♥ ♥ ♥
I MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. I made out with him too. Among other things.
I try not to mull over the last one too much.
Especially not as Friday evening rolls around, a week later.
Aryan and I have returned to regularly scheduled programming. In our case, that's no more silent treatment and more knife emojis on my part and a lot of responding taunts on his. In a string of late-night texts that he'd sent me to confirm the date and time of Daniel's luncheon, also known as my imposing reckoning that is tomorrow and the loose-string of our deal, we'd simply never stopped texting. I'd fallen asleep mid-conversation last night, phone on my pillow, into a restless slumber from which I'd woken wanting nothing more than to back out.
Aryan makes it more than clear that he expects me to in his never-ending taunts over the past week. I should block his ass for it. I know what he's doing though. He's challenging me, rousing me up like flint to fire because he knows I won't back down. I hate that it's working.
And I hate that he's right about what he said that day in the gym showers. I hate that after the brief giddy excitement of toilet-papering a Beverly Hills mansion wore off, I'd sat down in my room and was still angry. I'd thought to myself— that toilet paper can be cleaned up by morning and he'd still have his mansion and his family and I'll still have my anger. It's the hollow type of anger too, a swallowing pit yawning at the very centre of me.
Nothing like the anger a certain jackass who has a penchant for responding to my texts within minutes inspires. That one is heady and dangerous.
I've been telling myself that I did what I did last week so that we'd be even. He gives me life advice, I give him head. Nothing sweet or romantic about it. Nothing to do with the fact that I thought about it, nothing to do with the fact that I'd wanted to, nothing to do with the fact that kissing Aryan Shankar is heady and dangerous and I want to do it every time he's near, nothing to do with the way his—
Glass shatters.
I startle from my own thoughts, looking up sharply just as heads twist toward me in UCLA's Biology lab.
I absolutely refuse to blush, even if I'm holding two shattered pieces of a now broken Petri dish in my gloved hands, the remaining shards littering the marble countertop, glass pieces glaring at me accusingly.
"Fuck," I swear viciously.
The teacher at the front of the room throws me a dirty look. I have a violent urge to snap back at him. He's an arrogant piece of shit teacher anyway, the CEO of mansplaining fucking Molecular Biology— where he has in-depth thoughtful scientific discussions with the boys, he puts on his pre-school voice to talk to the girls. He probably doesn't think girls should cuss. And he has a coffee stain on his white lab coat.
Kenna Westbrooke drifts toward me, eyeing my hellfire glare piercing past my goggles with growing caution. "Woah there, Heartbreaker," she tells me and I let out a breath, lowering the broken dish lightly.
The class resumes their activity, though a duo of males at the tabletop in front of Kenna and I's trade glances over their shoulders to shake their heads at me as I begin to pick up the pieces of the dish.
Kenna snaps before I can, throwing caution to the wind as she snarls at the boys, "So, what? She broke a Petri dish. Shit happens. Unfortunately for all of us though, your mother's water broke when she was having you."
One of the boys squints past his thick-framed glasses, lips parting and I just know he's about to make an intellectual statement about water breaking because he's the future face of medicine or some shit like that, so I cut him off sharply, "Fuck off."
I'm increasingly mean and prone to violence today, I acknowledge that. But it gets shit done. The boys turn around and I clear up the desk and ignore the rampant cause of my frayed nerves.
I'm not going to back out.
Still, my mind hatches ten million scenarios as to how tomorrow can go down and I don't like any of them.
It must show on my face because nearing the end of class, Kenna points a finger at me, her green eyes bright behind her goggles. "I know that look."
I blink at her as she nods her head like she's cracked some code, her blonde Dutch braids bobbing with the motion.
"What look?" I ask her, careful with the test tube in my hand. I don't think my ego can withstand breaking two pieces of apparatus in one day. And I know I can't hold my tongue back twice should I get another dirty look from Professor Mansplain.
"It's the I need to get laid look," states Kenna. "Trust me, I know it. Raf wears it all the time. But you know who else wears it recently?" She elbows me and I nearly drop the test tube.
I glare at her, knowing full well where she's going with this.
She merely laughs, sensing my violent intentions and finding it nothing short of amusing. Kenna Westbrooke is slowly becoming one of my favourite people. Except for when she not so discreetly tries to play matchmaker.
"I don't care about Shankar," I say to her flatly and I busy myself emptying the liquid from the tube to end the discussion.
