was going to visit all the places my grandparents went to when they lived in Singapore. They spent the first five years of their marriage there. Appa (Dad) was born there. I was going to put together a scrapbook or make a vlog showing them how much the city has changed since they left but… you know what happened. I ended up on a flight here a few months after. To this quiet suburb in small town USA that I didn’t know existed before my Aunt and Uncle started building their house.

“And I know you think it’s fate and the whole notion of being tied together into a coherent tapestry and it makes sense to you because you read poetry and watch sappy movies and love love. But I can’t fathom the idea of our initials written in the stars, and our atoms colliding because of prophecy - almost like this was meant to happen. Intricately calculated by time itself. It doesn’t make sense to think that the universe itself erupted in ultraviolet chaos when we first locked eyes, like a raging multicolor of sound and colour to symbolise something grandeur. So, I cannot wrap my head around the world rupturing and fragmenting for us.”

Harry’s quiet. His mind is running a mile a minute about the possibility of what direction this conversation was headed. Deep down he knows there’s nothing to worry because she’s burrowing in his embrace. But he takes in her words slowly processing the weight and intent behind each and everyone of them. Layla turns around to face him, sitting on her knees, looping her hands around his neck and pulling his forehead down to hers as his hands perch on the small of her back. They stay like that for a while basking in the stillness of the environment juxtaposed by the lively birdsong until she backs away to look into his eyes.  

“But I do know this,” she continues, giving him a bashful smile that melts away the weight of the world from his bones. “I know the universe is expanding and the only sun that we know is one day going to collapse in itself. I know that we are all hurtling towards our impending doom with each passing second. I understand the brain. I can make sense of liking the feeling of my freshly shaved legs against the sheets, going back to watch Winnie the Pooh when things don’t work out, singing along obnoxiously to ABBA, or my fondness for snails and elephants. It’s a cocktail of endorphins - dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. I know the grass isn’t waiting for my footsteps. I know flowers don’t bloom for me. I can make sense of a lot of things.

“And I know I was scared that saying it out loud will make it real and you’ve been very patient but I’m ready to be vulnerable for you, with you. I know that every time you go on tangents and talk about clouds, seashells, the weather, my fondness for you grows. I’ve been fond of you ever since I ran into you at the park and you talked to me about sea monkeys on the way home. I admire that you want to help the planet and how hard you worked on your college essay. I can always count on you to draw me a warm bath, tuck my hair behind my ears, look at me like I’m the prettiest in the room, to squeeze my fingers while crossing the road, bake me treats when I demand, and hold me close when I need you to. These things make sense to me. And even if I don’t understand a lot of how we came to be, I'm absolutely certain about the fact that I love you.”

 Layla lets out a short sigh of relief, shoulders slumping down, heart slowing its thumps against her rib cage as she hunches over to get closer to him. “I fucking love you, Harry Edward Styles and that is one thing that the universe can be sure of.”

He’s still and Layla can’t make out anything as she searches his face. Maybe I broke him, she worries her bottom lip. A few moments pass by but waiting makes it seem like an eternity. She sniffles from the icy wind that blows over, watching his eyes glass over and the faintest twitch of his cheek.

“Har, say someth-”

A toothy smile breaks across his face, one that highlights his bunny teeth and carves out dimples on his cheek as his face flushes with colour. He pulls her close, hands coming to cup her warm cheeks as he mutters, “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

“Hey,um, I’m gonna go pick up some stuff and head over to yours to get a head start on dinner,” Layla informs the two who were transfixed at something on Harry’s phone, hiking her bag up her shoulder. THe gang was congregating at Earl’s for dinner today.

“You’re sure? We’ll be done in a few more hours,” Earl tells, looking at her through the rim of his glasses; she was picking away at a fray thread on her tote bag.

“Positive.” She smiles at him. 

“Here, take this then,” Earl hands over the keys to his car. “I don’t want you lugging over that cast iron all the way home.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, putting the key in her pocket, shuffling over to the other side. It doesn't go unnoticed that Harry immediately steps away from her when she brushes past the two, making her frown. Since when does he pass up the opportunity?

////

Layla had managed to make quite a spread. A creole potato salad, sweet chilli halloumi with cashew slaw, and Ribollita . Her Uncle and Aunty were setting up the dining room, Anne and Earl were somewhere in the house and Harry was busy fiddling with Earl’s record player in the living room. Layla’s slumped behind the kitchen island waiting for the stuffed butternut squash to finish in the oven, while lazily flicking through Earl’s wife’s recipe book. There were so many pages that were blank towards the end. She wonders what she would have filled them with had she had more time. 

The ding of the oven, pulls her attention and not before long, she’s slipping on some mitts to take out the pan, to pull out the butternut squash she picked out in the farmer’s market. She notices Harry’s wallet peeking out from his tote - abandoned on the kitchen island - as she sets the hot utensil down. 

Maybe if I put the tickets in there? Maybe the surprise would make him perk up and stop being surly, she ponders. She looks up at him, sitting on the floor hunched over the turntable with his hair pushed back with the red silk bandana she got him from New Orleans. He was fixated on the red light that was on the side of the circular spinning table, as he was tuning something to help adjust the pitch. She takes it as an opportunity to  quickly pull out the black Gucci wallet and flip it open.

The image in his photo pocket makes her want to run over and tackle him in a giant hug. He’d put a picture of her in his wallet. He went out of his way to print a wallet sized picture and slotted it in there. Important enough for his wallet, it makes her smile. It was the picture he took on the day of Abi’s flower braiding ceremony - the two of them on her bed smiling into the kiss, dimples on display, her hands cupped around his face, lips pouring affection into each other. She runs her fingers on the laminate that protected the image inside, almost like she was checking to see if it would disintegrate, like she needed to make sure that the boy who was currently icy towards her all day was the same one who did this. She notices him move from the corner of her eye, making her swiftly dig into the pocket of her black faux leather jacket, slot the two fall carnival tickets she bought at the market behind his dollar bills and discretely slip it inside the tote.

She pretends to look for something in the cabinets as he stalks towards the kitchen, as he swings open the door of the refrigerator. 

“Harry,” she turns to face him, fighting the urge to control the simper that stretches across her face. “I made ribollita.”

The corners of her mouth droops when he barely looks at her, staring pointedly at the glass as he pours in the pineapple watermelon  big boy soda Earl has stocked up.

Despite not being acknowledged, she continues, “I remember you telling me about your final night in Tuscany where you, Mitch, and Sarah were so drunk and how you all stumbled into this dodgy looking place run by an elderly couple at midnight. And how that ribollita was the best you’ve ever had.” He even told her that if he ever got a chance to take her anywhere in the world, he’d fly her out to Anghiari and trudge up the steps of the town, wine drunk with interlinked hands under the starry Italian skies. “I found this recipe on YouTube by some nonna. Took a while to make it; hope it tastes -”

“Whatever,” he says quietly, shrugging his shoulders, walking over to the dining room with the glass of green liquid on one hand and the squash on the other with the dish towel.

“Prick,” she mutters, shooting daggers on his back.

////

Hushed voices float from the end of the hall, it had to be Anne and Earl. Layla walks quietly towards the partially closed door.

“I would not recommend it, Earl,” Anne says, looking at a report.

“You’re being overly cautious,” he chuckles, adjusting the rim of his glasses, so they sit higher up the bridge of his nose.

Layla tiptoes, hoping the wood of the floor does not creak, closer to the door. Angling herself so most of her body is hidden behind the white door.

“Everyone has headaches,” he says, popping an ibuprofen in his mouth.

“Not everyone had a stent placed on their heart three years ago. You’re feeling faint often, yeah?”

“It happened a couple of times,” Earl answers.

“Any fevers? Chills? Body pain?” Anne enquires.

Earl shakes his head. “I think you’re being overly cautious, Anne.”

“I still want you to come into the hospital. I think it’s best to do a cardiac cath, and run some bloodwork. I think Dr. Siegelbaum would also agree,” she states firmly.

Layla knocks - in hopes that she could join in her conversation so she can convince him to visit the hospital. Slowly creaking the door open, popping her head in, “Hey, dinner’s all set. Just waiting for you two,” she tells them in her best chirpy voice. 

“Give us a minute, sweetheart,” Anne says, putting back the papers in a folder.

 “We can talk later.” Earl tells her. “I have something very special planned for dinner,” he smiles, opening a drawer from his bedside table, pulling out a manila envelope.

Layla sits next to her Uncle, putting as much distance as she could with Harry. Earl walks in and sits next to her, handing her the envelope.

“What’s this?” She asks, eyebrow arched, as she takes a sip of water. 

“Open it,” he smiles.

She pries the tab open to find red coloured rectangular papers inside, she shuffles them out and five ticket stubs fall out. There’s a picture of Mickey and right underneath it it says ‘THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH.’ The other end of the tick stub is perforated, and it says ‘ADMIT ONE.’ “No fucking way!” She squeals. “You got tickets to Disney World!”

Earl gleefully cackles. “Yes. I did. All five of you are hopping on a plane for a four day trip to Orlando,” he announces. 

The table chuckles at Layla. “Wait, you were all in on this?” She asks.

Anne nods. “He coordinated with us for dates.”

“We’re going during the Thanksgiving break. It will be crowded but we all didn’t have similar holiday windows, so we settled for this,” Abi says.

“And before you protest. You have to accept it. We’ve been planning this for over two months now.”

“But it’s so expensive - “

“Hush,” Earl shuts Layla down. “You and Harry have worked in my shop and helped me with so many orders. Think of this as your wage.”

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” She tells him, kissing him on the cheek as she throws her arms around his shoulders.

“You’re very welcome,” he says, giving her a warm squeeze. 

“ Why aren’t you coming with us, Earl?” Vasanth asks.

“I’ve been there multiple times with my grandkids. Plus, I’m heading to Florida in the new year to stay with my son for a few weeks.”

“Did you make these tickets yourself?” Layla asks, passing them around. 

“All the tickets are emailed. I’ve already forwarded them to everyone. It’s a shame that you kids don’t have ticket stubs anymore for keepsakes. Harry made this on Photoshop. He even got it printed, so you all can have a tactile reminder.”

“Thank you,” Layla smiles at Hary who’s scooping up the Ribollita.

He doesn’t say anything, but gives her a tightlipped smile in return as she spoons some salad on her plate.

////

“You’ve been driving?!?” Vasanth screams, looking at Layla who’s burrowing behind Anne on the couch. He quickly walks away from where he was in conversation with Earl to his niece, who he believes Shiva put on his Earth to turn every hair on his head grey. “I see you!” He steps in front of her, arms folded up, stance upright.

“What?” She muffles over a mouthful of leftover creole salad. Earl had specially requested Layla to make it and she spent over an hour trying to meticulously follow his wife’s recipes hoping the elimination of thick cut bacon won’t affect the taste as much.

“Answer the question, kutti.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about what Earl told me just now. Like you, manoeuvring his Prius from where it was parallel parked.”

“So it seems,” she shrugs.

“உன்னை அடிக்க வைக்காதே(don’t make me whack you), Layla. I’m being deadly serious. You could end up in trouble with the cops.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad of a driver.”

“I know that. Your Indian licence is valid in this state for only three months. You came here in August, meaning, you are not legally allowed to drive now. Don’t - Do you not care about how that infraction would look when you’re applying for a student visa?!?”

“Calm down, சித்தப்பா! Look,” she shuffles through her tote and whips out her licence from her wallet. 

He examines it closely. “When did you-”

“தாத்தா ஒரு நாள் என்னை அழைத்துச் சென்றார் (Grandad, took me one day).” She winks.”You’re crazy to think I would do anything that would jeopardise my shot at a PhD.”

“If you have an international driver’s licence, then why do you insist on me driving you to the Indian store?”

“Because,” she blushes, knowing Anne’s right there. “I don’t get to spend much time with you,” she says quietly. “Aunty works remote on certain days but you always go out the door at nine and get back home after six. Then you have things around the house to take care of and I know this is really selfish of me to say this but I don’t know how to share you with someone as needy as me.”

“Are you talking about the -”

She nods. “I’m just selfishly trying to bank on Layla Vasanth time before you run out of that because you have an infant to cater to. And I know that’s how it it should be but -”

“நீ என் பயிற்சி சக்கரங்களாக இருந்தீர்கள். அப்பாவாக இருப்பதில். (You are my training wheels. For being a dad.)” He sniffles, pinching her cheek. “Besides we both know the minute you’re gonna start studying here, you’re gonna be my pain in the ass full time.” 

She laughs. “Shut up!”

“How about we go golfing every weekend and head to Dominos for lunch? Just the two of us.”

“No golf. It’s really cold. I much prefer playing back home where it’s sweaty.”

“Bowling then? I can teach you how to,” Vasanth proposes. “We can even go see a movie while we’re there.”

“It’s a date.” Layla smiles.

////

Layla raps against the cherry wood door, before poking her head into the master bedroom. She finds her Aunt propped up against the headboard, legs outstretched on the fluffy olive green duvet, bump in the way - giving an ample distance between Abi and the Macbook bolstered on the wooden bed desk. One of the many advantages of working from home was getting to be the most comfortable - with a rapidly growing five month bump -  while working a humdrum nine to five. That and being in your sleep clothes; Abi’s is in one of her tattered wrap around skirts, and a tank top. 

“Hi, kutti,” she smiles at her niece, who makes her way meekly to the cushioned bench at the end of the bed.

“Am I interrupting?” She asks, nodding towards the laptop.

“I’ve got a couple of minutes. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to talk,” she plays with the end of the tie of her kimono style robe. 

“I’d love to talk but I have a hop into Zoom for a meeting in ten,” she informs, reaching out to take a sip of coconut water. “But we can talk after.”

“Okay. I’ll get out of your hair then. Have a pleasant meeting.”

“Can you get my blazer on your way out please?” Abi requests.

Layla heads into the walk-in closet to pull out a latte coloured blazer and she hands it to her Aunt, who is now sat straight up on the bed. 

“நன்றி (thanks), kutti.” She shrugs on the coat, and pulls out the banana clip that was holding her hair from her face. Her shiny raven locks cascade down her shoulders and curl at the ends, where it sat atop of her belly. Unfair, Layla thinks as she watches Abi muss up the hair at the scalp to give it that oompf. Layla would kill to look that effortlessly gorgeous. 

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” Layla informs. “Do you want the door open or shut?”

“Open, please. Harry’s coming with?”

“He’s not exactly speaking to me at the moment. Don’t know why but nevermind, you finish your meeting.”

“Don’t forget to take your phone with you then,” Abi tells her.

“It’s already in my pocket!”” 

With that Layla heads to her room to throw on her Panic! At The Disco t-shirt and throws Abi’s faux leather jacket over her shoulder. The black paper bag from Fink’s catches her eye. She sighs, as she pockets the long black box with the gold foil lettering. It's one of the things she loves about her high waisted blue denim boyfriend jeans she’d picked up at a factory outlet sale back home. The jeans did not flatter her pear shaped body the least bit, it was loose around her waist - she’d often need a belt to stop it from riding down, tight around the tops of her thighs, digging into her guts whenever she sat down, but the redeeming factor were the pockets. They were as deep as the mines in Moria; Layla was akin to greedy dwarves throwing it into the shopping cart, when the pocket swallowed half her forearm. 

She locks the door, punches the button to arm the security device but instead of heading over to the house next door, she crosses the road and bimbles her way to the playground in the park and settles herself in an unoccupied swing. Best thing about coming to the playground at three in the afternoon was that there were no snot filled cretins running around wreaking havoc. She pushes her heel on the grimy green and orange chequered rubber foam floor, making herself oscillate to and fro. It’s funny that she’s going to her Aunty for advice when ten years ago, her mother and grandmother swore that she will end up miserable when Vasanth gets married. And as much as she believed that it would happen - it was only logical to her - with stories multiple relatives told her about absolutely losing her shit as a child when her Uncle would pick up another kid to endlessly fixating on some potential ‘fault’ with the other with the marriage proposals that came their way; disliking Abi was one thing that never happened. 

Layla didn’t even get to meet Abi in person until the engagement and wedding dates were fixed. Her grandparents came across her profile and breathed a sigh of relief when they found out that she was tall; it was a right pain to find someone for Vasanths’s towering six foot two. Their families got along well, and much to everyone’s delight Abi and Vasanth got along well over FaceTimes, calls and texts. It didn’t take very long before both the families went to the nearest temple and to fix up wedding dates. Layla had only got a chance to meet Abi’s parents and siblings before the dates were fixed. In hindsight, she suspects it was her mum and her grandmum’s doing to keep her away until she had no option but to be a cavalier. The day she met Abi was one filled with a constant stream of advice from her mum and grandmum since this was someone her Uncle fancied - she was told to be kind, respectful, welcoming, and most importantly to not run her smart mouth. Her grandad had taken her to the shops to get some sweets, and had told Layla that she should get something for her future Aunt. So, she used up some emergency snack money she’d set aside in her wallet and got her a set of these dragonfly pearl earrings and a matching pendant. It wasn’t made of real pearls or gold, it wasn’t the fanciest choice either, she’d bought it in a small fancy store - a small shop that often sold bangles, bindis, kaajal, and some cheap imitation jewellery - but Abi’s reaction indicated that it was the most precious thing that she’d ever received. Layla’s heart warmed when she caught sight of the tarnished, worn out dragonfly pearl necklace in Abi’s jewellery drawer yesterday, when she raided Abi’s closet for the faux leather jacket.

Things only blossomed to fruition after that initial reaction, she can’t recall what they talked about but the conversation flowed. Layla was surprised about how much Abi already knew about her; she was privy to some hilarious antics she’d been up to with Vasanth. Layla had managed to convince Abi to try pineapple on pizza and even told her loads of things that would fetch her brownie points with her Uncle. And by the time her granddad came to pick Layla up several hours later, they’d already planned another meetup but this time at a beach.

Layla's phone buzzes with and a picture of her father fills the screen. It was a picture from Vasanth and Abi’s wedding reception, his phone in hand staring to the side trying to flag off one of the venue managers. One where her father refused to buy a suit and bought a suede jacket, paired it with a sky blue button up and some dark wash jeans - he’d insisted to her and her mum that it was something that James Bond wore in a movie, making the two crack up in response.

“Aren’t you up late?” Layla speaks.

“Amma and I came back from a movie half an hour ago,” he answers.

“What movie?”

“Ponniyin Selvan. Did you all watch it?”

“No. How was it?”

“It’s certainly a spectacle but Amma understood it a lot better than me. I think I need to watch it one more time.”

“Book படித்தது உதவியாக இருக்கும் (reading those novel would have helped).”

“Yes. How did your classes go? Are you finding it easy with the time zone and all?”

“நன்றாக சென்றது (they went really well)! Time zones aren’t bad actually, but it’s only been two days. So I can’t say for sure.”

“Good. பேராசிரியர் உங்களுக்கு கருத்து தெரிவித்தாரா (did the professor give you any feedback)?” Her dad inquires.

“இதுவரை இல்லை (not yet). அநேகமாக professor வார இறுதியில் feedback கொடுப்பார் (she’ll probably will at the end of the week).”

“You do exactly what she says, okay? Incorporate whatever she says. That’s how you show her that you’re a good hire. Kutti, listen, do you remember my friend’s house we went to in Bangalore?”

“Yes. The house with two dobermans,” Layla recalls.

“இன்று அவனிடம் பேசினேன். ஒரு ஐபாட் வாங்க முடியுமா என்று கேட்டார் - (I talked to him today and he asked if you could get him an iPad -)”

“Appa! Do I look like an Apple mule to you all?”

“It’s cheaper there, kutti. And there’s nothing wrong in helping.”

“I’m already carrying five apple products with me. One homepod thing for you, iPad mini for Amma, AirPods for அத்தை (Aunty), and the new phone for my cousin.”

“That’s only four, Layla.”

“You do realise I have to bring my own phone too, right?”

“Oh. Then what’s one more product going to do?”

“Fine, I’ll get your friend the iPad. But if I get detained by the TSA for looking too suspicious with this many Apple products in my carry on. You’re gonna pay.”

Her dad guffaws on the other end. “உன் முகம் கடத்தல்காரன் மாதிரி இல்லை (Your face doesn’t scream smuggler).”

“To you maybe, நான் எப்படி மற்றவைகள் இருக்கிறேன் என்று யாருக்குத் தெரியும் (who knows what I look like to others)?” She laughs.

“சாப்பிட்டாயா (have you eaten)?” He asks.

“Yes. Had gobi fried rice  from the microwave. சித்தப்பா made it before he left for work.” 

“You are helping them out around the house, right? Remember that they are both busy with jobs. I know that they’ll never say this but you make sure to not burden them, especially now with a baby on the way.”

