Love Letters From Hell

20 | fight dirty

"I don't have anything against basketball," replies Charlie, ever the politician.

From the register, Raf, who should never go into politics, calls, "It's overrated."

Mira and I half-listen to this conversation. I watch her carefully, noting the way her brow lifts in quiet amusement as Kenna fires back, "Raf is just mad that all the basketball players are taller than him. It's a personal problem, really."

It's a less Rated-R version of what she was going to say earlier so I'm proud of her.

Kenna asks Raf to get her a raspberry scone and he waves her off, citing a personal problem. He'll get the scone anyway. The rest of the table falls back into regularly scheduled programming.

Zahed has yet to crack.

I lift a brow at her. "Aren't you going to finish that?"

She doesn't take the bait to glance down at the remains of her breakfast burrito. Her eyes stay on me. She picks it up blindly, eyes narrowed in challenge. I lean back and take a slow, amused sip of my iced coffee. Mira glares at me like my coffee affronted her. Then, she tears a vengeful bite of her burrito. I grin openly. She glares again.

I set down my coffee, eyes glinting on hers, a hazy shade of grey, all-consuming. Wryly, I brush a thumb on my chin. "You've got a little—,"

Her cheeks don't flush bright red. She's not quick to blush. She is quick to glare though. And she glares at me when she wipes salsa off her chin with the pad of her thumb, before popping it in her mouth. She cleans off the salsa and glares at me like it's all my fault.

Fuck me.

Mira's tone is inflectionless. "You were saying something?"

"You know, Zahed," I converse, elbows on the tabletop casually, as if I wouldn't let her do whatever the fuck she wanted to me. "You're not that bad looking."

Her face doesn't shift an inch. "Really? You're fucking ugly, Shankar."

I grin across at her. My voice drops low. "You didn't take your eyes off me when you—,"

"I'll stab you with this butter knife," she interrupts sharply.

The I'd like to see you try is already on my lips when Kajal's voice tears through us, "What are you two talking about?"

That's it. That's enough for us to both look away. We break each other's stares on instinct, eyes flitting down the table to Kajal.

I immediately curse myself for it, looking back to Zahed ruefully, but I think she fares worse. Her fingers close around her butter knife and she doesn't stab anyone, thankfully, but her half-finished burrito is not so lucky.

"The weather," I answer, nonchalant.

From the register, Raf leans back and asks, "Is the weather code for—,"

Mira whirls in her seat and points her knife at him. He shuts up.

Kajal blinks.

"Mira, what did we say about pulling knives on our friends?" Dima calls.

Mira turns on him but she does not drop the knife. I think she's attached to it. "Dima, do you remember when I stabbed you with a ballpoint pen in eighth grade?"