Kenna stares at me, eyes sparkling as she drops her hands to her hips. "I mean, I was going to say me. But now that you've brought Aryan into the conversation—,"
"Kenna," I interject, tone as acerbic as the edges of the scalpels in the drawers, "if you don't stop talking, I'm going to break another Petri dish on your head."
♥ ♥ ♥
I DIDN'T BREAK ANY APPARATUS ON KENNA'S HEAD. Though, later that evening when Kenna had reported my threats to the group chat, Aryan had been quick to remark that I should have. Kenna removed him from the chat for it.
Other than a few messages asking me to add him back— which I ignored—, we hadn't talked much on Friday.
And now it's Saturday and I'm pulling a hot iron down my hair after reading his on the way text.
I'm running behind, I know. I spent the better half of the morning procrastinating this. I changed outfits thrice. Petra and my mother are leagues ahead of me and they'll likely leave before Aryan and me.
I haven't spoken much to my mother since the kitchen incident. Petra has been our messenger owl, relaying information from Zahed to Zahed, as she states. I know that my mother was proud of me when I delivered the news that I'd attend the stupid thing though.
I'm sweeping blush along the bridge of my nose when Petra's call echoes through the house, followed by a snicker. "Leave the door open, kids!"
I'm sliding away from my bathroom counter in no time, dropping my makeup brush, fully aware that she's joking, even as Shankar's tall frame appears in my bedroom doorway. I stop short near the foot of my bed when my eyes catch him fully.
Yes, door open, Mira. Door. Open.
He cleans up nice. I know that already. I'd noted it at Herrera's party and I distinctly remember what had happened then.
Shit. Everything is shit.
"You're staring." His voice rings over to me, riddled with amusement.
"Shut up."
"Yeah, you look nice too, Zahed."
"Shut up." It's a force of habit at this point, honestly.
Aryan grins.
He leans off the doorframe and proceeds to roll up the long sleeves of his pressed white shirt. I zero in on the motion. Stop it.
On his wrist, nestled beside the stranded red thread he always wears there, is one of those Miyuki bracelets you can buy on Santa Monica beach and a matching leather and seashell one. He's such a Californian. I look up just as he crosses his arms, the exposed brown skin of his forearms rising with veins, corded with muscle. He regards me with a crooked, all-knowing smile.
I tilt my chin up at him. "I'm not ready." Then, I'm walking away. Well, fleeing away back to the bathroom.
"Take your time," he calls after me.
I hate him. I really do.
Back in the bathroom, my eyes flit over the mirror to catch sight of him through the open door but there's nothing, so I finish pulling red lipstick over my lips and slipping my earrings on. When I re-enter my room, he's still posted at the door and I pointedly pay him no mind as I slink over to my desk chair and proceed to strap on my heels.
Petra's voice rises once again just as I pull the strap around my ankle, fingers stilling on the buckles. She announces that they're leaving and that they'll see me there. There's the sound of the front door shutting and Petra's white BMW whirring to life. From my step-mother's parting tone, I know that Petra expects me to back out too. Knowing her, she probably tried to make a bet with my mother over it and Farrah likely replied with some statement about how she didn't like to gamble.
But, as I struggle with the tiny buckle on my shoe, I want nothing more than to fling the stupid thing away and call it quits. But that would make him right. I don't glance up at him even if I have the urge to glare.
As if sensing this, he chuckles across the room and then he's moving. My shoulders tense but I still refuse to look up. Aryan drops to his knee before my seat and makes me look at him anyway.
His dark eyes are alight with a thousand galaxies as they flit over my scowling face. His hair was neatly brushed, black ink spilling across his head until he raked his fingers through it. Now, it sticks up like a crown of raven's feathers that he makes work. He looks down at my unbuckled shoe before taking hold of my ankle lightly. My hands fall away, grasping air as Aryan neatly slips the buckle in place. He has unnervingly steady hands. He could be a surgeon like my mother with those hands.
That steadiness never transferred to me so I can only stare, hands now braced on the edge of the chair as his head dips and he reaches for the other shoe. I'm about two seconds away from blushing like a school girl all because Aryan Shankar is giving me a Cinderella moment.
He hasn't said a word yet when he pauses, fingers circling my ankle, my heart thunders. Aryan's lips quirk and then he's lifting his eyes to mine as his index slips right under the little golden anklet dangling at my ankle. A gentle tug at the chain. "This for me, Zahed?"
My palms dig into the chair. I narrow my eyes at him and make to tug my foot away but he expects it, hold tightening. We hold each other's stare for a charged moment.