“I am helping. Reorganised the garage and all yesterday. I make sure to cook at least a meal everyday. Clean the house.” She exhales. “That’s more than what I do back home.”

Her dad lets out a laugh. “Now, Amma will hold you to the same standard when you get back. Listen, பாட்டி (grandmum) wants me to remind you to buy Ziplock-”

“Already bought three boxes of her precious ziplock bags.”

“Good. Okay, kutti. I’m gonna head to bed. You take care okay?”

“Will do. Tell Amma I said hi. Bye.”

She hangs up the call, and jumps off the swing; slowly making her way to Harry’s. The pit of the stomach seemed to bubble with nervousness. Hopefully his pisssy mood had lightened since dinner at Earl’s yesterday. She could punch in the security code but the boulder in her stomach only weighs heavier. Decking not to somehow piss him off by walking in, she rings the doorbell. Her feet tap against the white porch, waiting for him, mind racing. Usually he would have opened the door by now. She steps aside to peer into the window and spots no one. No signs of a tall lanky boy making it across the foyer. She presses the doorbell again and holds it down for a few extra seconds for good measure, craning her head to see if his Range Rover is parked in the driveway. The door swings open as she makes a fist to try knocking on it and there he was - clad in one of his muscle tank top that had darkened patchily with sweat, blue shorts, hair pushed back with the blue bandana she’d got, lips  and eyebrows pursed in a grimace.

“Oh god, are you okay?!?” Layla exclaims, zeroing in on the frozen bag of peas he had pressed up against the slope of his shoulder. 

“What do you want?” He grits his teeth, as he looks down at her - a result of the trapezius bundle protesting.

“I just stopped by to - did you hurt yourself working out?” 

“I’m fine,” he winces.

“You clearly are not, earth boy. Let me help,” she states, taking a step forward into the house but finds her boy fixed in place, blocking her. “Harry,” she says firmly, looking into his forest green orbs.

“Did mum ask you to drop something off?” He asks.

“Well no,” she takes in a huge breath, she slides her hand into her pocket, fingers curling around the box. “I’m actually here to see you.”

“I don’t want anyone’s company.”

“Well -” the door shuts on her face, and she feels her heart drop. “I’m not anyone,” she mumbles dejectedly at the wooden door, tears prick the corner of her eyes and she makes her way back to her room. Tossing the gift box on her bedside table. Tearing off a page from her notebook, she scrawls with tears beading her waterline. 

I don’t know what’s happened

Just tell me what’s wrong. Did I do something?

She blinks back the film blurring the words on the page, wiping away the tears that landed on the paper. She uses the back of her hand to wipe her cheeks, breathing out slowly. She wipes her nose on the sleeve of her t-shirt.

I understand needing space. But the door slam to my face hurt

That’s all she manages to jot down before her mother’s voice echoes in her head, “சில நேரங்களில் உன்னை விரும்புவது கடினம் (It’s hard to love you sometimes).”

She crushes the paper with the note she was trying to write. It can’t be. Harry himself said the opposite. She abandons the crumpled ball, as she trudges her way up to the home theatre to fire up her PlayStation. All she needs for the next few hours is to mindlessly kill some Valkyries in God of War. She’d finished playing the game’s story days ago and the open world game gave her the opportunity to kill all eight of the valkyries. But she’d soon found out that  killing them was tricky business. What other perfect way is there to channel gamer rage other than using the bubbling anger directed at her boyfriend to kill the remaining two warrior women with wings.

////

“Wait, you actually wanted to get married?” Layla asks, sitting up straighter, tilting her head from side to side until an audible crack is heard.

“Hmm…” Abi smiles at the huff her niece lets out. She had trailed upstairs - after her meeting - to the sounds of Layla shouting ‘சாவு, பன்றி, சாவு (die, pig, die)’ at the projector screen armed with one of her video game controllers.

“You were the perfect daughter weren’t you, Aunty?”

Abi laughs. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to negotiate.”

“Go on,” Layla motions with her hand, as she reaches for her water bottle.

“My relatives zeroed in on my parents the minute I graduated from engineering. They initially didn’t give it much thought but then matches actually came home through Aunties and Uncles we knew. They sat me down and asked me if I was seeing someone -”

“Wait! Your parents were okay with a love match?”

“Yup. As long as the boy was Hindu and from our caste,” Abi answers.

“Of course. It came with terms and conditions,” Layla giggles. “As long as they were from the same caste. Could you imagine going around and asking people what caste they belong to when you’re out on a date.”

“I know right! Hella awkward.” She joins in with Layla, giggling away feeling her baby move in accordance. “But I guess it really didn’t matter because I wasn’t opposed to the idea of an arranged marriage. I told them I wasn’t in love with anyone but I also asked them to give me three years to get some work experience. I knew I wanted to do an MBA in the US. My parents weren’t on board with my moving abroad alone. They wanted me to have ‘protection’” she explains, making air quotes for the last work.

“Ech,” Layla reacts. “Why are all parents the same? When Vasanth told everyone that he’s gonna prep for his GRE and move to the US for his Masters my grandparents were over the moon. I bet they never even considered his ‘protection.’ Fucking double standards.”

“It enraged me too but I realised it was that or not doing my MBA in the States. I pulled up some of the prerequisites and my parents got to know that the degree needed students to have work experience. After many fights, they finally relented and gave me three years and started looking for matches while I was working.”

“Didn’t that throw you off? Knowing that time was ticking?”

“It did. It made me feel guilty, knowing I needed to have all of these experiences before I got tied down but it melted away when my friends and coworkers started settling down and starting families. They still had the experiences just married and sometimes having those experiences with their significant other; life didn’t stop. It took four years of searching before Vasanth.”

“Four years?!?”

“Yeah,” Abi chuckles. “I didn’t make it easy for my parents either. I had given them a zillion expectations that they needed to meet. I rejected many. Plus, they had to find someone taller than me.”

Layla laughs. “It’s the same thing that happened with Uncle. Finding someone tall enough for him, தாத்தா பாட்டி (grandad and grandmum) almost pulled out their hairs trying to find someone tall.”

Abi laughs. “My dad made so much fun of me on the days leading up to our engagement, because I was running around trying to find heels to try and match his height. I only owned flats prior to your Uncle.”

“How did you know சித்தப்பா (uncle) was the one?”

“There was no one moment. We got along well. He seemed genuinely interested in knowing what I envision my future to look like. Others I talked to often talked about the future in terms of their goals or a collective familial goal. Your uncle asked me what I wanted, rather than ask me what I want as one half of a couple. He was supportive with my MBA plans and work goals too. Seemed open to moving closer to whatever college I got in. That’s how we moved to North Carolina from San Francisco; I got into Kenan-Flagler. I haven’t told him this but when he readily put his notice in and moved to Charlotte with me - before he found himself a job here - he just became so much hotter.” Abi uses one of her hands and fans herself.

“Eww,” Layla grimaces. “Don’t call him hot.”

“Is it a crime to find my husband hot?” She laughs.

“When the husband is my Uncle, yes.” She shivers in disgust. 

“Oh- லேலா உன் கையை கொடு (Layla, give me your hand),” she says urgently, grabbing her palm and pressing it to the side of her ever growing tummy. The baby rewards the two with a jerky roll. “Never gets old,” Abi whispers with a smile blooming. “I initially thought the kick would be like a ping but it’s like a jelly rolling around with her. Getting more active by the day this one.”

“Even Laya agrees with me,” Layla says. Bending down to the active baby, “Don’t worry. I find it weird that she thinks he’s hot too.” She whispers, making Abi laugh at their private conversation.

“You two are gonna team up and make fun of us, aren’t you?” She manages to get out in between fits of laughter.

“Obviously.” Layla’s eyes flicks up to her Aunt’s with the most earnest expression on her face. She settles back into the recliner and lets out an audible sigh. “So is that all it is… I can’t possibly get out of this arranged marriage thing and the best I can do is negotiate.”

“I never said you can’t get out of it, kutti. It will just be an arduous journey to get there but knowing your mum and knowing you're the only girl child - I think the best course of action is to negotiate like I did. If you say no marriage and stand your ground now, what’s to say your mum won’t also resist and force you with that intensity of your refusal. So, don’t say anything, stay out of it. This way your PhD won’t be affected by it.”

“What do you mean PhD not being affected?” Layla sits up, tucking her feet under her thighs.

“I mean, your அம்மா (mum) might just put her foot down and refuse to send you to school -”

“But she can’t do that,’ Layla shakes her head. “I’m an adult and it’s not like I will be financially dependent on them. The colleges that I’ve shortlisted are the ones that are the most likely to give me financial aid.”

“That’s all true,” Abi agrees, taking Layla’s hand. “You were also an adult and financially independent for the Singapore trip, weren’t you? Look what happened. You ended up coming here.”

“So you’re asking me to let things be?” Layla says quietly.

“I’m asking you to consider playing it smart. Don’t worry about all this marriage nonsense. You have your eye on your goal - PhD, don’t get distracted. The time to fight this battle is not now. It took me four years to find a match. Who knows how long it’ll take for you? Maybe you can get your doctorate by that time. If not, don’t worry; one of the perks of an arranged marriage is that it’s democratic. Everyone - or at least most of them -  in the family should agree. Vasanth and I are on your team no matter what. And as for அப்பா, பாட்டி, and  தாத்தா (dad, grandmum and grandad), you can always convince them to join your side. We will not let you discontinue your studies, kutti. I promise. You have no idea how proud we all are that you’re so bloody smart.”

“I’m not that smart and all,” Layla mumbles.

“Hush,” Abi shushes her. “Plus, if you do change your mind on marriage, we all be here to make sure that you are on board with the match. We will not force you to marry someone you do not like. For now let it go. They won’t bother you much until they have matches shortlisted and that itself could take a long while. And we will cross that bridge when we get to it, for now you worry about your PhD applications. ”

“Okay. What you’re saying makes sense. Besides, the application deadlines are on the first of December; it’s not very smart of me to keep fighting this and get distracted. Need to have my eyes on the bigger picture.”

“Are you applying for Chapel-Hill?”

“It’s on the maybe list. Why?”

“Vasanth has been wanting to sit down with you this weekend, to look at the places before you start applying. Get your safety and reach colleges and all in order. He’s been secretly hoping you have UNC at the top of the list, so you can live with us while you study.”

Layla chuckles. “Do you reckon he’s gonna convince me to move Chapel-Hill from the maybe list to the yes list?”

“I’m sure, he’ll try bribing you with all sorts of things,” Abi answers, warmly squeezing Layla’s freezing fingers. “Kutti?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m just saying because I think it’ll be best for you to figure out what you want in terms of a relationship. Especially now that you have Harry to consider too. I heard you tell him the other day that you’re gonna marry him when you were eating the focaccia he baked. And I know it’s not my place to say this but I get that you meant it as a term of expression but sometimes it necessarily might mean the same for him. Have a talk with each other. The sooner the better. I know he means the world to you and I know you mean the same to him.”

“I didn’t think of it that way… I never thought that I’d feel all these things for him. I just thought it’ll be a fun hookup but I guess you’re right. I think he knows that I don’t mean it like that. Whenever we talk about things we know our priorities - colleges. We always talk about the future like it’s distant. I think the hardest thing about January rolling around soon is him. I don’t want to leave,” Layla bites down on her wobbly lower lip. It only makes the angry flames in her chest spark up again because Harry’s being an utter asshole to her. All she wants to do is cosy up to him and drum her fingers down his back as he presses wet kisses on her pulse. 

“Maybe I’m overstepping my bounds but do you ever see yourself getting married or are you just saying no because of what happened between your mum and dad?”

“Oh um,” Layla worries her bottom lip, trying to think things through and lets out a long sigh.

“Bit of both, I think. As much as I respect the sanctity of marriage, I’ve seen it go right and wrong. Sometimes I think I’ll end up just like அம்மா (mum) - you know how everyone says we often butt heads because we have similar personalities - and that means I’d have to go through the same things she did. As much as I do and villanise her sometimes, I honestly don’t think I have an ounce of the strength and determination she does. We lived alone for almost a year and she single handedly took care of all of the finances and even now, she works and does so much work at home too. அப்பா (dad) is not like Uncle, he never does things around the house, except groceries; and on most of the days, I don’t either. But I don’t think I need to get married either, as long as I’m in a long term relationship with someone I trust. It’s just a piece of paper, right? I don’t see it happening for a long long time.”

“Marriage is more than a piece of paper, Layla.”

“Easy for you to say, you and சித்தப்பா (uncle) have the breeziest of marriages,” Layla comments.

“That’s not true, kutti. We hit a rough patch during my final year of my MBA. We even talked about separating,” Abi explains.

“What?” Layla can’t help but gape at her. They were the perfect love birds in her eyes. 

“I don’t know what it’s like universally but with arranged marriages, it’s more companionate, the relationship. You go into it with a stranger, you become friends and then start loving the other. Yes there is passion in there too but it’s more so a companion type thing. We went months leading our own lives, devoid of the other in it. Vasanth was busy working two jobs, and I would be busy with schoolwork and friends. All of the little free time we had went to chores. We went weeks without talking to each other, and didn't even acknowledge each other. It was like two strangers living in a hotel. Every time we’d open our mouths, we’d snap at each other and both thought that things weren't working out because we’d grown apart.”

“Wait, is that when your parents and தாத்தா, பாட்டி (granddad, grandmum) all flew over and stayed in shifts with the two of you for like three months?”

Abi nods. “We’d told our parents that we didn’t see a point in being married and they’d all immediately created an intervention of sorts. They asked us to give it one last try - wholeheartedly - and that they’d take care of things around the house. We signed up for marriage counselling and went to multiple sessions. Since we had our parents taking care of everything else - the minute we came back home after work and school - we would spend time with each other; getting to know each other again from scratch. Marriage is not easy. They don’t just work. You make it work. It’s very easy, at least, with arranged marriages to drift off to your separate paths - be strangers - and it takes work to meet in the middle again. And it needs to be done because you’re growing as your own individual too. That’s how we make it work - we’re not the same Vasanth and Abi who’d agreed to marry each other. We set aside time for ourselves. We talk. Go out on dates. Take holidays. We make each other a priority. It’s work. We are at this point because we put in the work to get here and we will need to put in the work after the baby too.”

“Isn’t it exhausting though? Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Everything in life requires work, Layla. But it's not exhausting with Vasanth. It’s easy to put in the work with him. Because it doesn’t feel like work with him,” she smiles.

“I guess it makes sense. This was a great talk. I should come to you often,” Layla tells her.

“Oh yeah? Finally realised that Abi is like that tortoise from Kung Fu Panda,” her Aunty jokes around.

“Yeah. An old tortoise,” Layla snickers.

“Are you calling me old?” Abi pinches her cheek.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Layla tries to say it earnestly but her giggles give her away. She shuffles closer to her, throwing her hands around her shoulders, slotting her body to the side, mindful of Laya’s residence. “By the way, you didn’t overstep your bounds at all. I’m glad it took you four years to find Uncle because there’s no one else I’d rather have as my Aunty.” 

////

Harry can hear Layla’s voice faintly drifting from the floor above - wrapping up her class - as he makes his way up the stairs to her room. It’s twenty past one in the morning and every time Harry shut his eyes, he couldn’t help but shake the image of her walking back home dejectedly when he slammed the door. When he silently creeks open her bedroom door, he’s hit with a mixture of baby soap and Charlie Red that makes his shoulders slump in relief. Her room is neat - like it always is; there was freshly washed load of laundry that she hadn’t gotten around to folding stacked in an opened suitcase pushed to the corner of her room. What catches his eye was the crumpled ball of paper lying limply at the foot of the bed.

He grinds his teeth at the pain shooting from his shoulder, bending down to pick it up, and his heart falls to his stomach when he reads what she’s scrawled in cursive. Fuck, he shakes his head, plopping down on the mattress.

Layla walks into her room rubbing her eyes, clad in her embroidered Winnie the Pooh t-shirt dress and the kimono robe loosely tied around her waist. “ஹம்மாடி (whew),” she exhales out, looking forward to cosying up in her duvet. Harry can’t help the way the corners of his mouth tug upward - she always grunts out that word when she’s finished with whatever exhausting activity she was engaged in. “Oh,” she mumbles, stopping in her tracks at the sight of him holding on to the letter she wrote.

“Layla, I-” Harry starts.

“No!” She says, voice louder than either of them anticipated, stalking further into the room. “Leave,” she seethes, chest heaving as she rapidly takes in shallow breaths, clicking the door close to not wake Vasanth and Abi. “I don’t care. Just go.”

Harry gets up. “Baby, please listen to me.”

Layla steps back - out of his reach - shooting him a warning glare that told him to not get closer to her. “I don’t know what’s up, but you’ve done nothing but be an asshole to me -”

“I’m sorry that I’ve hurt yo-”

Layla chuckles. “The hurt ship has sailed. I’m fucking livid!” She blinks back the angry tears that begin to prick her eyes. “Please just leave! I’ve had a long day and I’d like to go to bed.”

Harry’s eyes blur as a thin film beads at his waterline, and he’s quick to blink them away before they have the chance to trickle down. The last thing he wants to do is upset her further, so he sighs and mutters, “Okay. I’ll go.” He makes his way to the door with his head hung dejectedly.

“Wait,” Layla calls out, quickly rummaging through her bedside table to find the long black box. “This is why I came over in the afternoon before you so kindly slammed the door on my face,” she says, voice dropping an octave lower. “Take it and fucking go,” she throws the suede box in his direction. 

Harry’s hands lift up to catch it in reflex but the second the box lands on his palm, he lets out a loud grunt, face twisting in pain from the muscles of his shoulder. “Christ,” he bites, as the other hand - one that’s not holding the box - cups over the spot of affliction.

Layla’s eyes soften, instinctively stepping closer to him. “Shit. Your shoulder still hurts?” She enquires, eyebrows furrowing in concern as he gives her a weak nod. “Go wait downstairs in the kitchen… I’ll be right behind you,” she exhales.

“But…” he trails off, not knowing what exactly to say when she’d just asked him to leave a few seconds ago. When he blinks his eyes open to examine her face, she’s already stalked off to the bathroom when he can hear her meddling with her stuff. He takes a deep breath in, hoping it quells the pain, and calls out to her. “Okay.”

He sits on the bar stools, gently placing the black box on the kitchen island, as she walks in. He watches her beeline towards the microwave, taking a small bowl from the cabinet, Harry examines the two glass containers she’d placed on the island. A hexagonal glass jar with a copper lid that reads Tiger Balm and a green cylindrical container that reads  Monison’s. 

“Can you take off your hoodie for me?” Layla asks, as she spoons some of the brown and green balm into the bowl.

Harry slowly slips off his grey hoodie, watching her punch in thirty seconds on the panel and shuts the door. Layla steps over to the pantry, coming out with a tiny blue chequered cotton kitchen towel. She takes the melted mixture from the microwave when it beeps, using the spoon to stir it together. She dips her pinky in to check if the liquid is not scalding, and proceeds to sink her fingers in the murky looking concoction. 

The room is filled with scents of herbs, camphor and eucalyptus as she slowly lets the liquid drip down from her fingertips onto his defined shoulder blade. “Sorry about the smell,” she tells him quietly as she kneads his muscles in circles - easing the taunt muscles under. 

Harry’s speechless as she works her way down his shoulder and back, letting the warm liquid trickle down and later gently rubbing it all over. He doesn’t deserve this from her, especially with the way he’s treated her the past two days. But here she is carefully working the knots in his shoulder, even after asking him to leave her sight. He feels his heart weigh heavy in his throat, and he closes his eyes to succumb to the emotions his girlfriend’s tender act stirs up in his chest.

“Once in basketball practice, these huge fifth graders tripped and two of them managed to fall right on my arm. I was in so much pain that I thought it was fractured but it wasn’t. And Amma (mum) did this for me and I swear the pain subsided the next day, which I know is not possible but I barely felt it after. I mean it’s just pain gate theory, right?” She waffles on hoping to distract him from the pain she might be causing him as she massages the last of the liquid on the expanse of his shoulder. When she’s done she quickly washes her hands before she takes the clean towel and presses the button on the sink tap for hot water. Once it’s dripping wet she wrings the excess liquid out; opening it up and flapping it twice for good measure, when she’s satisfied she drapes the toasty damp towel over his clavicle and smooths it down his shoulders. “Sometimes I think I’ll perish if I don’t have a jar of Tiger Ba-” she stops where she hears a sniffle, followed by a shaky inhale and feels his frame tremble under her palm.

“Harry? Shit.” Layla rounds the corner to stand in front of him. “Hey,” she coos, gently tilting his chin up using her thumb and pointer finger. Moss green eyes gleam up at her under the buttery overhead lamp, a broken shudder follows as tears trickle down his face, and Layla realises that he’s hurting. He’s been hurting the past two days and that he wasn’t apathetic and detached. 

“Oh honey,” Layla says soothingly, thumbs coming to wipe away the hot tears that stream down his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to - Sorry,” he blubbers, pulling her close to him, burying his face in her midsection as his arms hold her in place.

Layla wraps her arms around his head, one hand caressing his scalp and the other tracing circle on his cheek, “Shh. Har, you’re okay.” She presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head.

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m -,” he hiccups, a fresh wave of tears halting him and all he could do was nuzzle into her warmth as he bawls.

“We’re okay. You’re okay. Let it out. I’m sorry too, babe,” she whispers, mollifying him as she rocks him to and fro, letting him cry it out.

Harry pulls back, with broken shudders, sniffling, blinking at the dark patch on her t-shirt dress from his tears. “I - I uh - came -,” he breathes out between empty sobs. “I saw the tickets for the carnival,” he says with a weak smile.

“Yeah? You wanna go?” She asks, sitting down on the stool next to him, slotting her knees between his and scooting closer to the edge to weave their hands together.

He nods, looking up at her shyly through wet lashes. “I’m sorry.” He says, rapidly blinking down another fresh set of tears.

“I’m sorry too,” she says, hand coming to caress his cheek.

“Why?” He chuckles. “I’m the one in the wrong.”

“It wasn’t very nice of me to ask you to leave and throw that at you,” she points to the forgotten black box on the counter.

“You were angry.” He shrugs. “When did you manage to slip the tickets in my wallet?”

“When you were busy fiddling with the record player at Earl’s.” Layla worries her bottom lip, not knowing how to phrase her next question. “Why were you so cold to me?”

The question only makes Harry tilt his head to the side, as he tries to weigh the answer in his mind. “I uh - I was jealous,” he replies, cheeks reddening in response.

Layla snorts out a laugh at the ridiculousness of the words that had stumbled out of the messy beheaded boy’s slightly pouty mouth. She slaps down on his wrist as she guffaws, driving her emphasis further. “Harry,” she gets out. “Be seriou- oh!” She stops in her tracks when she’s met with his earnest gaze. “Jealous of what though?”  

“Ashwin,” he admits, feeling the blood rush to the tips of his ears as he hangs his head.

“Why would you be jealous of Ashwin?” She asks.

“It’s just - It’s like - Like you getting into his car this morning and just driving away,” he explains.

“You make it sound weird. You know we were meeting up with the others at the golf course.” She swallows. “Do you not trust me?”

It doesn’t escape Harry that she’s now leaning away from him, and the hands that were holding him, now were crossed protectively over her chest. “I do! It’s a me thing. Don’t take it personally.”

“I don’t understand. How am I not supposed to take it personally?” She barks offensively, eyebrows arching. “Harry, I’ve met the girl you were hooking up with! Do you see me getting jealous and throwing a fit whenever you take me to the lookout point in Chapel Hill? No, because it was before us and I trust you. Ashwin is literally an acquaintance and you throw a hissy fit for days because I hitched a ride to him to the golf course. That’s fucking stupid!”

“Hissy fit,” Harry chuckles, and it only makes Layla shoot daggers as she glances up at him. 

“I cannot believe it. Fucking jealous,” she continues and she isn’t sure if the last past was directed at herself. “Your mum told me that you tend to latch on to people but I didn’t expect you to be possessive. I don’t know if I’m okay with that.” She shakes her head, hand coming to frustratedly rub at her forehead. “How are we gonna work through this? What are you gonna say next? ‘Let me mark my territory when you hang out with others, like how a dog would do?!?’” She shuts her eyes, forcing herself to take a few deep breaths through her nose so she would raise her voice and wake her Aunty and Uncle. She knows she’s spiralling and spewing out ridiculous things but she can’t help but feel hurt by his admission. 

“Have I -” she says softly looking up at him, “did I do something to make you feel that way?” 

“No, baby. No. It’s not you!” He sits up cupping her face cursing himself for making her doubt herself. “It’s just,” his voice breaks as the tears well up in his jade irises, “every time I see you two hanging out, it makes me insecure and I didn’t like feeling like the second best again.”

“Again?”

“It’s stupid,” he sniffles.

“It’s clearly not stupid if it’s hurting you,” she reminds him.

“I’m just scared that you’ll realise he’ll give you something I can’t.” He confesses. “Like you don’t need to check if a Tamil movie has subtitles at the cinema to watch with him, he gets all the references you make, you don’t have to translate things in your head or explain why you’re doing certain things - like the other day when you accidentally stepped on my book and you’d stopped talking to bend down to touch it and bring your fingers to your eyes and you’d spent the next twenty minutes explaining why for me. And it’s scary to think that one day you’ll realise that I’m not worth it and leave.”

“Babe,” Layla frowns. “I don’t think that at all. If anything, all those instances only makes me endeared that you’re curious about where I come from, plus, you actively participate in them. It works both ways too. You taught me so much about your home too. I didn’t know what a chip butty was before I met you,” she jokes weakly. Harry doesn’t laugh - or even smile - instead he looks crestfallen, Layla leans over and stamps a soft kiss on his pink lips and his splotchy cheeks. “I’ll never not think you’re not worth it. Ever. You mean the world to me. You make me feel safe and you make me feel loved. And that is something I will not take very lightly. Ever. I have nothing like that with Ashwin. I hitched a ride with him the other day because everyone else was gonna shower at the country club and head straight for work. Ashwin had a day off and obliged to drive me to Raleigh to pick something up for you,” she tells him, nodding towards the black box. “Besides, he acts like he’s from the hood sometimes - I guess most brown boys do that when they come here; pretend to be an African American rapper. It just does not get my motor running like you in a pair of fishnets.”

There’s a lingering undercurrent of teasing in her voice towards the end that makes Harry smile - the ones where he flashes his teeth and it makes the dimples carve out in his cheeks. “I shouldn’t have been cold to you. That was wrong of me. I should have come and talked it out with you. I cannot apologise enough for that,” he resolutely tells her.

“It was,” Layla agrees. “I did not deserve to be treated that way. I thought you were mad at me or that you needed space which is very unlike you. Because I’m the one that pushes you away-”

“Not in the way that I did. You always told me that you need some time to yourself before you share but I just pushed you away.”

“True,” Layla sighs. “Would inviting you along help whenever I go out with that gang? I’m not gonna stop hanging out with them because I feel like I’m hanging out with my cousins. And I’m trying to make the best out of that because they’re gonna fly out as soon as the wedding is over.”

“That’ll be nice. I sorta felt left out when you went to watch that movie without telling me because I’m really used to being your number one go-to person for everything,” he admits.

“I understand that you felt left out but I didn’t invite you because the movie didn’t have subtitles and I didn’t want you to be bored because of me. It would have helped if you told me earlier. We could have gone to the cinema - just us - and made a date night out of it.”

“I didn’t want to seem clingy I guess.” 

“Can I ask you something?” Layla questions and Harry nods. “You said earlier about not wanting to feel second best again. Has it got something to do with your dad? I mean you don’t talk about it and I’m just theorising but feel free to tell me to back off if I’m crossing a line.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if he chose us. He was a good dad, Layla. He was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. But I guess, I was not enough for him with anything I did,” his lower lip wobbles. “He’d had another family and I guess in the end my step-siblings - god,  it’s so weird to call them that - had something that I didn’t and when he figured it out he’d just left mum and me.”

“Harry,” Layla whispers, arms wrapping around his torso to pull him into an embrace. Harry nuzzles his face into the crook of her shoulder, chest shuddering as he takes in his favourite scent. It made sense to Layla now - his icy behaviour was not to attack her but to protect him, his inner child. She had the power to make him feel the things he once felt, and the second Harry realised that she held the power; when he felt ‘not enough,’ he’d cut her off so she wouldn’t put him through that - like a hedgehog balling themselves up and straightening out it’s quills when it senses his predators were nearby. “Babe, I’m so sorry you went through that. Those choices were your fathers - an adult. You in no way played a role in the shitty choices he made. You were a child, babe, and it’s not your job to make yourself the best option for your parents. Remember when you told me love is not a burden?” She can feel him nod against her neck. “Love shouldn’t be earned either. It’s not conditional - especially from a parent.”

“Thank you,” he breathes out, crying again, but this time it’s tears of relief. “You know,” he chuckles, pulling back to wipe his eyes. “Earl said something along the same lines.”

“He’s a wise man,” Layla says. “How’s your shoulder? Is the warm towel and தைலம் (pain balm) helping?”

“It is. Thank you.”

“No need for thank yous. I’d take care of you anytime,” she shrugs.

“So you made Ashwin drive to Raleigh to get me something?” He questions, stretching out to grab the black velvet box.

“Uh huh.” She smiles. “I got a commission from this woman. She wants three still life oil portraits of her favourite food for her kitchen. She’s paying me three fifty dollars for each. So, I’d figured I’d treat you with something.” She nods to the box. “Open it.”

Harry’s fingers trace the gold foiled lettering - Fink’s -  against the soft material. He flips the box open to find a dainty gold chain and a thin cross pendant hanging from it of the same metal. It looked identical to the silver one he’d have around his neck - he’d go on a limb and say this one looked even more beautiful. He immediately looks into her homey raven eyes, bottom lip trapped with her teeth, as she looks at him expectantly.

“I know I ripped it off your neck that day,” her face flushes with heat thinking back to their lecherous activity upstairs in the swing room in front of his giant ornate mirror. “I’ve been feeling bad since. I’ve never ever seen you take it off and when I got the deposit money for the commissions, it was the first thing I thought of. I wanted to get you an exact replica but I just couldn’t bring myself to get it in silver, so I called Fink’s and had them make it gold. You kept complaining that the clasp on the old one was too tiny, so I asked them to use a circular clasp, so it’s easier for you.” She rambles. “They said they couldn’t make the chain dainty in 22 karats, something about them not able to get the metal to bend, so it’s only 18 kara-”

Harry cuts her off with a passionate kiss, hands clutching her cheeks holding her close, as he pours his devotion. His tongue melds with hers and it makes her breathe out a quiet moan, as she sinks his fingernails into his bicep. He breaks apart, pressing his forehead to hers as they both catch their breath from the dizzying ordeal. “I love it! Put it on for me?” He asks her, thumb caressing her bottom lip, making her smile.

////

Bright blue powdery skies can be deceiving, especially in North Carolina. While Layla usually dressed up in her lightest cotton clothes with skies like this, today she’s tugging the drawstring around the hood of Harry’s hoodie to protect herself from the nippy breeze that blows through. Once she’s done securing the hood in place by knotting it under her chin, so the frigid air caused by a hurricane in Florida won’t freeze her ears off.

She kicks up the basketball that was at her feet, dribbling it up the driveway towards the garage door where her Uncle had screwed in a hoop. She jogs to it, gasping for a breath of air as she spins, tossing the ball above her head towards the net when she faces the street. She turns around expectantly to watch the ball kiss the rim as it tumbles into the basket but huffs when it bounces off the ring towards the hydrangea bushes.

“Ugh,” she groans, trudging behind it and when she’s picking it up she feels a sharp swat to her ass. “Hey! Not nice!” She squeals at Harry, turning around to face him.

“Not so nice when someone spanks you now, is it?” He laughs, clutching a pair of headphones in his hands. He’s dressed in his workout gear - brown trousers with a spatter of gold paint he’d managed to get when he helped her paint the ornate frame of his mirror. It cuts off at his knees, exposing his si no and oui and non tattoos. It baffles her that he’s not freezing while she’s been having goosebumps wearing sweatpants. He’s in one of his full arm length muscle hugging athletic t-shirts, with a hoodie tied around his waist.

“I don’t do it hard,” she replies.

“Well my stinging ass cheek would beg to differ.”

Layla rolls her eyes at his dramatic flair. “What are you doing up so early? I thought you were not gonna work out until your shoulder is better.”

“My better is better but I’m not gonna work out for the rest of the week and fuck up my muscles. Just going out on a walk. What are you doing up at seven in the morning?” He asks.

“Had a review meeting with my department head at four about my first week. Couldn’t go back to sleep after,” she shrugs. “I was scrolling on Instagram and I came across this trick shot on this basketball page where people run up to the net, do a spin and throw it in. Been trying to do that for an hour now and I’m nowhere close to nailing it,” she frowns, nodding to the ball she’s stationed against her hip.

“I could just lift you up and spin you around,” he suggests.

Layla laughs. “Cute that you think you can lift- aaah!” She shrieks as Harry quickly squats down, to grab the junction where her bum and thighs meet, hoisting her up.

“You were saying?” He arches his eyebrow up at her.

“Put me down,” she demands as he makes his way to the hoop.

“Nope. Make this backwards basket and come on a walk with me around the pond.”

He positions her right in front of the hoop and she’s hoisted up high up that the end of the net touches the top of her head. “I’m not supposed to face the net, you idiot,” she giggles.

“Alright then,” he turns them both around towards the street and marches down to the end of their driveway. Layla spots Nandhini Aunty right away, standing right in front of her open garage door, staring at the two with a cardboard box in her hand.

Layla tosses the ball and Harry turns them around to watch it perfectly go into the net, making him hoot and spin her around in celebration. They both laugh as Harry loosens his arms around her thighs making Layla slide down his torso. She doesn’t stop giggling as she wraps her around his neck, fingers massaging the baby curls at the nape of his neck, as she rubs her nose against his - feet still dangling above the ground as he holds her in place. “I like this trick shot so much better,” she whispers.

“Nandhini’s watching,” he mumbles, reminding her of her PDA rule around brown aunties, as she angles her head.

“Fuck her,” whispers with a smirk as her eyelids flutter close and she closes the distance between their lips.

“It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s for protection. Can you please put this on?” Vasanth insists, holding up his NASCAR Tide zip up jacket. 

“No. I’m already covered. Look!” She thrusts her arms - covered by her full sleeve sweater and shirt - in front of him, to get her point across.

“So one more layer isn’t going to do you any harm. I’m only saying this for your good, kutti.” He insists.

“But, please,” she pleads. 

“You end up suffering almost every year. I’m just trying to not let that happen. Come on. You know it hurts for me when I see you suffer.” He holds up the jacket for her to put her arms in easier.

She grumbles in defeat, as she slots her arms through the sleeves of the jacket, turning around to zip it close. “You’ve gotta stop treating me like a child. I’m twenty two you know. I know how to take care of myself,” she reminds him. She hands her gold chain with elephant pendant to him and he clasps it around her neck.

“You’re always my kutti, kutti.” He chuckles, puffing out his cheek for her when he’s done securing the chain. She rolls her eyes and kisses his cheek. 

“Have fun you two!” He waves, returning inside the house.

“Why are you in my seat?” Layla asks Harry, when she makes her way over to his Range Rover.

“Oh, so this is your seat now, is it?” He asks, with a smirk.

“Yeah. Go on then,” she shoos him over to the other side.

“Nope.” He grins wider, dimples coming out to taunt her further. “I waited outside for so long. It’s only fair now for you to drive me around,” he replies.

She rolls her eyes, taking a deep breath in. Dazzling a smile, the dimple on her left cheek makes an appearance, furiously batting her eyelashes. “Have I told you how cute you loo-”

“Nope.” He laughs. “You already did and it’s not gonna work.” He tosses his keys, and she catches it out of instinct. 

“Today is just not my day,” she grunts, making her way to the driver's side. She gets in and shakes her head at him. “You’ve gotta wait. I thought of brushing my hair in the car.” 

She grabs her brush from the tote bag from the backseat, and slowly starts working the knots in her hair. She didn’t have time for anything today. She only managed to wash her face, slap on some sunscreen and put on some gloss on her lips. Honey, Honey starts playing and she reaches to increase the volume, while. She goes back to dragging her paddle brush through the length one last time.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks, when he sees her wince. 

“Just got snagged in my piercing,” he mutters, moving the lock of her hair that got tangled in her conch piercing with a newfound gentleness.

“That still hurts huh?”

“Yeah. My helix took eight months to heal. How’s yours?” She asks, motioning to his pierced lobe. She parts the length of her hair into three equal parts and starts loosely braiding it.

“It’s good. Doesn't throb when I sleep on that side anymore.” He replies, hand going to fiddle with his earring.

“That’s nice. I’m sure your lobe is all healed now. It’s been like fifteen days no?”

He nods. “I’m thinking of changing it and putting a hoop in. What do you think?” He asks, seeing her secure an elastic to secure her braid. 

“I think someone is copying my style,” she chuckles, going to pinch his cheeks.

“I think someone is insecure that I’m gonna look much hotter.”

“Calm down, earth boy,” she laughs at his ginormous ego. “Ready to go to breakfast?” She asks, turning on the ignition of his Range Rover, and pulling her seat forward, so her feet can reach the pedal.

“Yup.”

 She eases the car out of park and eases out of the driveway towards the restaurant. The two sing dramatically to Knowing Me, Knowing You. Harry finds it absolutely adorable when she puts her hand - the one that’s not on the steering wheel - on his thigh, followed by a lascivious wink; something he would do to her when he’s driving. He finds her even more adorable peering - making the same face she does when she puts on her mascara - over the windscreen, trying to see the edge of the bonnet, hoping to not hit the curb as she parks. 

////

She wants everything. Everything from the breakfast menu at Annapoorani’s. They were both downtown at Ganesan’s restaurant. Nandhini and Chandru Ganesan started a chain twenty years ago; they were two in Chapel Hill, one in Charlotte, and another in Raleigh. 

“Have you two decided?” Chandru asks the two with a warm smile, peering down at the two of them though the rim of his glasses. His hands were clasped behind his back, making his large gut even more pronounced. He was wearing a classic grey safari suit, which Layla thought was quite cute because she has never seen anyone else wear safari suits since her maternal grandfather. She also found his comb over his bald spot extremely hilarious.

“I’ll take a rava dosa please,” Harry says, putting down his menu at the side of the table. He’s never had a semolina dosa before and the picture and his favourite mint chutney sold him.

“Did you just pick it because of the green chutney?” Layla asks with a knowing smile, and he nods.

“Layla kanna?” Chandru turns towards her.

“Umm… I can’t decide uncle.”

“What are you leaning towards?” 

“This vegetable oothapam and the poori with potato and channa gravy. But I can’t finish both,” she states.

“How about this, hmm? Since you are a close friend, I’ll bring in a bit of both. Works?” He suggests.

“Prefect.” She clasps her hand in glee. “Thanks, Chandru Uncle.”

“No problem, kanna. How  about chaat for a starter?”

“Chaat for breakfast?” She asks the older man.

“Why not.” He smiles.

“Lovey. Harry, what do you want?”

“How about you decide, I haven’t tried them before.”

“Bhel Puri?” She asks, more so to herself. “Can’t go wrong with that. Do you wanna split one?”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay. One Bhel, one rava dosa, half an oothapam and poori?” Chandru Uncle checks.

Once he gets a confirmation, he passes off the bill to one of the waiters and heads over to a navy blue door that says ‘personnel only.’

“So, OnlyFans huh?” Harry says, when they are left alone.

“Yeah.” Layla fiddles with the zipper of her jacket.

“When did you subscribe?”

“I’m not gonna say. Have fun finding me,” she smirks.

“What do you think?” He asks, chipping away at the yellow polish on his nails.

“Why are you nervous, hm?”

“Dunno. Never has someone I care about has seen my OnlyFans…” he trails off. 

“Well, I like it. Love it even,” she assures him, reaching over to hold his hands on the table.

His face flushes with colour, a shy smile painting his lips. “I’m gonna need more than that, Lails.”

“I didn’t know you were that creative. I mean, I know you love photography but some of it is skillful. You certainly know your angles around a camera, that’s for sure.”

His smile widens, eyes slowly reaching up to meet hers. “And?”

“And what?” She smirks, not giving in. She knows what exactly he’s fishing for.

“And did the pictures have the desired effect?” He asks, huskily.

Cocky little shit, she thinks.

They get interrupted when she goes to speak. The waiter placed an obscenely large plate of bhel puri in front of them. Layla quickly thanks them while spooning some a heaping spoon into her mouth and does a small jiggle, closing her eyes - savouring that fresh burst of flavour. Harry laughs at her eating some of it as well.

“Yup,” she shyly admits after they’ve finished almost half of their starter. 

“Care to elaborate, baby,” he coos. 

“I may have gotten myself off once or twice,” she tries sounding, nonchalant as she pushes her braid behind her shoulder.

“Glad I could be of service,” he smirks, spooning some more of the chaat into his mouth, using his other hand to give her a small salute. 