My answer is smoke on my lips. Did I think about his fingers snaking over my ankle right before he hoisted my leg right over his shoulder? Yes. Was I going to say that out loud? Absolutely not.
My lack of answer makes him grin.
I debate kicking him.
But he drops it, buckling my right shoe and leaning back on his heels. We're eye to eye now, that grin painting his lips, taunting me.
"So," muses Aryan, twisting the bracelet around his wrist absently as he regards me. His lashes flutter low, shadows whispering against his cheekbones. "Do I tell people today that I'm your boyfriend or do I tell them the truth? That I'm just some bloke you like to kiss, Zahed?"
My eyes narrow to slits. "Keep dreaming, Shankar." Its a measly retort but it makes his lips twist.
The surge of triumph I feel is short-lived because Aryan is rising to his feet. He towers over me but I've never felt small near him, not when he smiles like that, like the sun, and that light goes all through me. He extends a hand, challenging, "You backing out?"
I rise to my own feet and ignore his hand and his sunlight smile that shines right into every dark, hollow pit within me. "I know what you're doing," I accuse him.
"It's working, though, isn't it?"
♥ ♥ ♥
THE MOMENT I STEP OUT OF THE CAR, I WANT TO LEAVE.
In the evening light, the mansion stands proud, clean of shadows and toilet paper, bleached white walls and elegant tall windows overlooking the yard. Fading sunlight glances along the surface of the pool Raf and Kenna had tumbled into, sparkling like Aryan Shankar's eyes. I focus on Aryan Shankar because the moment we emerge into the backyard, arranged with low long tables, laden with food, and cushioned seats set on intricate rugs over the grass like Daniel had summoned a Middle Eastern restaurant right into his backyard— all that was missing was the bellydancer—, attention swivels my way.
My entire body tenses and I start calculating how many steps I could make in these teetering heels to the gate where my car is parked before someone tries to rope me back. There are way too many people here. Aryan reads me well enough because he slings an arm over my shoulders.
I draw still. Eyes flicker over me and go to him now.
Lilting music, happy drumbeats and tambourine shakes, floats up from somewhere. Evening torches line the poolside, not yet lit. I don't see my mother anywhere but I catch my father, flitting among his guests, clapping his hands together in a hearty welcome. I'm quick to turn away then. I let my hair fall across the side of my face so that only Aryan sees my glare.
He laughs a low laugh because he knows it's concerning his hand around my shoulders. But he doesn't drop it. He lifts his other hand like he's about to brush my hair away when he pauses. His hand drops and he clears his throat. I look up, face falling.
Daniel's smile doesn't falter even as my entire demeanour shifts before him. It's a movie star's smile, after all, flashing white teeth and Hollywood charm. My eyes skirt the party behind him. He'd called it a luncheon but it's a party, one worth a fortune. Hollywood pays well. "You came."
Aryan's arm slackens and I think he's giving me the opportunity to bolt if I want. My feet don't move though.
What was it he said? Cage yourself in all that anger.
"Your mother said you were coming," Daniel says into my silence. I don't think he believed Farrah up until now.
I can't bring myself to return the smile. What did you expect out of coming here? My mouth goes dry.
Daniel looks to Aryan, deciding he might sooner strike gold with him. He holds out his hand and when Aryan reaches forward and shakes it, I swallow the urge to call him a traitor for it. That would be petulant, wouldn't it?
My lips form words when their hands drop. My tone isn't pleasant but it'll work. "Where is she?" I glance over his shoulder and he understands.
"Your mother and Petra are at the gazebo with—," he hesitates and I know the rest before he says it. "Noura, Naz and Daya." My brain whirs. His wife and his daughters. His family.
I nod blankly.
Aryan clears his throat over my shoulder again and Daniel glances at him. Then, he nods and leaves us.
Eyes still dart our way when Aryan lets go of his hold and turns to me. "You're not going to that gazebo, are you?"
I know what he's doing again. But this is one challenge I'm not ready to rise to, not yet.
Before either of us can say another word though, a shrill, thickly-accented voice pierces right between us and then my face is turned completely away from Aryan's, locked in the wrinkled hold of gold ringed fingers that press into my cheeks. I note the strong perfume, the sharp red nails and the clinking gold bracelets of the older woman.
"Wallahi, habibti!" She exclaims, loud enough that I wince. "I haven't seen you in so long! Give me a kiss!"
I blink, face caught in this lady's hold.
I throw a glance over at Aryan but he's equally as caught off-guard by this rambunctious woman as I am, brows risen. Though, the startled look on my face makes his lips twitch. Before I can glare at him for it though, the woman is leaning forward and pressing kisses to both of my cheeks— the Arab way. Her lipstick is bright pink.
When she pulls away, I'm still staring blankly.
I have absolutely no idea who this woman is.
♥ ♥ ♥
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I'M WIPING LIPSTICK SMUDGES from my cheeks.
Aryan is barely holding in his laughter beside me.
In the cover of the trees nearer to the house and a little away from the poolside activity, where Kenna and I had woven toilet paper through branches, there are taller, rounded tables, the type at clubs, bathed in purple and gold silk cloth and Aryan and I are tucked at one. I scowl and pick up a napkin, rubbing my cheek fiercely. The thing is bright pink when I pull it away.
Aryan laughs then. A full-bellied one that has me looking sharply at him.
After a twenty-minute conversation where I'd been fully convinced the woman would never stop talking, she'd introduced herself as Teta Amal. I'd blinked at that. I knew she wasn't my father's mother, a woman who passed long before I'd been born. She didn't look like a grandmother either, not a strand of grey in her dyed jet black hair. But in a winding explanation, she'd explained that she was a sister-in-law to some family member, or a distant grand-aunt, or remarried twice into some of my father's family. Honestly, she'd given me an entire family tree and I still didn't know her exact relation. But she'd been happy to talk and Aryan and I could only nod along.
After she'd finished the family lineage, I'd been boggled enough that when she clapped her hands together, bracelets clinking, and asked us if we were planning to get married in the future, I'd nearly choked.
Aryan handled the matter with grace, meanwhile, I had a sudden inclination to push Teta Amal into the pool. He'd explained that we were both only in university, which was a very small reason compared to the ten million other reasons why I would never marry Aryan Shankar.
Besides, I'd just met this woman, why the hell was she asking me about marriage?
I pick up another tissue and Aryan, still laughing, pulls over to me. He seizes my face between a hand, squeezing my cheeks, instantly reminding me of Amal. I shudder and pout.
"I'm literally only twenty. I'm technically not even old enough to drink, far less get married," I snap when he steals the tissue from my hand and starts to rub away the lipstick I can't see.
"American moment," Aryan comments, fingers grazing against my cheeks. I scowl at him and he only tightens his old on my face.
"Marriage," I spit the word like a curse as Aryan presses a thumb down my jaw.
Aryan's shoulders rise and fall with his laughter. "I guess overbearing relatives is a thing we have in common, Zahed," he observes.
As he pulls away, finished with his lipstick-removal work, I drop my hands to my hips. "I'm honestly not even sure she's related to me."
Aryan leans over the table, forearms grazing the tablecloth. "Stop pouting," is his answer.
"No," I snap back, leaning across the table to glare at him. My palms plant flat on the gold cloth, my fingertips grazing the seashells on his bracelet. "Fuck you."
He doesn't so much as miss a beat. "That a threat or a promise, Zahed?"
It's still daylight and the fading light plays tempting patterns along the lines of his face as he grins at me. "I wish she'd kissed you too," I snarl back menacingly. "See how it feels to have fucking pink lipstick all over your cheeks."
Aryan's grin only grows. He leans back and presses a hand to his chest. "What would your nice, kind Teta Amal say about that language, Emira?"
I roll my eyes. "Fuck you," I repeat with no remorse.
"Feed me first," he replies easily. "Ever hear of dinner and a date, Zahed?"
"This isn't a date," I shoot back. "Get your own damn food."
A wicked, challenging glint appears in Aryan's eyes. He steps away from the table and slides his hands into his pockets. "Okay," he says, lips curving upwards like the asshole he is.
And then he turns and walks away toward the people gathered at the poolside.
The jackass leaves me alone.
♥ ♥ ♥
I LAST ABOUT TWELVE MINUTES. I find Aryan lounging by the edge of the pool, his ass comfortable on a pillow after leaving me to fend for myself. I thought I'd heard Teta Amal's clinking bracelets and it'd been enough for me to flee.
True to his word, he has a little plate in front of him and he's talking to Petra and my mother across the table like they're best friends. My hands curl into fists and I bustle over to them, deciding they're my little island of safety. Mostly Petra and my mother. Aryan Shankar is the devil.
When I fall into the cushion beside his, he gives me an unsurprised look. "You lasted seven minutes."
"It was twelve," I argue instantly.