“Idiot,” she mutters, shaking his head, using her finger to swipe the stainless steel plate and sucking on the tamarind sauce, revelling in the flavour that she hasn’t experienced in a while. 

The waiter comes back with their breakfast order. A crispy rava dosa for Harry that he swore was a foot long and various assortments for Layla. They both thank them and Layla immediately pinches a small piece of the piping hot poori, scoops some potato curry and offers it to Harry. 

“More,” he demands, nodding to the oily soft puffy disks on her plate. 

“Wanna try it with the channa?” 

He nods and Layla feeds him exactly that, making sure to blow on it a few times before popping it into his mouth. He playfully nips at her fingers as he bites down, making her chuckle. 

“I like hearing you laugh,” he says as he’s chewing. 

“Hard not to, you are quite funny.” She tells him earnestly. 

“You’re full of compliments today,” he observes, hand weaving through his soft curls, pushing them away from his eyes. 

“As opposed to?”

“As opposed to every other time you jump in to keep me in line,” he shrugs. 

“It’s the Tamil breakfast,” she tells him. “I used to make fun of my folks for needing to eat Indian food and not being able to adapt. But I’ve come to realise in these past ten days that I definitely cannot adapt when it comes to breakfast. As much as I love a good waffle and a pancake every now and then I need my savoury in the morning.”

“Hmm. You excited for the art museum?”

“Yup. Can’t wait to go there after this? Still can’t believe I get to see Alphonse Mucha’s work in real life. My sketch books are filled with me copying his art nouveau style. Thank you for getting the tickets. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, dickhead. I love doing this for you.”

////

“Hold on to that end,” Layla distractedly says, as she rolls the waxy parchment to the other end of the kitchen counter. Her brows furrows in concentration as she tries getting the long horizontal paper, perfectly aligned. But when she tugs on it gently to straighten it out the other end comes rolling over and hits her fingers. 

“சித்தப்பா (uncle)!” She yells, smacking her palm on the now butter paper covered marble countertop, demanding his attention. 

“What?” He distractedly says, looking up for his phone. “I’m setting up a Zoom link so , அம்மா (mum), அப்பா (dad), அண்ணா (elder brother) and அண்ணி (sister-in-law) can join in.”

“You’re not taking this seriously. Please put the phone down and start helping!” She commands, shaking her palm to soothe the stinging sensation shooting up it. 

“Why are we even doing this? We’re doing a buffet, no one will even pay attention to how the countertop is decorated when they are playing up food.”

“I will pay attention to it. I’m doing the decorating and I got an okay from Aunty. So can you just do as I say please!” She grits her teeth. 

“Fine. What do you want?”

“Get the floral foam from the garage. It’s soaked in that old paint bucket.”

He mutters something under his breath as he walks away from the kitchen and Layla. 

“என்னது அது? (What was that?)” She asks, with a tone that signifies that she’s ready to argue. 

”ஒன்றுமில்லை! (Nothing!)”

“Yeah that’s what I thought,” she mutters to herself as she gathers the huge piles of fresh flowers that were delivered from Earl’s for the function. She separates the white wildflowers, dark blue orchids and yellow lilies into smaller piles. She cuts some green foliage so she could weave it into the small floral displays she was planning on having it. 

Was she being a bossy pain in the ass? She didn’t think so. She was in charge of décor and if it was one thing she did is bring her vision to life. She sat with Earl for hours trying out different combinations of flowers wanting something memorable and unique because this event meant that to her. She plans to have the flowers placed in similar fashion and leave them at the outer edge of the kitchen counter, where the guests would come to get the food. Leaving multiple arrangements would look like the flowers were growing and flowing from the countertop. She knows it would look great, especially in the pictures. 

“Here,” her uncle grunts in exertion, as he places the heavy bucket by her feet. 

“Okay.” She bends down to pick a narrow rectangular green foam, dipping it back in to let the sponge drip the excess moisture. “We’re gonna put this right at the edge here.” She gestures to the very edge of the parchment covered marble counter. “Touching each other. I don’t want gaps between these foam blocks. It will look unsightly if there are gaps.” She picks up the flowers from the first pile and starts to secure them into the exact positions she wants. Showing her uncle to cut the end of the stems at an angle, so it’s easily pierced into the foam. She moves things around until she’s satisfied with the result and places it on the left corner of the countertop. 

“Now what I want you to do…” she turns to her uncle. “I want you to arrange the flowers exactly like this for all these foam blocks. Got it?”

“Alright. I’ll make sure they look like that,” he points to the finished one, “and put them right next to each other.”

She nods. 

“Seems easy. Aren’t you gonna start getting ready? Aunty is already prepping upstairs with Anne.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna head up and get my hair done. Aunty’s gonna curl it and that will definitely take a long time, especially taming this rat’s nest of a hair I have.  I’ll come down later and set the nalangu things after. That’s the only thing left to do. I’ll have my phone with me, text me if you need anything.” She says, before disappearing up the stairs.

////

Harry walks into the Sathish’s front door to be hit by scents of sandalwood and jasmine. He sees the living room all arranged for the ritual, couches and coffee table pushed aside. Blankets were laid out in the places they once were. The loveseat was placed close to the wall, facing east, there were two tiny circular tables with doilies in front. Two large oxidised silver lamps stood tall - they came all the way up to his calves - next to the small tables. It looked like elephants balancing a ball that was attached to a lamp - filled with oil and had five lamp wicks, which looked like twisted cotton threads,  pointing out from the sides unlit. There were these tiny peacocks on the top of the lamp that had a single blue orchid flower on top, like a decoration. Other silver objects were scattered on the loveseat, one still in the brown cardboard box that arrived from India. 

“Look at me dead in the eyes and tell me you did not half ass this!” Layla screeches, from the kitchen. 

“Layla, language! மரியாதை எங்கே (where’s the respect)?” An  older woman scolds. 

Harry walks towards the voices to find Vasanth and Layla facing each other. Vasanth looking annoyed, the blue gel patches under his eyes - which Harry has no doubt was Layla’s doing - moving as he rolls his eyes. A phone was perched up on the table and Harry could make out four people on the screen and quickly deciphers that they were Layla’s grandparents and parents. Layla is in her kimono robe, eye makeup done, rollers secured on her head, arms crossed across her chest as she scowls at the floral arrangement on the counter. 

“How am I supposed to know, kutti?” Vasanth asks. 

“I thought it was common sense to pluck out the weird looking petals, so the flowers look extra fresh.”

“யார் அது (who’s that)?” The older male from the screen asks, noticing Harry. 

“Hi!” Layla beams at him. He looked svelte and sophisticated in his black tux. His white shirt was unbuttoned halfway, he had a messy black tie tucked underneath his shirt for some odd reason but it worked. The black Gucci boots added on to his frame and the way his jacket was fastened around his waist, by a single button, really showcased how narrow it was. His stubble was gone, and hair - trimmed - was meticulously styled to a point where his curls seem to have vanished. Rings decorated almost every finger of his, as they hold on to his expensive camera. Layla frowns when her eyes land on his clear nails. 

Vasanth quickly notices the family staring at Layla and quickly steps in to serve as a distraction. “Oh. That’s our neighbour’s son. He’s offered to take pictures tonight.”

“That’s very kind of him,” her grandmother says, switching to English to accommodate Harry. 

“பாட்டி, தாத்தா, அப்பா, அம்மா (grandmum, granddad, dad, mum) this is Harry. He’s my uh-“ she stops, cheeks heating up, breath hitching when she realises that she was gonna say the word boyfriend. 

“Hello. It’s nice to meet all of you. Virtually at least. I’m Harry. You must be Layla’s folks. She’s been a blast to hang out with. We’ve become good friends over the months.” He introduces himself. 

The four stare at him and then back to Layla. “எங்களுக்கு ஒன்றும் புரியவில்லை (we didn’t understand a thing), Layla.” Her granddad says. 

“Translate,” her father states. “We’re sorry Harry. You talk differently from us,” he tells Harry. 

“That’s no problem, sir.” He smiles politely. 

“He said உங்களை சந்தித்ததில் மகிழ்ச்சி in FaceTime. He also said I’m fun to hang around with and that we’ve become friends,” Layla translates for them. Harry notices a switch in the way she talks. It’s slower, her accent is much more pronounced - more Tamil. And it’s almost nonexistent when she talks to him. He’s seen her switch her accents around him and Nandhini and Chandru far too many times, he’s no longer impressed by the way she’s a chameleon - unconsciously - in the way that she speaks when she’s around certain people. 

“போய் உடுத்திக்கொள் (go put on some proper clothes), Layla.” Her mother says in a low voice. “நீ ஒரு பையனின் முன் இப்படித்தான் நின்று இருப்பை (is this how you stand in front of a boy),” her mother tells her off. 

“Okay okay. I just need to put the silver things properly and I’m going upstairs to get ready. It’s why I called you,” she tells them, grabbing on to the phone and making her way to the formal living room. 

If only she knew that he’s seen me in much less, she thinks, smirking. 

“Pro tip,” Vasanth tells Harry. “Stay away from her till the ceremony ends. She’s psychotic.”

“Hey! I heard that!” Layla calls from the living room. 

“I wanted you too!” Vasanth shouts back. 

“Pain in my ass,” he mutters, making Harry smile. 

“Sometimes you two act like brother and sister,” he comments. 

“I’m so glad that I don’t have a sister. I don’t know how you put up with her for so long. How does she not drive you up the wall?

“Anyways, never mind.” Vasanth continues. “Feel free to hang and take some pictures here. Food will be here in a few. I’m gonna get ready in Layla’s room before she’s done arranging. You could start taking pictures of Abi as she’s getting ready.”

“I’ll do just that. I want a couple of shots of the two of you before the ceremony starts. We do that first and I’ll come down.”

The two head upstairs, past Layla talking to her family on FaceTime holding up the silver cups. 

“Right or left?” 

“Left.” Her grandmum tells her. 

She places a silver plate, and puts three small cups on it. “So, sandalwood paste, vermilion and rice in the cups?”

“Yeah. Pluck off some flower petals and mix it in the rice.”

“Wait.” She says. She arranges everything exactly like her grandmum said. She gets the sachet of the sandalwood paste and squeezes it into the first cup. She rifles through the cardboard box and gets the packet of vermilion powder and empties it out in the next bowl. She runs to the kitchen with the third bowl, fills it with rice three fourths of the way, adds a pinch of turmeric and mixes it around with her fingers, so the grains are stained a deep yellow. She heads over and shows it, to her phone screen, to her grandmother. “Is this enough?”

“Yes. You can always get more, if you want,” she replies. 

“How many people are coming?” Her mum asks. 

“Twenty five, I think. At least that’s how many people I ordered food for.”

She turns around looking for flowers, not wanting to go back to the kitchen again. She picks out the orchids that were on top of the swans on the lamp and tears them into small pieces before adding it into the rice. 

“Don’t be so lazy!” Her mother scolds. 

“Don’t scold her! There could be guests around, what will they think,” her father directs it to her mother. 

“Kutti, விளக்கில் பூ இருக்க வேண்டும் (there needs to be a single  flower on the lamp at least),” her grandad adds, much softer. 

“I’ll get it later and do it before I light it up. I need to get ready, தாத்தா (grandad).” She says, unscrewing the stem of the rose water sprinkler and filling the voluminous bottom with rose water. She screws on the stem and quickly checks if the water is leaking by tilting it around. 

“That’s all, right?” 

“ஆரத்தி தட்டு (aarti plate), kutti,” her grandmum reminds her. 

She quickly reaches for the silver aarti plate from the loveseat. She quickly pours the remainder of the rose water from the small plastic bottle into this deep dish plate. She picks up some vermilion and mixes it in the water until it turns a bright red colour. She puts this plate carefully on the right. 

“I’m going to get ready now,” she says, wiping her red and yellow stained fingers into the kitchen towel. 

“Layla, வளையல்!” Her mum reminds her. 

“Oh shit, yes,” she reaches over and opens up a plastic box. 

“Don’t swear!” They all say collectively. 

She rolls her eyes as she arranges the orange and green glass bangles in the remaining space on the silver plate on the left, next to the three bowls and the sprinkler. 

“Okay. I’m going to go get ready. Click on the Zoom link and join in about an hour and a half, okay? You all will be there right?”

“Yes.” Her dad chuckles. She was ever the anxious one. “Tell your friend to take solo pictures and send it over.”

“Why?”

“We need a recent picture of you in a saree, so we can start sending it around with your horoscope.” Her mum says. 

“No,” she firmly says, shaking her head, heart starting to race. “You promised I get to study.”

“No one’s going to get you married tomorrow. It will take years to find a good match. We don’t even know if you’ll get into a PhD program,” her mother tells her. 

“Gee, thanks for your vote of confidence, அம்மா (mum),” she hisses, feeling the heat seeping out of her body, nostrils flaring out in anger. 

“Okay. Okay. Calm down, kutti. We obviously want you to get your PhD. We will be very proud when you do get that doctorate,” her grandmother steps in while the two men quitely stare at the women. 

“But if we do get a great match, you will need to quit the program. It is five years long and you’ll be twenty eight when you’ll be don-“

“I need to get ready and I need to get rid of the plastic and the boxes. I don’t have time for this now.” Layla quickly presses on the red button, sliding on the button on the side of her phone to effectively silence it and tosses it on the loveseat. 

////

Four sharp knocks reverberates through the room, as Layla was fixing the plastic bra strap untwisting it near her shoulder. She thought she would just wear her white spaghetti strap ribbed crop top, but her boobs just wouldn’t work. Sometimes she wishes she could just make her boobs disappear. She did like the outfit though, she didn’t really plan for this ceremony when she was packing for her holiday. So she borrowed a chiffon dusty rose saree from her aunt and paired it with one of her crop tops, as her aunt’s blouse would not fit her. She was quite proud of the way she draped it, creating a perfect silhouette. Not bad for someone who was draping on her own for the second time; although her mermaid saree shapewear and an ungodly amount of safety pins helped. It looked traditional but also had her own spin on it. Her makeup was on point, but she did go in a bit heavy handed with the eyebrow pencil and she didn’t have the time to wipe it off and do it again. 

“Come in,” she shouts out over the music that was playing through the speakers. 

Harry steps into the room greeted loudly with My Chemical Romance’s Planetary (GO!). 

“We’re waiting for you to take some pictures,” he walks in further towards the vanity to find her sitting on the floor, in front of the mirror, sticking a small round bindi on her forehead. 

“Wow, baby,” he stops, stunned, eyes fixed on the reflection in the mirror. 

“What? It’s the eyebrows, right? I knew it was too boxy,” she mutters, moving her face closer to the mirror. 

“No no. You look - wow - I’ve just never seen you in a saree before and fuck - how did I get so lucky, eh?”

“Oh gosh,” she brushes it off, face heating up in response to his compliment. She stands up, albeit with some trouble, and clutching onto Harry’s hand for support. As elegant as a saree looks, they were hard for Layla to move around in. “Give me a second.” She quickly hurries to her bedside table and clasps on her elephant chain and her Winne the Pooh watch. The watch didn’t go with the outfit but it was a part of her. “Ther. All done.” She says slipping in her heels. 

Harry bends down to place a kiss to her before she backs away. 

“What?” He whines. 

“I spent thirty minutes putting on makeup. No way are you gonna come close,” she tells him. 

“Come on. I didn’t even get a kiss hello.”

“Fine. Kiss me but not anywhere near my face.”

He groans theatrically, but bends down to seize the opportunity. 

“Nah, not my neck either,” she says. 

He settles giving her wet kisses right below her collarbone, making her hum as her body sings. 

“That feels nice,” she admits. 

“I can tell.” She can feel him smirking against her skin, one hand coming to weave her fingers with his. 

“Hey do me a favour yeah,” Harry asks. 

“Yeah. Of course.”

“I don’t really care but I don’t want you to be embarrassed in front of everyone. Can you um, put makeup on my hickey?” He moves his unbuttoned shirt to the side to reveal a dull pink hickey - he was right, it would be on display every time he moved his arms and with a camera in hand it was hard not to do so. “I tried doing the same thing you taught me, exactly like how I applied foundation on my face but it doesn’t properly cover anything up here.”

“Yeah, you just need to colour correct. Did you bring your foundation?” 

He pulls out his Gucci foundation from the inside of his coat pocket and hands it over to her. Layla pats on the bed asking Harry to sit down and when he does she goes on to grab her colour correcting palette and a small makeup sponge. 

Harry sees her, use the pad of her ring finger, rubbing circles on the green cream. She then presses it right on the pale pink bruise that she managed to give him right in the valley of his neck and shoulder. She then shakes the foundation bottle and takes a small dollop on the back of her hand and picks it up with the egg shaped sponge and stamps it on top of the green.

“How did you do that?” He asks, looking at the spot in the mirror,  astonished to see the bruise gone, just the makeup blended in to look like skin. “Sorcery.”

Layla chuckles. “It’s basic colour theory, earth boy. Green and red are opposing colours, so you use green to neutralise the red.” 

“Still! Proper sorcery.” After he fixes up his clothes, his hands come to circle around her pudgy hips. 

“You’re such an idiot sometimes, you know,” she coos, with a smile. She caresses his freshly shaven soft cheek, with the back of her fingers, missing the prickly stubble. 

“I’d be an idiot if I didn't take a picture of you right this second. Now come on, lay down on the bed.” He tells her. 

“Babe, we can do it later. I need to be there to greet -“

“Nope. Nope. Sit your ass down. Mum’s gone to drive Earl over. Vasanth and Abi are FaceTiming Abi’s parents. We’ve got time.” 

Layla sighs and she lies down on her white comforter. Harry then positions her face and her hands, tucking her saree, and pulls her hair gently to the right. “Don’t move,” he orders, quickly moving to get the flowers from a vase on top of the dresser - twisting the blooms from the stem. He got her a bouquet from Earl’s two days ago, the flowers were a bit dull but it didn’t matter. He carefully arranged them in her hair, and around the bed and he takes the biggest pale pink peony and tucks it behind her left ear, being very mindful to not irritate her healing conch piercing. 

He straddles her upper thighs , knees on both sides of her, holding his camera from above and he looks at his sweet girl through the viewfinder, snapping picture after picture. 

“I want some with you,” she says, tugging on the lapels of his jacket, to bring him closer to her. 

He chuckles. “Want this sex on a stick right next to you to show off, huh?”

“Oh shut up, you goober,” she smiles, as he lies down next to her. 

“Please! I saw the way you were undressing me with your eyes when you were on your call with your family.”

“I wasn’t undressing you with my eyes,” she denies, but the dimple on her left cheek gives her away. 

“Whatever you say, dickhead.” He says, raising the camera up. 

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“Thought you didn’t want to ruin your makeup,” she says cockily, arching up an eyebrow. 

“I’m allowed to change my mind, Har.” She says, turning to her side, hand coming to chip the side of his jaw - pulling his face to hers, stitching their lips together in a sweet lazy kiss. 

He presses down on the shutter, freezing that moment in time, a moment where their fondness for each other was palpable from the way their eyes looked drunk on each other, dimples signalling the mirth that filled the fibre of their being. 

////

The ceremony is in full force. House packed with guests, friends, colleagues, neighbours, and their families and kids all under one roof, making the house feel lively as peels of laughter came from kids, who were chasing through the rooms. The men stood in groups chatting away looking at the women performing the nalangu for Vasanth and Abi. Their families in India were on Zoom and an iPad was propped in a strategic corner, where they would be able to see everything. Harry was busy taking pictures of everything, he even managed to take a few candids of guests - laughing, mid conversation, eating something, and hugging. His favourite ones were of Layla talking to the iPad - frustration evident on her face as she explained how to mirror their screens to the TVs, so the live feed display would be much easier to look at. The other one is of Earl and his mum, sitting together side by side, laughing at Vasanth and Layla bickering before the guests had come in. 

Nandhini Aunty had explained the rituals to everyone. Turns out every single Tamil family did things differently, something to do with their caste. She went through the process of the nalangu, and why bangles were very important - to help stimulate the baby in the womb with audio, the sound of bangles tinkling against each other. Everyone commented over how gorgeous Abi looks with her orange silk saree that she paired with a floral beaded blouse and was adorned in antique gold ornaments decorating her ears, forehead, neck, hands and waist. Her hair was in a long braid wrapped around with flowers and bedazzled with more jewellery. Vasanth sat next to her, on the loveseat, in a matching orange silk shirt and his white silk veshti. Anne couldn’t help but join in the conversation with others as they guessed the gender of the baby based on Abi’s tummy position, even if the expecting couple did tell them that there would be a gender reveal after the ceremony was over. 

“How many was that, kanna?” Nandhini Aunty asks.

“I don’t know. Should I have kept track of how many people did the nalangu?” Layla says, with her eyes wide. 

“Eight.” Abi said. 

“We need one more person to do it. Cannot be an even number,” Nandhini Aunty states, looking around the room for women who were missed out. 

“Layla you do it. You’re old enough,” her grandmother's voice echoes through the iPad. 

“Really?” She asks, the corners of her lips twitching up in a smile. 

“Yes, kanna. பாட்டி (grandmum) is right. Go ahead. You’ll make it nine and that’s a good number to end on.” Nandhini Aunty says. 

“No no.” Vasanth says. “Look at the way she’s smiling. She’s gonna do the thing she did the last time. அம்மா (mum) come on,” he pleads to his mother through the iPad, looking at the sinister smile on Layla’s face as she leaves Harry’s side - she hovered around him the whole time at a respectable distance not wanting to give off any ideas, very cognisant of the fact that her parents were watching - and comes closer to the two of them.

“Her blessing is also important, Vasanth,” his mother scolds him. 

“Yeah. You tell him பாட்டி (grandmum),” Layla, hypes her up. Sticking her tongue out at him, tucking the draped end of the saree, in her hip, so it doesn’t catch on fire from the lit silver lamps. 

Layla has a wide grin as picks up the rose water sprinkles and shakes, so it drizzles on Abi and Vasanth. Her smile only becomes more sinister, as she eyes at her uncle as she dips the tips of her fingers into the sandalwood paste, she daintily applies it on Abi’s sandalwood smeared cheeks and moves down to do the same to the tops of her forearm. She then picks up some vermilion with her pointer finger and dots it on her forehead. She then picks up four bangles and gently pushes two on each arm of her Aunt, using some moisturiser, so it slips in place. She moves on picking up the turmeric stained rice and flowers and showers it on her head. 

“Now the same for your uncle too,” Nandhini Aunty reminds her. 

She moves closer to Vasanth, who’s shaking his head as she scoops all the remaining sandalwood paste from the silver bowl, giggling. She smears the woody smelling goop onto his cheeks, smearing it around all over his face, making the room laugh. She does the same to his forearms, spearing a clumpy mess of sandalwood. She then moves on to the vermilion, dotting a small spot on his forehead that is now a pale yellow. She then moves over and throws some rice and flowers on his head, as Abi cackles along with everyone in the room. 

“That’s for making me wait with everyone else for the baby’s gender,” she says, sticking her tongue out at him. 

“Hey! She kept it from you too!” He points to his wife in an accusatory tone. 

“Yeah. But you kept pissing me off the whole day. Aunty didn’t and she looks cute. Can’t say the same for you.”

“Sleep with an eye open, kutti.” He threatens, reaching for a wet wipe Anne hands over to him to wipe off the excess paste from his face. 

////

The ceremony was over and the expecting couple announced the baby’s gender and name, making some gasp  and others go ‘I knew it.’ Layla’s family and Abi’s parents cried on Zoom knowing their little bundle of joy now has a name. People were now spread all over the house chatting away and eating all the food. 

Layla fills up two plates of food from the buffet and heads over to the stairs, where Harry was sat. She pulled him aside during the ceremony, and asked him if they could eat alone and who was he to turn her down. It was traditional to have a variety of assorted rice for the event and both their plates had small servings of coconut rice, raw mango rice, coriander and mint rice, lemon rice, tamarind rice, curd rice, tomato rice, carrot rice and sweetened rice. Layla picked her favourite thayir vadai as the starter, it was sour and the hints of the chaat masala always hit her spot. Harry declined the starter as he does not eat cow milk - the only exception is when Layla makes the occasional mango laasi and her fruit loaded curd rice. She hands him a plate of food with the much larger portion and the one without the curd rice, and sits down on the step on the opposite side.

“Hey. Sorry, I didn’t really interact with you at all. I really didn’t want my parents grilling me,” she says, picking up a pomegranate seed from the curd rice and popping it into the mouth, relishing the way juicy sweetness detonates on her tongue.

Harry digs into the coconut rice first, his favourite. “I figured. It was nice to meet them. Even if it was brief. Didn’t really think I get to. You look so much like your mum!”

She rolls her eyes. “If I had a penny every time someone said that. I actually resemble her little sister more than her; it’s uncanny.” She unlocks her phone and scrolls through her gallery to find a picture of her Aunt. “Look.” 

“Shit,” he says, looking at her. If he thought Layla looked like her mother, she was a carbon copy of her Aunt. The same chin, eyes, forehead, lips, their only difference was their noses but not by much - Layla’s was a little longer and her cheeks more fuller.

“Yeah.” She chuckles. “It freaked my maternal grandparents out. They said it was like watching my Aunty grow up again, but my granddad always told me my cheeks were more pinchable than hers, and that I had alien ears.” She giggles. “My lobes are attached, literally no one in my family does,” she explains.

“You are a walking cornucopia of recessive genes,” he laughs with her.

“Tell me about it.”

They eat in ease a blanket of silence that they both found enjoyable. Both basking in each other’s company after three hours of interacting with everyone else. Dhruv, Ashwin plops down on the staircase unceremoniously next to them, each with a bowl of thayir vadai. “Hey guys,” they both chirp.

“Sorry, we needed a break from the oldies,” Dhruv says.

“I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Ashwin.” He waves to Harry, not wanting to shake his hand as Harry’s using his to eat.

“Hey. I’m Harry.” He smiles, warmly.

“I’m Dhruv. Nice to meet you, man. My sister will also join us in a few. She’s changing the baby.”

“Hey, Layla, you ready to beat our highscore?” Dhruv asks.

“High score?” Harry looks at her confused, clearly out of the loop. 

“Oh, um, Ashwin, Pooja, Prasath, Dhruv and I went for a movie in Raleigh the day before. Dhruv and Ashwin came over to play Overcooked after,” she fills him in. 

“We made quite the team,” Ashwin says with a sweet smile directed at Layla, in a tone that irked Harry.

“Why wasn’t I invited?” He asks Layla, the corners of his mouth turning downwards.

“Oh, sorry, babe. You were with Earl that day, helping him with the weeds. Didn’t wanna disturb you.” She tells him, squeezing his left hand as an apology. 

“We should do it again. Watch another Tamil movie again. It was so much fun,” Dhruv says. 

“We shou-” Layla gets interrupted by Dhruv’s sister, Pooja.

Pooja. Layla’s heart immediately starts hammering. The first time she saw her was when they were headed to the theatre, she felt herself becoming extremely flustered. She’s never come across a woman in real life who managed to catch her attention like that. She was drop dead gorgeous. Layla can’t help but let her eyes rake through her standing figure, she had a thick mane of curly raven hair, hooked nose, streamlined eyes that were lined with a thick ring of kaajal, full lips, her cheeks had a rosy hue to them no matter what accentuating her pitted scars that were a remnants of her acne - she often found herself tearing her eyes away from Pooja’s cheeks. Her shoulders were broad and her hips narrow, pudges around her tummy and hips, and legs that were long and slender. She was a bharatanatyam dancer, so naturally she was expressive and animated. The brief conversations she had with Layla were livey, and loquacious. 

“Ash, you forgot this,” she says, handing him a small white box - that was wrapped in a baby pink satin ribbon - from the diaper bag. 

“Thanks.” Ashwin says, face heating up, handing Layla the box.

“For me?” She asks, surprised.

“Yeah. You mentioned that you loved elephants, and I couldn’t help but think about you when we went to the pottery shop.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” Layla says, hesitantly.

“I insist, Lails.” Ashwin thrusts the box on her lap.

“We did the wine and paint thing, yesterday, at the studio downtown,” Dhruv tells her.

“Oh, Layla and I went there on a date,” Harry says, moving closer to her, wrapping his free arm around her.

“We had so much fun! I made Harry a ring dish and he still uses it,” she says, struggling to open the box with one hand, oblivious to her boyfriend’s bristling energy next to her in response to Ashwnin using Layla’s nickname. 

“Oh my god! Harry! Look! It’s perfect!” She squeals, showing him two miniature ceramic elephants in a bed of cotton - one ash in colour and the other a darker blue green with light pink at the ears. 

“Thank you!” She says, going to hug Ashwin. He returns the hug awkwardly. 

She stands up to go get dessert for everyone and comes back with small ramekins filled with tender coconut pudding topped with an exorbitant amount of sliced almonds and pistachios. They each take one. 

“Oh, Ashwin, that one’s for Harry,” she informs, handing him another ramekin. 

“What’s so special about it?” He chuckles, passing it to Harry. 

“It’s all from Chandru Uncle’s restaurant, right?” Pooja asks. 

“All of ours is, his isn’t.” She tells them, going back to sit next to him, wrapping her arm around his waist when Harry immediately throws his hand over her shoulder. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Harry’s doesn’t consume a lot of cow milk, so I made one from him with oat milk.” She says.

“Lactose intolerance?” Dhruv asks. 

“Most white people are,” Ashwin mocks and it makes Harry want to punch him. 

“That’s not very nice. He does so for environmental reasons,” Layla tells them.  “I hope you like it. I don’t know if it’ll taste the same,” she tells Harry. 

A blush creeps across his face and neck, the tip of his ears turning hot. “Thank you, baby.” He says taken back, kissing her cheek, brushing a stray stand away from her neck. He did not expect her to make something just for him, especially with all the other things she had on her plate today. It warmed his heart. 

////

“So, a baby girl, huh?” Earl asks. 

Harry, Earl, Anne were sitting on the kitchen island, while Vasanth was washing up the silver utensils that his mother shipped from Chennai. Everyone had made their way home, quietness creeping into the walls that were bouncing off exuberance a few minutes ago. Abi and Layla were in the family room, both with their feet up on the coffee table. Layla on the phone with her cousin trying to reboot her computer; following his instructions to try and reinstall windows again to her laptop that abruptly died on her when she was editing her and Harry’s paper with the suggestions from the journal editing theme. Abi was talking to her parents about the birthing and lactation classes she signed up for with Vasanth, and working out the dates they were coming over to help her along with the birth. 

“Yeah. We were hoping for a girl too,” he smiles, as he uses a rag to polish up the silver as per his mum’s instructions. 

“I love her name. Laya. It’s so precious.” Anne gushes.

Harry smiles, remembering Layla’s face when they told her that the baby’s name was inspired by her. Instead of gasping and being elated, she just stood there quiet, eyes cast on the floor - uncomfortable having all the attention on her, unable to process that she’s being honoured. Very Layla. All he wanted to do was to pull her warmth in and soothingly encompass her against his chest. 

“Still can’t believe you two named her after Layla,” Harry says, clicking around in his MacBook as he exports the pictures from his SSD, so he could edit. 

“We always knew that we wanted to do that. She is her big sister after all. Honesty, if Laya turns out to be half the person Layla is, it’s a job well done for us,” he tells them earnestly. 

“So all ready to be a father, huh?” Earl asks.

“I mean, I kinda already am,” he tells them, cocking his head in the direction of Layla. “I’ve never been just an uncle, you know. சித்தப்பா literally translates to small father. Her dad had to move to Delhi for work when she turned two. He was there for like three years. I was there for almost everything. Potty training, diaper changes, first wipeout on her bicycle with training wheels, bedtime stories, tantrums, dropping her off at school, teaching her how to golf, taking her to the zoo, and the planetarium on the weekends. She was such a well behaved extroverted kid growing up but she had this need for speed,” he chuckles before continuing. “She would sit on the motorbike or open up the sunroof, stick her head out of the car and demand to go faster and faster. She was so carefree. I sucked when I had to leave her to the US. She would act all grown up and mature so she wouldn't hurt my feelings but she’d cry to my mum every other day, convincing her to stop me from moving. When I came back three years later, she had completely changed. She was quiet, anxious, flighty, and just lost the child in her - like she was a husk of the Layla I knew…” He trails off. 

“Sorry.” He shakes his head. “To answer your question Earl, I feel every bit like a father. I feel very prepared but I also know it will be a complete experience. I’m excited. Abi is too. She cried when the doctor told us. She’s always wanted a little girl.”

Vasanth’s phone chimes and he calls out, “Layla!”

“என்ன (What)?!?”

“People from Chandru Uncle’s restaurant have come in to pick up the buffet utensils.”

“Okay.”

“I thought you wanted to be the one to return it back to them,” he clarifies.

“I did. Give me a minute.”

“Now! A minute is never really a minute with you. They’re waiting out in the cold, Layla!”

“Okay. Okay. I’m going now,” she groans, pushing her laptop on the couch cushion, and walking into the kitchen to pick up the buffet food containers and lugging them to the front door.

“Do you want any help?” Harry asks.

“No, that's alright. Only got five more. Thanks.” She smiles, picking two more of them and making her way to the foyer.

“Harry,” Anne prods.

“I offered. She’s got this mum,” he says, fiddling around with the colours of the picture of Layla on her bed in Lightroom.

“I didn’t raise a degenerate. You should do it without asking, love.”

He sighs, pushing himself off the stool. He would have done that but he really wanted to finish editing all of Layla’s pictures, to surprise her tonight. He picks up the rest of the stainless steel utensils and heads over to the foyer where Layla was talking to three people, one of whom he recognised was their waiter from the breakfast date.

“Thank you so much! The food was delicious. Everyone loved it. That புளியோதரை (tamarind rice) was to die for! I know you all work behind the scenes but you really made the event really special. It means a lot to me and Aunty and Uncle. I told Chandru Uncle that I’ll swing by the restaurant in a few days to thank the chef and the cook. Phenomenal jobs. Please send them my appreciation until then.” She smiles. 

A middle aged man speaks up, with a smile stretched across his face, deep creases evident on his cheeks that curve along the curve of his lips. “நான் பதினைந்து வருடங்களாக இந்த வேலையில் இருக்கிறேன். மக்கள் பொதுவாக என்னை கவனிக்க மாட்டார்கள். யாரும் வந்து எங்களுக்கு தனிப்பட்ட முறையில் நன்றி சொன்னதில்லை.( I have been working in this job for fifteen years now. People usually don't pay attention to me and my colleagues. Never have I had someone come and thank us personally. It means a lot.) God bless you, ma,” he says.

Although Harry doesn't know the language, he can decipher what he’s conveying by the embarrassed covers his girlfriend’s face. 

////

“You know what would be perfect with this?” Layla asks Harry.

 It was much later at night, she had bought the five remaining of his famous raspberry thumbprint cheesecake cookies. It was the easiest and quickest recipe he’d learnt at the bakery he worked at. He baked it for her yesterday, he really wanted to make it with fig preserve - her favourite - but she was too demanding and hungry for him to make a quick run to the store. 

“A kiss for the baker?” 

“Funny.” She says, biting into the ice cold cookie, dusting the crumbs off her fingers over the baby blue ceramic bowl. “Isn’t the phrase actually kiss the cook?”

“What’s the difference?” 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “But I do know that I want a glass of milk before I wipe off my makeup and head to bed.” She turns over and directs the sweetest smile to him. 

“Fine. I’m going,” he chuckles, popping the last cookie into his mouth, wiping his fingers on his suit trousers as he makes his way out of the room with the empty bowl. 

She quickly makes her way to the bathroom to remove the safety pins from her saree. She’d pinned some wacky places together to compensate for her inexperienced draping. She examines her face in the mirror, the light beaming off the grease on her face makes her huff out frustratedly. She scoops out the yellow cleansing balm from an aluminium jar to melt off her makeup. She squirts a small dollop of face wash onto her fingertips and starts lathering up her face, and washes it off with water. She pats her face dry with a towel and walks to find Harry on her bed, swiping through the touchpad of his laptop; a big glass of milk on her nightstand. She chugs it down in a very unladylike fashion and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before crawling on the bed. 

“What are you doing, hmm?” 

“Going through pictures from the ceremony. I think I’m gonna print it out and make a photo book for Vasanth and Abi.”

“Harry, you don’t have to do that. You taking pictures today was a great hel-“

“But I want to. Imagine how cute it would be for little Laya to look at once she’s older,” he informs, smiling at the thought. 

“It’s still weird.” She chuckles. 

“What? Her name?”

“Hmm. Plenty weird.”

“Hey, if someone named a baby after me I’d be on cloud nine.”

“I’m sure! It’ll feed right into your narcissism. Imagine if Aunty and Uncle named her after you. Something stupid like Harriet. Yuck!”

“Hey! I think Harriet is a great sounding name for a baby,” he defends. 

“Yeah. Great sounding name to get bullied in school.” 

He laughs, carefree and boyishly, crinkles by the corner of his eyes, gums peeking out from under his lips and dimples etching onto the curve of his cheeks. 

“How is that you manage to insult me every time before we have sex?”

“How are you so sure we’re gonna have sex?” She arches her brows. 

“Oh please. You’re still in your saree. Waiting for me to take it off.”

“I’m not waiting! I just wanted to um - I wanted you to take a few more pictures of me.”

“Really?” 

“Yup.” She holds her head up high. 

“Didn’t you send a paper plane asking me to come back here to sleep knowing full well I went home to put the lightbox and camera away?” He smirks. 

“I uh… I forgot. Go get it! Now!” She insists, trying hard not to smile to maintain her imperious façade.

“Please. Just admit that you want me! You’ve been salivating over me ever since I walked in!” He exclaims, trying to break her, closing his laptop and putting it on the floor. 

“I may have spared a glance at your direction once or twice,” she haughtily says, tossing her curls behind her shoulder. 

“And what about when you followed my ass around with your eyes, when I squatted to get a picture of Abi and Vasanth on the loveseat. Or did I imagine that?”

She looks down at her duvet, face heating up, a shy smile tugging the corners of her lips. “Didn’t know you were paying attention to me…”

“I always pay attention to you.” He mumbles, hand coming to cup her cheek. “Now come on, are you going to kiss the cook who made you cookies and bought you a glass of milk?”

She moves closer to him, lips against his ear, forehead pressing against his temple and mutters, “More like kiss this cock.” She leaves a wet kiss on the spot right below his ear, smiling when he draws in a sharp breath. “And seeing how you’re still in your tux tells me that it’s sole purpose of you leaving it on was to seduce me.”

“Now that we’ve both cracked each other’s game, don’t you think it’s time to take off our clothes?”

“Sounds like a great plan to me.”

They both shuffle out of bed and Harry reaches forward to tug Layla’s saree off. She quickly takes off the crop top, unhooks her bra and tosses it on the floor. Harry is busy unwrapping her skirt like draping that was tucked into the space between her hip and her skirt. 

“Jesus, how long is this thing?” He says exasperatedly, trying to unwind the fabric, and when he gets to the end, he tug it off, leaving her only in her black shapewear and her heels. He hooks his thumb into the spandex band of her skirt, wiggling it off from her body - along with her panties - as he trails wet kisses down her throat.

Layla pushes off the outrageously expensive suit jacket after she unfastens the single button of his suit jacket. Fingers quickly working to unbutton his shirt, she kisses his chest after prying open  a button, fingers coming to tease his nipples.

“Baby, please,” he whines loudly.

“Shh! My room isn’t soundproof like yours,” she scolds him, hand coming to clamp on his mouth, feeling a warm flush of embarrassment wash over her body at the idea of her uncle and aunty hearing it.

He nods, and she removes her palm. Stepping out of the blush coloured pool of chiffon fabric, tripping when the fabric gets caught in her heel, Harry comes to steady her, gipping her forearms tightly. 

“Leave your stilettos on,” he says. “I reckon they’d look pretty hanging off my shoulders.”

Layla chuckles, leaving her heels on, dropping to her knees and quickly unzipping his pants. Heat pools at the bottom of her belly, as she sees his growing bulge strain against the fabric, straining for some space. She pulls down his pants and his briefs to his knees, wasting no time before she grabbing on his length and mouthing at the tip.

He grunts, hands coming to bury in her hair, eyes screwing shut as she licks a flat stripe up the underside of his length, thumb messily spreading the precome around his head. She looks up at him with bleary eyes, as she swirls his tongue around him, moaning - a sound that shoots right up his spine, toes curling. She squeezes his thigh and he slowly starts moving his hips to and fro, thumb drawing circles on her cheek. 

“Shit, so so good, sweet girl.”

She gags around him as he drives in deeper and he looks down to check on her. Once she gives him a thumbs up, he moves again, looking down at the way she’s slobbering over him. Desire tingles through his body, as he lets his body take over moving in and out slowly and he hits a spot at the back of her head. Layla gags, flinching at the feeling and he immediately pulls off, before she can pinch his thigh to stop. 

“Fuck, you okay? Sorry.” He gets to his knees, eyes examining, his hand coming to wipe the mix of drool and his precome down her chin. 