He taps the watch on his wrist and shows me the stopwatch he'd set. "Seven."
The only thing stopping me from telling him to shove his Apple Watch up his ass is my mother sitting across from me.
Petra and Aryan trade grins. I blink. My mother may not be into gambling with her wife but it seems Aryan has nothing stopping him from betting against Petra. I wonder who won.
"Are you hungry?" My mother asks me.
I shake my head curtly. Her lips tip into a frown, realising I'm still upset with her.
Farrah's hair, cinnamon curls, is pinned back, some strands freeing to feather along her cheeks and when Petra lightly tucks one behind her ear, a man with a thick, dark moustache sitting behind them wrinkles his nose. My back straightens instantly.
Aryan shoots me a curious look but then a friendly voice calls my mother's name from afar.
I look toward the sound and wish I hadn't. It's her. My father's wife. She's a vision in a coral jumpsuit with puffy sleeves, her hair a silky fall of dark caramel down her back. I remember hating her for being pretty at their wedding. Noura Fakhoury waves my mother over and when my mother smiles and starts to rise, Petra follows, explaining that Daniel's wife wanted to show them something. I blink as they go.
I'm not the only one though. Heads turn as the trio pick up an amicable chatter and start toward the house like old friends. I shouldn't be surprised though. My mother doesn't hold grudges. Not fro my father. Certainly not for the woman he'd married after her. She's nothing like me.
And as many ups and downs that we may have, I still glare at the man who had looked at her and Petra with disgust. He must feel it because he looks up to find my stare. His face contorts, discomfort evident. Eventually, he looks away and satisfaction sparks through me.
My mother had met Petra when she was just a medical intern and a clumsy young literature student had stumbled into the ER after burning herself while trying to make coffee and finish The Tempest at once. They'd been best friends ever since. I would defend that happiness for her no matter what.
Aryan nudges me. "Who are you glaring at? I'm right here."
My head careens over to him slowly. I glare.
He smiles.
My eyes fall to his plate. It's just sweets. "For me?" I mock.
"It's vegan, by the way. All of it," is his reply. "I asked."
A pause. I don't know which to process first. The fact that he asked on my behalf or the fact that my father had committed the commendable feat of remembering my Fuck your steakhouse and catering his menu accordingly.
I decide not to comment. I'm reaching for the neat square of flaky baklava at the centre of his plate.
Aryan's brows lift. "Didn't you just say you weren't hungry?" He rolls his eyes. "Women."
I am hungry but when my mother asked, Daniel had been posted near the tables of food. He was still there, now talking to a tall slender girl with Noura's caramel hair. I avoid looking in that direction at all.
"Get your own damn baklava, Zahed," Aryan tells me but makes no move to stop me.
He lets me have it.
I finish it in two bites, pistachios and rose water and flaky filo dough.
He even pushes the rest of the plate my way when I'm done licking syrup off my fingers.
Before I can push his plate back to him, there's a blur of movement between us on the other side of the table, a flash of black hair and a rising puff of smoke that makes me wrinkle my nose.
We break apart to turn to the young girl with a pretty tangle of black curls framing her cheeks. She's tucking a slender pen into the waistband of her pants and I deduce that it wasn't smoke at all, the vape pen sticking out at her exposed mid-drift over the waistline of her pants. The girl gives us a lazy grin, her dark brown eyes alight with mischief.
I know who she is before she says a word. Something about her wild hair and crop top and bubblegum-scented vapour entrance screamed of a stomped foot in the grass and a snarled Like hell.
"You must be Emira," she shoots at me with a smile full of mayhem. She extends a hand. Black nail polish, chipping at the corners, coats her fingernails. "I'm Nazmiya. Everyone calls me Naz though. My sister's Daya."
She jerks her chin toward Hidaya, with her tall frame and dark caramel-coloured hair. They don't look like twins. Daya glances over at us the same moment Naz looks at her, like they have twin telepathy or something. Daya shakes her head at her sister but Naz's attention has turned back to me.
When I don't take her hand, Nazmiya drops in onto the table between us and she carries on with surefire confidence for a fourteen-year-old, "I think you'll like me a lot more than my sister though, considering that I didn't tell anyone that it was you—," She points to Aryan, who regards her with lifted, amused brows, "and you who toilet-papered our house two weeks ago."
Naz crosses her arms and leans back, grinning. "You're welcome, by the way, sis."
♥ ♥ ♥
i didn't even reread this but i hope you enjoyed !!