“Yeah. It just tickled.” She tells him, blinking back the tears as she lets out a cough. 

“Come on up on the bed,” he says, licking his lips, she sits down at the end. He kicks off his trousers and his hands splays across her thighs, coming to part her knees, as he lowers himself.

“As much as I love when you go down on me, babe, I really want you to fuck me.” she mumbles, hands coming to twist in his hair, pulling him up.

She pulls his face to hers, and kisses him. Biting down on his bottom lip, tasting the raspberry from earlier, as he whimpers into her mouth. Harry lays on top of her - relishing warmth and  the way her breasts were pressed up against him, tongue licking into her, tasting the honey he mixed in with the milk. Layla grunts when he slips his fingers inside her, hands coming to tug at his trimmed locks.

“It’s too short,” she complains, frowning at the fact that she can’t grab at it like she used to.

“Well, I had to cut it! It was becoming too shaggy.” He defends himself.

She jolts in pleasure, when his thumb comes to draw tight circles on her clitoral hood, as his fingers curl up against her front wall.

“Stop moving,” he mumbles into her panting mouth, making a relentless come hither motion against her sweet spot.

“Make me.” She challenges squirming against him.

He quickly removes his digits and licks them clean, moving to get a condom from her bedside drawer. He makes quick work of tearing open the foil and rolling it down his length. He crawls over to her, grabbing a pillow and wedging it under her bum, before climbing over her. He quickly slips into her warmth, burying himself to the hilt, making her moan as he bottoms.

“Fuck, sweet girl, always feel so good for me,” he praises, as he suckles a bruise on her neck.

He moves slowly, letting her get used to the angle, she writhes underneath him - the way her bum was propped up made it so that he grazed her sweet spot every time he thrusts in. She wraps her legs around his hips, the end of her pointy heel digs into the swell of his ass, making him mutter a string of profanities.

“Shit. Har! You always fuck me so good.” She breathes out, nails scratching down his back.

“Yeah?” He asks.

She nods in response, closing her eyes and throwing her head back into the mattress, hands coming to grab at her bouncing breasts to anchor herself as she climbs to her peak steadily.

“Tell me,” he prods, sitting back on his knees, lifting one of her knees and throwing it over his shoulder. He thrusts back in again, moving with urgency, like he wanted to crawl inside her body.

“Tell me,” he urges her again over the wet noises their bodies were creating. “Tell me that I make you feel so good.”

She blinks up into his jade irises, mouth parting open in pleasure, as he bites into the jiggly soft flesh of her dimply thigh. “You’re the best I’ve ever had. The only one I’ve ever had.” He gasps, as the heat sears through her body as he keeps up his relentless pace.

He watches her carefully, hand coming to cup her cheek. He pulls the pillow from under her and pushes it aside, dropping her thigh down as he flushes himself against her and rubs his nose against her with a dopey smile spreading across his face. “Does that mean you’re mine, sweet girl?”

“Yours. No one else's,” she mumbles back with sincerity, kissing him fiercely. 

“I belong to you too. From the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he confesses, eyes blinking back the tears, burning his face into the crook of her neck, he rocks back and forth slowly. “I love you, Layla.”

She clutches onto the broad expanse of his shoulder, eyes rolling to the back of her head as she pulses around him, sinking her nails into his ass as she rides it out. She blinks back up and kisses his cheek. “You are my favourite person, Harry.”

It makes his dick twitch as his orgasm bubbles up in the bottom of his spine. “I’m close,” he whimpers into her sweaty neck.

“Come on then. Let go,” she coos, brushing back the stands of matted chestnut brown hair that stuck to his damp neck.

He exhales loudly in pleasure as he stills deep inside of her, filling up the condom. He collapses on top of her, cheek nestled between her breasts. He moves to slip his softening prick out of her but she  grips onto his love handles holding him in place - a perseverating gesture of hers, wanting to bask in the afterglow a little longer. He smiles against her chest, kissing the heated sweaty skin, hand moving to scratch her scalp.

Oscar Wilde was wrong, he thinks. Living is not better than existing. He has clearly never been in love. Because merely existing with Layla is a life worth living.

Harry: 😯😦😧😮

Layla: 😈😈😈

Harry: When did you subscribe?

Layla: you figure out 🥸

Harry: I’m gonna literally go and stalk and find you and boot you

Layla: why 😔

Harry: I told you that all you had to do was ask and I’d show you everything! Don’t waste your money, Lails. You have it all. 

Layla: has it ever crossed your fat head that i’d like to support you? 

Harry: You already support me in more ways than one. 

Layla: oh. 

Harry: Yeah, sweet girl, oh. 

Layla: i hadn’t thought of that…

Harry: Wouldn’t expect a different answer 😘

            Where are you guys rn?

Layla: oh we’re at cafe du monde. uncle’s gone to get us some beignets!!

Harry: Yum! That was the place Earl recommended yeah?

Layla: yup. we had some crawfish boil yesterday. delish!! i’m definitely falling in love with the city…

Harry clicks on the picture she sent, she was in her My Chemical Romance crop top smiling at the camera. She had a hair in a topknot, half up half down; hair ever so straight and long, bangs tucked away behind her ear. She’s holding a corn cob in one hand while sucking on a crawfish. There was a red ring around her mouth, no doubt from the seasoning. The picnic table in front of her had lots of shrimp, crawfish, lemon wedges, and corn cobs spread out on a newspaper. 

Harry: Don’t you look cute!

Layla: thanks 🥰😚 oh, uncle’s back with the goods. gtg!

Harry: Alright. Have fun! I love you!

He locks his phone and moves over to his setup in the guest room. He was using the cloud backdrop from his mum’s party. He picks up the thick white comforter from the bed and lays it on the floor. His camera has already been set up on a tripod, a power cord connecting it to his MacBook, so he could look at the pictures as it was being taken. 

He picks up his 35mm lens and screws it on. Harry hunches down and looks at the scene in front of him through his viewfinder. It looked very soft, especially with one of Layla’s skin coloured stockings stretched over the lens - ethereal. He clicks the shutter and looks at the picture on his laptop, and the corner of his mouth slump downward at what he sees. The lighting is still a bit too cool, for his liking. He sighs and walks over to the windows and opens them up, he fiddles with the light boxes, until he gets it exactly the way he wants it to be. 

He goes over to Spotify and clicks on his playlist titled ‘nasties.’ Funnily enough, he’s never used it when he was actually having sex. Brown Eyes by Fleetwood Mac comes on and Harry smiles taking in the music that fills the vacuum. He hits shuffle - his playlist ranged from Doja Cat, Weeknd, Cigarettes After Sex to his old dirty 80s rock - and moves over to strip himself of his shorts. He was wearing his fishnets and his black briefs, shirtless on top, except for the black leather collar fastened around his neck. 

With the remote in his hand, he goes to kneel on the white mattress, sitting back on his calves, leaning forward a little - palms flat on the mattress, biceps flexed. He presses the circular button and hears the camera click and his lightbox blink. He looks at his laptop screen, and parts his knees, the outline of his crotch visible and takes another picture. He took over a hundred pictures in the next two hours. Several clicks of him laying on his side - hand splayed out on his inner thigh. A few of him leaning backwards using his hands to support his weight, one leg bent at the knee resetting on the mattress, the other straight; he then bends his straightened leg at the knee, fleet planted firmly on the mattress. He then takes a few more of him after he folds his body and drapes his tattooed arm on his knee - his you booze you lose tattoo on display, head resting on his arm. For the final couple of shots, he gets up and gets closer to the camera, only his chin, neck and collarbones on display and uses his narrow black belt to thread into the metal hoop at the front of his collar, winding it around his palm and holding it taunt and takes a couple of pictures.

When he’s packing up, wearing a grey hoodie and a black pair of Nike shorts, taking apart the cables, he hears his phone buzz. He quickly makes his way over expecting a call from Layla but the corner of his mouth drops, when he looks at the caller ID.

“Yeah?” He says in a terse manner, after he presses the green button.

“Harry!” The voice chips, a familiar voice of a now unfamiliar person. “How are you, dear boy?”

“Alright.”

“What, I only get one word answers now?” He chuckles.

“What do you want, dad?” He sighs.

“Is it a crime to call up my son to check in?”

“No.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Oh um,” his cheek flushes with colour as he looks around the room. It’s not like he could tell him he was taking pictures for his OnlyFans. “Just tidying up around the house.”

“Always the one to help your mum around the house. Guess some things don’t change.” Harry could hear him smiling on the other end of the line.

“You know me,” he manages to get out, rolling his eyes.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me what I’m up to?”

“What are you up to?”

“I’m in Manchester. Have been here for a few days for a few meetings with the mergers and acquisition team. Walked across the milkshake place you love - Shakeaway, the one at Chorlton. You remember those giant-”

“Yeah. The butterscotch and white maltesers ones.” He smiles, wistfully.

“And the brainfreeze we’d get drinking them,” he chuckles.

“Yeah.” Harry sighs.

The line goes silent, neither not knowing what to say next.

“H, what are you doing Christmas time? Do you wanna watch a game and grab a pint at a bar?”

“I won’t be in London, Dad.”

“Oh, you and mum off on a holiday?”

“We’re staying here in the States and celebrating.”

“That’s odd. Very unlike the two of you to not come home and celebrate with mum’s family.”

“Well, we’ve made a family for ourselves here. We might pop over to granddad and grandmum’s sometime after,” he says, although he doesn’t understand why he did add the last bit in.

“Oh. Thought I could see you. I picked up a Titanic record at the market the other day. Seems like an original. Pretty rare too; you can’t get the One Night in Eagle Rock anymore. Thought I could make it your Christmas present. It’s been two years since we’ve-”

“I know. Listen, I’ve got to go. Need to head to the post office soon. Told my gir - um… my friend that I’d ship some stuff of hers.” He wasn’t fully lying, he really did need to go ship Layla’s paintings of those kittens in babushkas, but he wasn’t gonna do it right now.

“Alright. You seem to be pretty busy. Hope you’ve applied to schools.”

“Yup. If everything goes well, might head to UCSD next autumn.”

“I’m positive it’ll all go smoothly, H.”

“Fingers crossed. Hey, thanks for picking up the vinyl, you didn’t have to.”

“Of course I had to, H. That’s our thing. I’m gonna let you go now.”

“Yeah. Bye.” He clicks the red button and collapses on the couch, letting out a big breath that he wasn’t aware of holding.

////

“Absolutely not,” Abi shakes her head.

“But why not?” Layla whines, holding up a small skull of a tortoise from the glass cabinet.

“It’s only six dollars. It’s the coolest thing in this room. Doesn’t this look like a dinosaur?” She asks, hoping to convince her.

“Nah uh.” Layla had managed to pull her uncle and aunt into a voodoo shop in the French Quarter. Ten minutes browsing in the small dimly lit, blood red room, that Abi frankly thought looked like a dingy basement from the sixties. 

“What if I take it back home with me?”

“Who’s gonna let you fly with a skull?” She chuckles.

“Fair point.” She thinks for a while, thinking about another reason to make her aunt agree. “Please please, I promise to have it in my room,” she resorts in the end.

“It's not coming into my house. Nothing belonging to dead animals.”

“Look at this!” Vasanth waves them over to him, on the other side of the room. They both shuffle over to him, Layla grumbles putting back the tortoise shell in its place.

They look to see a small drawer pulled out containing different trinkets inside - buffalo tooth, shark tooth, racoon tooth, coyote tooth, crow bone, and alligator claw. 

“Cool!” She exclaims picking up a buffalo tooth, which was larger than she expected to be. “This is like an ingredient list to a witches brew.” She picks up the alligator claw next. “One racoon tooth, two alligator paws, six drops of the blood of your enemy, stir in some bird saliva...” She prattles on, poorly mimicking a cackling voice of a stereotypical witch. 

“Do birds even produce saliva?” Vasanth asks. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, putting a glass case with a wooden frame into the small cart Abi was carrying. It already had a purple cardboard cylinder that her aunt picked up that was called ritual bath salt, there were two silk bandanas that Layla had picked out for Harry - one in red with blue patterns and other blue with white patterns, her uncle had picked out a black candle that smells like apples and cinnamon.

“What’s this kutti?” Her Aunt asks, turning over the glass frame and she’s faced with seven butterflies - all different shapes and colours - pinned to the white background. 

“You said animals. They are insects,” she defends herself, when her aunt’s eyebrow arches. “And your husband is also on board with me. So it’s two against one,” Layla sticks her tongue out at her.

“That’s right! Democracy baby,” Vasanth exclaims, high fiving his niece. “Seven of these beauties for forty five dollars, that’s a steal.”

////

Harry sighs for the umpteenth time, he shuffles to his side, pulls up his sheets and tucks the ends under his chin. He just couldn’t sleep tonight. He looks at the ceramic ring dish, Layla made for him, on his night stand. It was such a thoughtful gesture from her to make him a dish to keep all his rings in place.  He sighs again. It’s crazy that it’s only been four days and he misses her already, which is insane considering she has only been in his life for three months now. It’s ten past two at night and he’s sure she’s zonked out after sightseeing but it doesn’t stop him from unlocking his phone and texting her.

Harry: Hoi!!! 

His eyebrows raise up when his phone immediately dings with a notification from her. 

Layla: hi hi! what are you doing up?

Harry: Can’t sleep. Why aren’t you asleep?

Layla: mcr just released a new song out of the blue

Harry: So you’re trying to memorise it within a few hours for your fangirl cred?

Layla: know me so well. can’t look like a normie at the concert in december.

Harry: Won’t you look like a normie next to me?

Layla: i would but doesn’t matter. i’ll redeem emo points for you too!

           how was your shoot today?

Harry: Went well. Wanna see some pics?

Layla: deffo

Harry: Shit everything is in my SD card. I do have one on my phone though.

He attaches the only picture he took with his phone, a picture of his feet - with his fishnets on - pressed flat against the white mattress topper. The black of his ‘big’ tattoo on his big toe and the mesh pattern contrasted with the white of the background.

Layla: i’ve said it before and i’m saying it again but that’s some nasty ass feetsies. goblin trotters, even.

Harry: I’m hard…

Layla: have i pavloved you so much that my insults are sending all the blood rushing to your dick lmao

Harry: Shut up, dickhead. I’ve been hard for a while now.

Layla: i see. i’d love to help you out but uncle and aunty are a foot away from me. so you’re on your own.

Harry: :(

Layla: sorry but i’ll make up for it when i’m back. promise babe.

Harry: Counting on it. Good night baby.

Layla: good night! maybe try using that egg vibrator thingie you got. 

He does the exact same. He rummages through his drawers to find the grey drop. He then spits into his palm and strokes his length, palming at the head. He unlocks his phone to find some pictures of Layla he had taken. He moans out loud when her soft thighs come into view. She got a pair of embroidered butterfly panties off the internet and demanded he take sexy pictures of her because she felt cute in them. His tip spurts out pearls of precum and he spreads them down his length as he swipes through the series of pictures, hips bucking into his palms as he looks at the picture of her lifting up her white tennis skirt - thighs spread open - to show off her underwear. The next two were just of her thighs from different angles. His hips pick up the pace as he fucks his palm, warmth raging through his body. The last two of her taking off her underwear but her thighs took up most of the frame. He reaches for the vibrator, pressing the button before the little silicone starts vibrating and he touches it to the head of his leaking cock.

“Shit,” he curses, gritting his teeth of the new sensation.

What I would give to bite into her thick thighs right now, he thinks. He pictures himself pushing his cock in between her thighs, rocking until he spurts all over.

“Fuck sweet girl,” he whines, pressing onto the button again - the little machine’s intensity increases. He runs it up and down his shaft, eyes scrunching up as the pleasure plateaus. 

He just needed the smallest push to tip him over the edge. He places the vibrator against his balls and wraps his hands against this throbbing member, mewling at the tingles shooting up his spine. He swipes his screen quickly landing on exactly what he was looking for - a picture of Layla on top of his chest, head tucked into his chest, eyes glazed over from her orgasm, dopey smile stretching across her face, lips swollen, hair mussed up the perfect way that screams ‘just had my boyfriend rail me on all fours,’ and a hickey near her collarbone. She had two of her fingers in Harry’s mouth - she just finished telling him that he was such a good boy for her.

He moans out loud, feeling himself soaring as the pleasure bursts. And he empties himself onto his stomach and hand, he continues pumping until the last few spurts of his hot come dribble on his fern tattoo.

The power she has over me, he thinks, smiling as he’s coming down from his high.

////

“I can’t believe you two are gonna eat that,” Abi exclaims, shaking her head at the two of them. She fishes her phone from her purse and takes a picture of the hurricane cocktail Layla ordered. Layla moves her face, so right behind the poco grande glass filled with the blood orange liquid and a slice of orange wedged on the rim, right next to a cherry. She makes a funny face in the background as her Aunt snaps away. The couple opted for a pina colada sans any alcohol, because of the growing little baby in Abi’s tummy.

“When you’re at Pat O’Brien’s you’ve gotta do it their way,” Vasanth shrugs, rotating the hot sauce bottle that was on the green table.

“What do you think it’ll taste like?” Layla asks her Uncle. 

“Probably chicken.” The two were the adventurous eaters of the family. 

“Oh, are you two excited to find out the sex of the baby?”

“Who says we don’t know?” Abi smirks.

“What?”

“We know. The doctor was able to tell us in the last check up,” Vasanth smiles.

“Well, tell me!”

“You’ll find out with the rest of the family in a few days at the function.”

“Oh come on, not fair! Tell me,” she presses.

“You’ll find out when தாத்தா பாட்டி (granddad and grandmum) find out.”

“What if I rub your feet and rub lotion on your stomach tonight? Will you tell me then? I’ll make it worth it,” Layla asks her Aunt.

“I won’t but you’re welcome to rub my feet,” Abi giggles.

The waiter comes back with their starters and distracts Layla. She looks at the plate in front of her. The bite sized crispy breaded pieces looked to be fried to a  golden brown perfection. There was mayo dip placed next to a wedge of lemon. Tiny bits of green were dusted all over the plate, Layla could make out it was some herb from the smell. It looked very innocuous.

“Looks like KFC. Can’t tell that that's an alligator,” Abi says. 

Vasanth and Layla both pick up a piece and bite into it. “Not bad. Sure you don’t want any?” Vasanth asks his wife, gesturing to the plate of alligator bites.

“No. I’ll stick to my vegetarian choice. Thank you. What does it taste like, hmm?”

“It’s tough.” Layla gets out with a mouthful as she chews. She cocks her head from side to side, trying to best decipher what it tastes like. “Like chicken,” Layla declares, picking up a napkin to wipe the mayo at the corner of her mouth. “Could pass as fried chicken definitely.”

////

“You got all the bags?” Layla grunts at her uncle, as she drops the last of their luggage on the front porch with a slight thud.

“Yeah.”

“Alright, I’m gonna pop over to Harry’s,” she says, hands going into the pockets of her sweats.

“We just got in,” Vasanth raises his brow.

“So?”

“Don’t you wanna shower first?”

“I’ll do it later.”

“You could do it now and then head over to your boyfriend’s,” he suggests.

“No,” she huffs.

“Go ahead, kutti. Bring over the package பாட்டி (grandmum) sent over,” Abi says, coming over to the threshold from the bathroom.

“Alright! See you!” She waves and jogs over to the house next door. 

She quickly makes her way in, punching in the security code and quietly bounds up the stairs of the empty house. She sees him sitting on his desk, shirtless, broad shoulders hunched over the tiny black game console of hers. His greasy brown ringlets were haphazardly clipped away from his face. From the music Layla could tell that he was playing Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. He got sucked into the game the minute he got to know that he could name his animals and his character. So much sucked into it that Layla’s Gameboy has only been on his bedside table for months now.

“Hi, farm boy,” she whispers, making him whip around.

His response is not one of surprise that she was expecting, and it almost offends her. She simply gives her a distracted smile and turns around to the backlit screen in his hands. “Give me a minute I just need to collect one more Goddess Gem, so I can marry the Harvest Goddess.”

“Excuse me?”

“What? She’s hard to impress,” he defends himself. “I finished digging up all the items in the spring and lake mine, and I bought a big bed. It’s the only thing left for me to marry her.”

“You do realise you can’t just ask her. You have to go to Carter and ask his permission to marry her in the confessional first.”

“Okay. Noted. Thanks, didn’t know that.”

“Wait?!? Why am I helping you?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, still glued to his game.

“Hello! I just got back after a week and came here straight to surprise you and you don’t even say hi,” she narrows her eyes at him.

“Just give me one moment,” he still fiddles with the buttons.

“Fine.” She huffs. “Guess, sex is off the table then. I’m gonna take a shower.” She unzips her lilac puffer jacket and shuffles it on his floor.

“Whoa, hold on now.” He flips the device close and puts it on the desk and walks towards her.

“Oh, that got your attention now, did it?” She grumbles, bunching up the end of her jumper and pulls it up her head, mussing up her hair in the process. She steps back when he goes to pull her in for a hug.

“Don’t be like that, Lails.” 

She frowns at him, standing in a sports bra and grey sweats, arms crossed over her chest and tapping her socked foot on the floor.

“Come on, I was just in the zone. You know what that’s like when you’re playing,” he reasons.

She thinks about what he said, worrying her bottom lip. “Fine.” She rolls her eyes, letting out a big sigh.

“How about we start from the top?” He says, coming to cup her puffy cheeks between his large palms.

“I’d like that.”

“Hi, baby.” He whispers, bending down to nuzzle his nose against hers. “I missed you so fucking much.”

“I missed you too,” she replies, getting on her tiptoes - throwing her arms around his neck to balance herself - brushing her lips against his. 

She rubs her hands against his stubbly, unshaven patchy scruff on his face. “What’s with the whiskers?”

“Didn’t really feel like shaving? What you don’t like my new look?” 

“Can’t decide. Prickly,” she giggles, when he rubs his face against her neck, pushing his face away. 

“How was your trip?” He asks, backing her up against the cream coloured wall. 

“Good. I got you two silk bandanas. You know, so you can stop stealing my claw clips,” she smiles. 

“Nice try but never.” He leans down and steals a kiss from her, it was needy, incessant and passionate. She swipes her tongue across his bottom lip, and he opens up letting her lick into his mouth and his hips involuntarily flexes into hers. 

His hands slowly make their way down her torso, caressing her soft skin, as he kisses down her neck, sucking on the spot right below her ear, making her tug at his hair at the nape of his neck. He unties her drawstring and pushes down her sweats, making it pool at her ankles, smirking at her Batman underwear. 

“Fuck, you’re so gorgeous you know that sweet girl,” he mutters, pupils blown out with wanton. 

She shrugs and tugs him closer, running her hands down his taut torso, fingers tracing the outlines of the ferns. “Could say the same thing about you.”

He laughs. “I’m honoured.” His hands slide into her panties, one hand gripping onto her meaty bum, while the other teases at her damp folds, getting close to her nub but completely not touching it.

“Harry,” she complains, biting down on the column of his throat. 

“What?” He smirks. 

“You know what.”

“My sweet girl  wants to be touched, huh?”

She nods. “Cut it out with the teasing,” she demands. 

And he does. He pins her against the wall, dips his head into her chest so he can kiss and suck on the fleshy tops of her breasts, as he works her clit repeatedly by drawing circles and alternating it between back on forth motions on her hood - just how she likes it. Her moans and whimpers against his ear only eggs him to keep going until he helps her reach her peak. His erection feels unbelievably heavy, straining against the zipper of his trousers, he rubs himself against her thigh, in an asynchronous pace, to relieve the pressure. 

“Ah, Harry,” Layla groans. Her fingers come to grip his wrist, stopping the ministration of his fingers. “Need you inside me when I come. Shower. Take me to the shower.” 

He carries her to his en suite. They both quickly work themselves to get rid of their clothes and walk into the water. Layla grips on to his hair and pulls him in for a kiss, letting him suck on her bottom lip, breaking away ever so often to mewl as her closed fist works his cock, thumbing and his leaking slit. 

“Baby, can I - uh fuck - feels good,” he grunts, as his hips work his throbbing member into her palm. “Can I not use a condom? Just wanna feel all of you.”

“Okay. Pull out, alright.”

She quickly turns around and presses herself against the tiles, chest flush, back curving, ass sticking out.

“Want this?” He checks in with her, as he’s roughly pumping himself, coming to stand behind her. 

“Need it.”

Harry quickly guides himself into her, mesmerised by how she sucks him in with ease. Both moaning at the feeling, when he bottoms out. 

“So exquisite for me, my sweet sweet girl,” he moans, hot breaths against her ear. She felt like heaven, all what he needed, warm, wet, tight, and loving. Things were much better without a condom. She was indescribable, almost like his antidote.

“Just like that. Keep doing that,” Layla tells him, when he drives his hips into her quickly. 

He drives himself deeper and faster into her each time. Grunting against her ear, one hand steadying himself by gripping onto her hip, while the other snakes its way to toy with her clit, making her cry out in pleasure. He notices her hands - one gripping onto the shower handle, the other clawing onto the cold tile and he can’t help but feel jealous. So he pulls out quickly, kissing down her wet back, turning her around quickly, so she’s facing him. 

“Want your hands on me,” he whines greedily, bringing her hands to rest on his shoulders. He gets between her hips in no time, one hand gripping onto the shower wall, the other coming to cradle the small of her back, her chest pressed against his in a delicious manner. Her leg comes to hook around his hips, getting on her tiptoes, they both cry out from how good they’re making each other feel. The sound of water was torrential but not enough to mask the way their skins were slapping against each other. 

“Ah. Don’t - fuck fuck fuck. Don’t stop,” Layla cries out knowing full well he won’t, nails scratching down his back in a painful manner. 

Tingly sparks shoot up his stomach at the delicious pain he’s experiencing with heightened pleasure. He stutters his hips into hers, harsher than he intends to, causing her to cry out.

“Hurts,” she gasps, tightening around him.

“Motherfuck,” he moans loudly. “Don’t. Or I’ll come,” he warns and she relaxes around his throbbing prick. 

“Sorry. You okay?” He asks, pushing the sopping strands of hair away from her eyes, blinking away the beads of water that weighed down his eyelashes. 

“Yeah. Think you went a bit hard on my cervix there,” she chuckles. 

“Sorry. Got a bit excited when you scratched down my back.”

She chuckles. “That’s okay. I’m okay.” She pushes the water away from her face. “Make me come now.”

He works him slowly into her. Going slow and being much more gentle. “Faster, Harry,” she demands and he picks up speed, drawing circles with his hips, making her bite into his shoulder. 

“Aargh,” she grunts, clutching onto his bicep, tightening around him again, much more relentlessly and tighter, band in her tummy stretched, ready to snap. 

“Don’t. Don’t.” He can feel his control slipping, his rubber band snaps. “Fuck fuck fucking hell,” he curses, eyes screwed shut, pulling out of her hurriedly - just in time -  as he comes all over her stomach – warmth spreading in his body. 

She chuckles, pulling him closer for a kiss as his cock sputters ribbons, emptying himself. She could still feel him twitching between the two of them. 

“Unacceptable,” he shakes his head, chastising himself for coming before her. 

“Guess I got that gorilla grip, huh,” she jokes, as his come smears on his stomach, as she sucks on his neck, meeting with a blooming kiss mark when she pulls away. 

He uses two of his fingers and scoops some on his hand and sucks it into his mouth, bending down to kiss her, tongue dancing with hers. He kisses and licks down her body, getting down on his knees as he runs his stubbly face against her inner thigh, making her shriek in response. He hooks her leg onto his shoulder, palms laying flat against her belly - holding her squirmy body still - as he dives into her folds, intending to take full advantage of what his scruff can do. 

////

Warm. The thick duvet, afternoon sunlight slanting into the room and a certain someone curled up on him made him feel warm all over, yet he couldn’t bring himself to move and turn on the fan.  Harry looks down to see a shock of her dark slightly damp hair fanned every which way, obstructing her face. He gently pushes her wild locks behind and smiles when he sees her let out soft snores through parted lips. His thumb absentmindedly comes to caress her cheek, as he stares at how her eyelashes fan across her face and the way her eyes move behind her closed lids. Poor thing, must be shattered from all the travel, he thinks. 

Layla can sleep anywhere at any time, unlike him and she needed her full eight hours.  She’s threatened to bite him if he ever woke her up early during the weekends for his runs. He’s seen her pull a few all nighters prepping for her classes  - her lights are always on and her windows were open and that certainly caught his attention when he got up for a wee - and when he’d gone over the next day to check up, he’d found her snoozing away on the sofa. 

It’s nice when he gets to hold her while he can. He never really had the opportunity to hold her through the night. They’d both start with a cuddle but would eventually need their own space, because they were both predominantly stomach sleepers. 

Harry always knew that she wasn’t a big cuddle or a touch person but it always surprised him to no extreme when she’d be up for a good cuddle whenever he wants. He’d once asked her if she was just putting it up for his sake and she’d told him “I am not a touch person. I don’t really reach for people often. Dolphin is the only exception. I’d always pick the floor to sleep on rather than squeezing into a queen sized bed with my cousins. But the only cuddles I accept are from my Aunts. Vasanth had left for the States for his Masters before my parents started fighting. So they, all four of my Aunts, basically stepped in to take care of me. Being my Dad’s first cousins, they had good relationships with my mum and they were the only ones who were allowed to talk to me from my Dad’s side when we lived alone. They were the only ones who always treated me as their baby during that time. I’ve never had to pretend to be fine with them. I’ve felt the most at ease to cuddle with them. I don’t see them very often and they all have their own families now. Timeshare sucks, so I haven’t had a cuddle with anyone in years. Until you. I like cuddling with you because it makes me feel like that. Like safe and comfortable enough to let my guard down to accept your care. So no, I’m not putting up with it just because you’re a touch person. I look forward to it actually.” It knocked the soul out of him. He went home that night and cried himself to sleep knowing that he was able to provide a haven for his sweet girl. 

His fingers weave into her hair, and he gently rubs at her scalp. Raspberry lips brush against her sweaty forehead. She was a natural caretaker. There probably wasn’t a time where she didn’t jump at the chance to take care of others - cooking, helping run errands, handiwork, helping with the orders at Earl’s, and knowing how to listen to others when they’d want to talk. She absolutely loved listening to his stories in a way that fed right into his ego; Layla always being so curious. He thinks back to a conversation they’d had when he was sitting on the lidded toilet watching her do her skincare routine at night. 

“What did you just squirt from that?” He asks, watching her set down a dark amber frosted glass bottle on his counter. 

“Vitamin C.” She responds, using her index to dot the serum at different points of her face, before softly massaging them into her skin.

“Do you know Narwhal’s have the same amount of vitamin c on an inch of its skin as half an orange?”

She shakes her head.

“Inuits used to use their skin to ward off scurvy.” “Interesting. Narwhals are those whales with a tusk, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen a few when I was in Churchill.” He says with a smile on his face. 

“Aren’t they rare?”

“Hmm.” He makes his way to the counter, popping his butt on the marble top. A proud grin stretches across his face. “It was May and we were up North to get more data on the machine and while we were standing on the ice, setting up equipment, there were seven of these and they popped right up in the ice pockets to get some air. They go down super deep and they always remember to come back to the same ice pockets to get some air. They are also creatures of habit, quite like you. Too bad it’s killing them.” He sighs. 

“How so?”

“Climate Change.”

Layla gives him a confused look as she squirts some of her aloe vera  moisturising gel into her palm. “Oh,  global warming and because of rising water temperatures?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. See what’s why the word global warming pisses me off. It’s reinforcing the idea of heat to people who don’t know much about the science behind it. People in colder areas don't think it applies to them and everyone thinks the ice caps are melting. I’m not saying they aren’t, it is a pressing issue. But the earth is also getting cooler. Much much colder. That’s why I personally prefer the word climate change over global warming. Coming back to whales, because they are such creatures of habit, they come back to the same pockets of openings in the ice sheets for air. Suddenly, mostly due to a shift in the wind and these pockets freeze over fully or have a very small opening, this makes a whole pod fight to come to the surface for air while the weak ones drown. Sometimes, they get trapped in these tiny areas and get hunted by predators.”

“What are predators to living whales?” Her voice muffled as she applies some Vaseline on her lips. 

“Polar bears, walruses and sometimes even the arctic foxes.”

“I didn’t know walruses and bears are powerful enough to take on whales.”

“They are- wait am I waffling about and boring you?” He stops. He’s been told that when he gets excited, he has a tendency to blather about it for ages. 

“No you are not. I love getting to hear these snippets from your time in Manitoba. You must have worked so hard.”

“I was the youngest, and inexperienced, so I did meaningless work most of the time. But the people on the team were real nice.”

“Harry, don't sell yourself short. No one just gets to go on an all expense paid year long research expedition in the Arctic Circle, especially when they are right out of school.” 

Boy did that stroke his ego. It felt nice coming from her, he knew she was sharp as a tack. She had the ability to read a forty page research article and condense it down to five lines and she’d hit all the right points. He was also envious of the way she’d instantly make abstract ideas and sound like it was as simple as breathing. 

She always gave and gave, sometimes it resulted in back and forths just to get her to accept care from him. Care in the form of appreciation. Gratitude. Helping her with whatever she was doing. Helping her unwind with a massage or a movie.  Paying for things. Wanting to spoil her. But it was hard sometimes. She was far too stubborn. He’d also notice the way her eyes flit around any room they walk into, assessing the situation, like she’s gauging the temperature of the water by dipping her toe in before taking the plunge. Taking care of people was her default mode, she’d find time to squeeze the act in even if she was slammed that day. His fingers drift to the exposed honey like skin under her collarbone, she was wearing his white ribbed tank and one of the sleeves had slid down her shoulder. He presses his lips to her sleep warm cheek, sighing in response to her scent crescendoing. 

It was challenging to get her to just accept the smallest acts for care. Harry wondered sometimes if she’d short circuit if she can’t care for someone or something. As herculean it was to get her to shut up and go with it, he wasn’t gonna stop until the fact that he’s not gonna give up trying, until it’s driven deep into her thick skull. 

She jerks in his arms and he stills not wanting her to wake up, she mumbles something incoherently and moves to lie on her back, but her left thigh was still wedged between his. Bare legs tangled together in the sheets. Faint red splotches, a result of friction, decorate her inner thigh, a reminder of the places his stubble traced her sensitive skin. Dimples carve into his cheek as he thinks back to their exchange an hour or so ago. 

“What are you doing, babe?” Layla asks, while towelling her sopping wet raven strands, eyeing him as he picks up his razor. 

“Shaving.” He replies, tearing his eyes away from his reflection on the sink mirror to look at her in just his briefs. 

“Why?” 

“Because you have beard burns on the inside of your thighs,” he tells her, nose scrunching as he deals with a phantom itch at the top of his nose. 

“Don’t shave. Please.” She says softly. 

“Baby, I don’t want to irritate your skin any more.”

“I can always put some aloe on it. It doesn’t really hurt. Keep it please, Har. I really liked how it felt when you went down on me,” she blushes. 

“Is that so?” He asks coyly, putting the razor on the counter and turns his body towards her fully. Ego skyrocketing. 

“Hmm.” She nods, giving him a shy smile. 

“Okay, since you asked so nicely. I’ll maybe give this stubble thing a go for a few days. But I’m gonna shave before Abi’s ceremony.”

“Super!” She bites the plump of her bottom lip as she picks up the white tank top that Harry had hung on the rack for her. 

////

Layla pushes a strand of hair that flips onto her forehead, obstructing her view, back with her wrist. She squints at the scrawny handwriting on the bound notebook in front of her. The blue ink had faded, the once white pages have now faded. But she could make out the instructions on the page. She squeezes a tablespoon of sriracha into the bowl containing mayonnaise. 

A sizzle comes from the pan, from where Earl’s toasting their baguettes. She was over at his place for lunch. “How’d you like the piano duels?” He asks, referring to his recommendation to her New Orleans bucket list. 

“Fun. I was surprised when one of the musicians started playing ice ice baby. I never really thought of it as a piano song,” she chuckles. 

“I loved the video Harry showed of you rapping it on stage.”

“Oh. He came over last week?” She adds some more ingredients as per the book and mixes them into the sauce. 

“Yeah to drop off my meds and he stayed over too. We geeked out over music, as usual. Missed you though. I didn’t know you could rap that good.”

“I’ve heard that song my whole life really; Appa (Dad) had it on repeat. Not that hard,” she shrugs. 

“You’re full of surprises, little girl.” He brings the toasted baguettes to her so she can spread some of that remoulade on the golden brown pockets of dough. 

“Your wife’s a genius. This po’ boy seems so different from the one I had in New Orleans. This is such a wealth of info, you really should look at printing this or typing this onto a computer,” she says, pointing to the book full of recipes. 

Earl smiles. He goes to sit on one of the bar stools at the island. “I forgot it was there, to be honest. You were the first person who made me open it up after a long time when you asked me to teach you Gumbo all those months ago.”

“Oh. Didn’t you kids or grandkids ever try to make something from this when they’d visit?”

“Not really. Her recipes are always elaborate and time intensive. Everyone came over to relax, so spending over two hours on a recipe wasn’t at the top of their list.”

“They’re missing out. I would love to have something like this,” she brings the excess sauce that had dribbled into her thumb to her mouth to suck it off. “I’ve been begging my grandmum to write down her recipes and she always goes ‘why don’t you ask me to die already,’” she laughs at her own high pitched voice she picked to mimic her grandmum; her voice was the furthest away from that. 

“I’m here!” His voice carries over to where the two were. 

“Hi,” Layla greets him, when he gets to the top of the staircase. He drops his white tote on the ram recliner, and beelines straight to the kitchen, bending down to kiss Layla’s cheek. 

“Yes, pretend like I don’t exist and go straight to your girlfriend,” Earl teases them. 

“Lovely afternoon, is it not?” Harry takes Earl’s hand and presses his lips to his knuckles, cracking them all up. 

Harry’s wearing a black button down with the word ‘Styles’ embroidered on his chest in white, against his chest. He was wearing a pair of hot pink and neon green checkered shorts - it looked like it was stitched from a curtain. His hair was not styled, his little clip at the top missing; instead his hair flopped down to his forehead, almost reaching down to his eyes. He looked so boyish, especially with the patchy scruff on his cheeks. He sits down on the stool next to Earl and drops his leather bound journal on the counter. 

“We’re having po’ boys for lunch?” He asks, watching Layla wash some tomatoes and lettuce. 

“Uh huh.” She answers, turning around to get the baked shrimp out of the oven. He can’t help but shamelessly stare at the swell of her ass as she bends down.

“Did you get me the snail poison?” Earl asks.

“Yeah. Left it downstairs in the greenhouse,” he answers.

“Wait, snail poison?!?” Layla exclaims.

“Yeah. There’s an infestation of them in my cabbage patches.”

“So you’re planning to kill them?”

Earl nods. “They’ve chowed down on almost all of my cabbages, those fat slimy bastards.”

“Don’t say that.” Layla scolds. “You can’t kill them,” she says in a stubborn voice.

“Oh yeah, little miss here is a lover of snails,” Harry chuckles at her cross demeanour.

“I’m sorry, Layla. I tried the natural route with the copper plate and it just didn’t work. It’s the only way.”

“No no. There has to be some other way to get rid of them without killing them,” she huffs, crossing her arms defensively against her chest.

“Well I’m all ears,” Earl says. 

“Umm…” She thinks, biting down on her bottom lip. “Oh! How about I pick them up one by one, put them in a cardboard box and release them in the park. Harry will help me,” she says determinedly.

“Fat chance. I’m not touching those slimy things. You’re on your own, baby.”

Layla shoots him a dirty look.

“Honey,” Earl sighs. “Even if you do manage to get all of those snails, there are still eggs and it’s not a guarantee. I need to sell those cabbages to the local farmers. They aren’t gonna be of much use if they have been chewed through,” he reminds her.

She pouts at the two of them like a petulant toddler knowing she’s lost the battle. “Fine. But I’m mad at the two of you.”

“What did I do?” Harry exclaims. “He’s the one who’s doing it.”

“But you were the one who’s aiding him with this whole ordeal by getting him the poison.” She pointedly says, the baking tray still in her hands. 

The next few minutes go by in silence as Layla gets to slicing up the tomatoes and lettuce. She keeps giving the two dirty looks every now and then as she arranges the thinly sliced tomatoes on a bed of lettuce.

“So what’s this?” Earl gestures to the journal hoping it would distract Layla. 

“Nothing important.”

“He'd rather die than tell you what’s in there Earl. Don’t even try, you’d only be wasting your time,” Layla informs, as she picks up a spoon to transfer the shrimp on top of the tomatoes. 

Harry rolls his eyes and shakes his head. 

“Now I gotta know,” Earl turns towards him, giving him his full attention. 

“It’s just…” He could feel the tips of his ears getting hot and by the way Layla is smirking at him, he can only imagine the blush spreading on his face. “I write sometimes and - just like dabble in it,” he tries to explain, his hand subconsciously reaching for his book, splaying his hand protectively over it. 

“So, what do you write?” Earl asks. 

“Umm… just things. Things that I see, emotions I experience, things that I like, things that pop up in my head.” He slides the book closer to him. 

“So is it like poetry? I’m assuming because you read a lot of them,” Layla says, plating up their sandwiches. 

“Yeah. Sometimes I do write a bit of them… sometimes they’re like journal entries. Sometimes I write down something people around me have said. Could be a movie quote.”

“That explains the Winnie the Pooh quote,” Layla says more to herself but they all could hear. 

“Let’s head to the dining room. The boy’s uncomfortable. His ears are to his shoulders. Well, Harry, we get that it’s personal. But I would be happy to read whatever you write, if you are comfortable sharing.” Earl slips out of the barstool. “I’m gonna head to the restroom and wash up.”

“Thanks, Earl.” He nods and Earl squeezes his shoulders before he disappears into the hallway. 

“Har, can you um, reach that mason jar of hot honey,” she points to one of the cabinets, that was way placed much further away from her grasp; it was out of direct sunlight pouring in from the open window. 

“Yeah, short stuff.” He opens the counter and pulls out the glass jar with an exorbitant amount of sliced chillies. “I’m surprised your stubborn ass isn’t climbing over and getting it yourself.”

“Oh, I’m wearing skinny jeans and these ones really restrict my movement, especially at the thighs, so can’t really bend my legs more than ninety degrees. But they make my butt look so good. Plus, I think I’ve lost some weight, it’s loose around my tummy and hips,” she explains, getting the jar from him and popping it open to spoon some of that spicy honey onto all of their sandwiches. A slight drizzle for Harry and Earl, and two generous tablespoons -with all the sliced chillies -for her. 

“Oh is the fermented honey thing you and Earl were making a week ago?”

“Yup. His wife’s cookbook is a wealth of all things fermentation. I didn’t even know you could add things to honey. Can you help me put these plates on the table?”

“Sure. Almost forgot to tell you this.” He gets closer to her, lips close to her ear like he’s gonna share a secret. “You look beautiful today,” he says, trailing his fingertips down her cheek. His feathery stroke tickles when he gets to the column of her neck, making her squirm. “Your shirt is just marvellous,” he cockily smirks, fingers coming to clasp her gold elephant pendant that rested on the centre of her collarbones.

“Is that so?” She smiles, rolling her eyes. She was wearing his shirt. A light cream shirt with vertical dark green stripes, she’d left the first few buttons undone - just like he would. She paired it with her favourite black skinny jeans, that she’s refused to part with since high school. Her signature hoops in her ear. The gold butterfly in her conch and the single diamond of her helix stud shimmers, throwing off fractals of sunlight. She had put a lip tint on, some brown liner at the outer corner of her lids, smudged to create an illusion of fuller lashes, her eyebrows bushy and straight - she hadn’t threaded it for a few weeks now, some shimmery gloss on the centre of her lids - making the gold particles scintillate on her honey wheat skin. Her hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, her bangs straight and unstyled, tucked behind her ears. 

“Almost warrants a thank you to the person that bought it,” he says in a sing-song manner. His other hand comes up to her face, thumb rubbing her full bottom lip. 

“Guess, I better call my boyfriend and thank him. Wonder what he’d say though,” she teases.

“I don’t know this boyfriend fellow of yours, but it were me I’d say something along the lines of ‘I know. My fashion taste is impeccable. Almost as impeccable as the way it’s draped on your body.” He bends down to button her lips against his. 

“Idiot,” Layla mutters, when they break apart, chest heaving to draw in air. “Go set the table, will you,” she pushes him towards the dining room.

They scroll on their phones, waiting for Earl as they settle into the dining chairs. Harry shows her a funny meme and they both giggle as Earl makes his way towards the two.

“You okay?” Layla asks immediately, brows furrowing in concern.

“Yeah.” He replies in a soft voice, mopping his face with his pocket handkerchief. 

“You look ashen. What’s wrong?” She prods, watching him sit, more slowly than normal.

“Just got a bit light headed when I was washing my face,” she says.

“We can go to the hospital. I’ll call mum and get my car,” Harry offers immediately.

“You two worry so much,” he chuckles. “I’m old these things happen more often now. It’s not the first time. I’ll be fine.”

“Earl,” Layla starts.

“I’m fine. Must just be from not eating. I only had a banana for breakfast. I’m sure I’ll perk up after lunch,” his eyes flit to the stuffed po’ boy in front of him. 

“But if you feel ill in any way, let me know and we’ll go straight to the hospital,” Harry says.

Earl nods. The rest of their lunch goes in silence, all of them eating while listening to Idle Moments by Grant Greene. Earl can’t help but notice the little things between the two of them and how much they were in sync with each other. When Layla looks around the table for something, midbite, Harry wordlessly heads to the kitchen and brings her the bottle of sriracha. She smiles and says a muffled thank you to him, mouthful of food, and sheepishly smiles at the two of them as she proceeds to paint the inside of her sandwich with the fiery red condiment. When Harry knocks Layla’s phone off the table with his elbows, as he takes a sip of water, he watches Layla cover the edge of the wooden table with her  palm while he’s bending down to pick her phone and on cue, Harry being klutzy as ever bumps into the same spot but comes in contact with her hand and not the sharp edge.

After lunch, the two head downstairs to clean up the floor shop and close up orders for the day. They’d convinced Earl to head to bed and not open up the shop for the rest of the day. 

Harry’s using the swiffer to clean up the floor while Layla was standing on a step stool busy peering into her phone for different fonts - a white chalk in hand, as she writes down tomorrow’s special deals on the chalkboard. They each had one of Layla’s Airpods popped into their ear, while it was connected to Harry’s phone - playing tracks from his playlist. Irene Cara  starts crooning What a Feeling and Harry slowly makes his way over to her, putting his arms around his neck and he wraps his hands around her waist, pulling her body flush to his.

“Dance with me,” he murmurs, lips brushing against her neck, making her shiver.

“Can’t,” she smirks against his jaw. He pulls back to look at her face and frowns. “I’m on a step stool. Very restricting movement wise, I’m afraid,” she teases him.

“Dickhead,” he whispers, rolling his eyes. God, was she a menace. “Sway with me then?”

“I’d like that very much.”

They both sway together, smiling at each other, both lovestruck fools - but one unable to recognise that. The added height for Layla changed things for them, instead of burrowing her face into his chest, this time they were almost on par with each other. Harry resting his nose on top of hers, their breaths igniting warmth against their skin, chests indescribably close, lips a hairline away from one and another - brushing every now and then as they moved. Smiles stretching across their faces, dimples fully making an appearance on their cheeks.  Green eyes locked with her hickory hued orbs. Harrys mutters many ‘I love you’s in between the verses. They both felt so incredibly cocooned with each others’ endearment. It’s not a common occurrence, you see, seeing a stranger through your window and having them tight in your arms - a few months later, as you are baring your soul to them.

“Harry?” She says after the song ends

“Hmm,” he hums, in a drunken haze.

“Does it ever…” she trails off.

“Ever what, Lails?”

“Does it bother you that I haven’t said I love you back?” She asks him, lips gnawing on her bottom lip, eyes focusing  - on her painting that Earl had hung up - behind his ear.

“Why would it bother me? I told you this last time, remember… I don’t want you to rush in any way or feel like you need to tell me that you love me. I can wait. I just need you to know that I do.” He kisses her temple.

“It’s just…” Her lower lip trembles and Harry can’t help but rub this thumb over it. “J-Ju-Just,” she stumbles with her words, chest heaving a sob threatening to breach the levee. 

“Hey,” he coos. His hands come to tightly grip the back of her thighs, right where her bum ends, and plops her on the counter, nudging her knees and wiggling himself in between. His hands come to cup her face, lifting her head to read her eyes. “What is it? You can tell me anything,” he prods.

A bead slips down one of her eyes and he’s quick to wipe it away with his thumb. “It’s just that I feel so guilty when you say it and I don’t. Initially when you said it, it was all tingly but now I just feel bad that I can’t. You don’t deserve this. You’re so nice to me all the time and I feel like you should be with someone who deserves you, you know.” Her heavy wet eyelashes blink up at him.

“Lails, it is not your place to tell me what I deserve. I need to - no, I want to be with you. You don’t get to tell me otherwise. You’re the one I want - on purpose. I choose you on purpose. I’m sorry you’re feeling guilty. But you should have told me about this sooner, baby. Should I stop saying it? Would that help?” He tucks a loose lock of her hair behind her ear. 

Layla thinks about it, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes flitting down to his shirt she’s wearing; she inspects the way the fabric is bunched around the tops thighs. She smooths out the creases with her fingers, feeling the seam of her jeans digging into the side of her thighs - protesting against her movement.

“No,” she says, timidly. “I don’t know,” she huffs out frustratedly. “Maybe, I’m not explaining this properly.” She uses the back of her hand to wipe her nose. “I’m scared.”

“Scared?” He asks, eyebrows arching up as he caresses her cheeks, hoping to provide her some comfort.

“It’s just that I am not very comfortable or good at expressing affection towards others. Especially, verbally. Like it’s much more valuable in a way. Especially if I bring myself to tell someone that I love them and it will just make it that much harder to lose them.” She sniffles. “What I’m blabbering… I can’t umm..” she tries, but tears spring to her eyes, and she screws them shut, trying to even out her breathing - hunkering that memory deep down.

Layla was ten, she was busy hiding in the kitchen, using her new craft punches that her father dropped off at school when he came to visit. She only saw him at school now. Sometimes her grandparents would come with him. Her mother didn’t want her talking to them, so she’d kept it a secret. She kept the fact that her father, and sometimes her grandparents would come visit her in school grounds, after school hours for forty minutes. Her mother didn’t know about it because she had basketball practice till four thirty, and her mother came to pick her up after practice. He’d bought her a set of those paper punches which cut paper into different shapes. The same punchers, she used to make confetti with her colourful origami papers - she cut out many flowers, stars, hearts, butterflies, and fishes. Her mother had been sad when she came to pick her up. She had been sad all through that evening, so after Layla made dinner for them, her mother’s favourite - a simple vermicelli upma, she’d gone to execute her plan in motion. She went up to her mother, who was at the dining table, looking at a stack of papers wistfully and threw the confetti in her direction shouting a very loud ‘I love you, Amma’ - hoping it would cheer her up. But it went horribly wrong, her mother was startled, causing her to tip the opened water bottle all over the papers on the table. Her mother shouted profanities at her as Layla begged for forgiveness, she got up and grabbed a fistful of Layla’s hair and slammed it right on to the closest brick wall. ‘லூசுநாயே (stupid bitch)’ she yelled. Her jaw came into contact with cement first but Layla had managed to block the rest of her face from the wall by putting her palms in between her face and the wall. She couldn’t feel the pain but noticed blood on her shirt before she realised that blood was spouting from her mouth; she'd lost her first ever baby tooth from the impact - she’d found it two days later under the fridge, she’d later buried it in her backyard hoping she would grow a plant that would have teeth as flowers. Her mother quickly apologises telling her she didn’t mean to and she did this because she loves her, as she ushered Layla to the bathroom to help her rinse out the blood in her mouth. That was the last time she’d ever said I love you.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles shakily to Harry, after she’d shoved down that memory, blinking back the film in her eyes that made her vision hazy.

“It’s alright. You’re alright,” he tells her, he could tell she was struggling with something. 

“It’s just that, it makes it more real, you know. And if something were to happen, it would make losing you so much harder. And I selfishly don’t want that.” She finishes. “I’m being stupid. Sorry.” 

“Sweet girl,” he utters, resting his forehead against hers.

A snort escapes her lips and her hands immediately come to cover her mouth. “Sorry.” She giggles.

“Shut up. I don’t call you that only during sex,” he whines. Finding himself giggling with her even through his denial. 

“Do you want me to start counting again?” She laughs.

“Don’t be a dickhead.” He presses his lips against her forehead.

“Can’t help it you know,” she shrugs.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” he says, coming back to cup her face, feeling how warm her cheeks have gotten against his palms.

“Just know this, you mean the world to me, Har.”

////

“Thank you!” Layla tells the woman behind the counter with a polite smile as she tucks her receipt in her bag. She pushes the wooden panelled glass door of UPS and steps out onto the sidewalk. 

She smooths out her now empty white tote that had her painting and folds it into a small square and slips it into the compartment of the black shoulder coach bag she “borrowed” from Abi. 

Layla walks around town aimlessly for a while strolling to note how more people preferred sitting inside bistros than in the outdoor seating area. How the bright yellow and orange leaves were now more on the pavement than on the trees. Hotter drinks were a source of invitation into coffee shops, their icy refreshing drinks nowhere to be found on the chalkboards. How almost all the Halloween decorations outside of shop windows were sparse. Her breath hitches in her throat, a burn simmers in her tightening chest, she feels her lungs strain to exhale. She coughs into the crook of her elbow. Changing of the season had also set off her wheezing. No more backyard yoga in the mornings, she thinks as she shakes her turquoise inhaler before wrapping her lips around the mouth and pressing on the canister for a puff. She stays out on the sidewalk for a few seconds letting the meds do their work in freeing up her lungs, when a bright red and yellow sign catches her eye. She sticks her hand in to fish out her phone as she drops the inhaler back in her purse. 

Layla: i’m downtown. fancy something from McDonalds?

Harry: Egg and cheese McGirddles, fries, and an Oreo McFlurry. 

Layla: see you soon!!

Harry: Love you x

Layla : i know!!! xxx

It's almost midday when Layla turns into the familiar street, a shiver runs up her spine when a cool gust of wind picks up. Her body can’t handle wearing her Dad’s running shorts anymore, it was baggy and stopped right above her knees and the wind was just not working in her favour. She's glad her Uncle zipped her up in his NASCAR jacket because that was the only thing that’s keeping her teeth from chattering. The warmth of the fast food seeing through the thin brown paper bag keeps her hands toasty. Dear Maria, Count Me In by All Time Low was blasting through her AirPods. She must definitely start layering to keep up with the November weather. 

As she turns into the familiar street, she hears someone call out her name. Her brow furrows as she pops one of her AirPods out to check and she hears it again. This time clearer.

“Layla! Kanna!” Nandhini Aunty’s familiar voice booms from across the other side of the street. She was standing outside of her garage. Her empty driveway now houses three new cars. A red hatchback had its truck wide open and Layla could see the trunk filled with different sized suitcases.

She smiles at her giving a polite wave in return hoping that it was just a simple exchange of pleasantries. Her stomach had been growling on her way back and all she could think of was pouring out the honey mustard sauce from the small dipping container onto her chicken sandwich. But Nandhini Aunty had other plans as she waved her over towards her house.

“What now?” She mutters to herself as she crosses the street with a smile, she was still salty that Nandhini Aunty ratted her and Harry out to her folks.

“Hello, kanna! How are you?” Nandhini Aunty smiles warmly at her, crows feet becoming more pronounced as she grins wider.

“Hi Aunty! I’m doing well. How are you? Must be super busy with the wedding in ten days.”

“Oh yes, kanna. Very very busy. We have family slated to come this entire week. In fact that’s why I called you over-”

“Oh, sure. What do you need Aunty? I can come and help out.” Layla immediately responds. 

Dammit! Why did I fucking say that?!? She mentally smacks her forehead.

“No no, kanna. How sweet of you to offer but we’ve got it under control. I just want you to meet some of the cousins who’ve come in today. Just thought it would be nice for you to hang out with people your age.”

Layla laughs. “Nandhini Aunty, I hang out with Harry all the time.”

“I just meant someone from our culture. It’ll do you some good,” she responds, as she takes one of her hands between hers and gives it a gentle squeeze. Layla’s brows furrow as she looks at their hands.

“பசங்களா! லேலாவை சந்திக்க வாருங்கள்! (Kids! Come meet Layla!)” She yells out in the direction of the open front door. 

Layla awkwardly stands there until she sees two men rush out in jeans and the flashiest sneakers. They were both obnoxiously rambunctious, shoving and cackling amongst themselves as they barreled towards the two of them.

“Where’s Pooja?” Nandhini Aunty asks one of the boys.

“Oh, she’s feeding the baby. Prasath’s helping her like the good husband he is,” the man with the buzzcut tells her. “Hi, I’m Dhruv,” he extends his hand out boisterously to Layla.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Layla,” she introduces herself by wiggling her hand out of Nandhini’s grasp and gives Dhruv a firm shake. He was short but very built and had a long beard. His red shoes catch her eyes. “Cool shoes,” she compliments him.

“Thanks!” He beams.

“Those Jordans are his most prized possessions.” The other one tells her. “I’m Ashwin.” He extends his hand out in a more timid manner. His hair was wiry and the way it was cut made it so that it was fluffy at the top and with a fade on both sides. He had a navy blue jumper that had a bright red vertical stripe at his torso.  

“Hi, Ashwin. Layla.” She shakes his hand and notices him fiddle with the belt loop of his jeans with his other hand.

“Layla here is getting her PhD soon,” Nandhini Aunty boasts.

“I have to get accepted into a school first though. But I appreciate your confidence,” she chuckles.

“Oh god. Nandhi Aunty is the worst! She went around telling everyone that I got into law school,” Dhruv tells Layla.

“That was seven years ago and not everyday someone I know gets into Harvard. I’ll be telling it some more at the wedding. We need to get you some proposals, you’re almost 32. When I was your age I had two children who were in elementary school,” Nandhini shakes her head, making the three roll their eyes.

“Sucks to be you,” Ashwin mocks.

“Don’t think you’re free, Ash. You’re mother and I are already in talks of finding you a girl. We need to start now.”

“But I’m only 27. You should really redirect your focus on this old unmarried cow here,” he points to Dhruv, making Layla laugh. She mumbles a quiet apology to Dhruv.

“No redirection of attention. You work at Apple now and-”

“You work at Apple? That’s so cool. You’re basically living the NRI dream,” Layla interjects Nandhini.

“Yeah. Been there for over two years now. Loving everything San Francisco has to offe-”

“Do you want to join us for lunch, Layla? You can hang out with them and I’m sure my daughter would love to meet you,” Nandhini Aunty interjects.

“Oh no. Thank you for the offer but I have lunch plans with Harry,” she lifts up the takeaway bag to emphasise her point. “I’ll be happy to hang out some other time.”

“We’re going to watch Beast in theatres in a few days. Do you wanna join us?” Dhruv asks.

“Oh, I’ve been listening to Halamithi Habibo all week! But I don’t wanna impose on a family activity.”

“Please. The more the merrier. It’s just us cousins.” Ashwin says.

“I didn’t know they released Tamil movies here.”

“They do in some theatres. Especially in places with a Tamil crowd. We have to drive to Charlotte to watch it.”

“Ah I see. You can count me in. I’m excited to see if it’ll top Thuppakki though. I doubt it but I’m willing to give it a chance,” Layla tells them, rocking on her heels.

“Super. We’ll let you know once we’ve booked tickets.” Ashwin tells her with a smile.

“Alright. See you all!” She waves and crosses the road to Harry’s house.

She gets in front of the door and opens up the brown bag and pulls out her french fry bag and pulls out a handful of them and drops them at the bottom of the bag. It may be a silly thing to do but she’ll never forget the look on Harry’s face, on their trip to Cape Hatteras and they opted to go through a drive through for lunch,  when he discovered some loose extra french fries at the bottom of the bag. He declared that the gods of luck were on their side and swore that the loose french fries tasted so much better than the ones in the bag. She places the bag on the white railing and tries to seal both the brown bag and the french fry bag, so it looks inconspicuous. She’s been doing this every time they got fast food and the last thing she wants is for Harry to know that she tampered with it. 

She rings the doorbell once she’s done and waits for him to answer the door. She could easily punch in the code and walk into the house but she prefers it this way. She hears some heavy shuffling of his feet and a few seconds later the door swings open. 

“Hi, baby!” He yells still sweaty, from what Layla assumes was his pre-lunch workout session session. His hair was all gathered in a spout with a clip and the blue bandana, she got from New Orleans was tied around his head to keep the sweat off his face. He was shirtless and was just wearing the tiniest shorts she’d ever seen - it didn’t even cover an inch of the tiger tattoo on his thigh - and a pair of white socks.

“Hi you! I come bearing junk!” She exclaims, getting on her tippy toes to give him a big kiss.

“Hmm.” He sighs when their lips touch. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She asks. “The food or the kiss?”

“Bit of both really,” he smirks, grabbing the bag from her hand and opens it up, shuffling the contents in the process.

“Sweeeet!” He exclaims. “Loose fries!” He picks three up and pops it into his mouth. “I swear they’re laced with cocaine or some shit. Tastes so fucking better than normal fries,” he declared with his mouth full of fried potato. 

“Oh, I know,” she agrees with him in a soft voice, a fond smile stretching across her face.