"I think you should stop being so mean to me, Zahed."
"Why would I ever do that?"
Aryan grins, a bright, wicked thing.
"Because I kiss you like this."
•
Mira Zahed and Aryan Shankar are at war.
When her best friend and his cousin decide to fall in...
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♥ ♥ ♥
I'M NOT OVERLY SURPRISED WHEN KAJAL answers my knock. Dima's trendy L.A. apartment sits over Hollywood Boulevard and Kajal Shankar basically lives there.
I'd called the one-bedroom a bachelor pad when he'd first gotten it right after high school graduation and asked him if I should kiss his ass goodbye from Calabasas in the event that he joined any fraternities at UCLA. But that isn't my best friend and I knew it.
True to Dima, the apartment is home to book shelves bearing more comic books than classics, all the MCU movies arranged in chronological order beneath the television set, the walls bedecked with framed, limited-edition sci-fi movie posters. He even has a record player that plays the Star Wars theme. He also keeps a Spock bobblehead doll next to the French press. Kajal fits in well in his little world.
Kajal blinks at me, blinks at the toilet paper in my arms, the one I'd dropped as I made to knock the door since her good-for-nothing cousin didn't help me and she blinks at Aryan. In that order.
"Where's Dima?" I clear my throat. I feel Aryan's gaze at the back of my head.
He lounges against the wall behind me, arms crossed. He got quiet since Target and it makes me uneasy in ways I don't want to dissect. I should be glad he finally shut the fuck up. Yet, I keep having to restrain the urge to glance at him and try to figure out what he's thinking. I think he disapproves of this plan. I don't care what he thinks. But why do I feel the burn of his gaze on the back of my head and want nothing more than to turn around?
Dima appears behind Kajal, hazel eyes squinting behind his glasses at me in that way which tells me he's been reading too long.
"You're going to go blind," Kajal tells him as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peers curiously at the sight before him.
Dima shakes his girlfriend off as his eyes go to Aryan over my shoulder first. Not like the countless rolls of toilet paper in my arms aren't profoundly more interesting. My irritation for Aryan Shankar spikes.
Diverting Dima's attention, I shove five rolls of toilet paper into my best friend's chest without warning.
"Yeah, she's right," I tell him as he grabs the rolls, blinking, accidentally dropping one to the floor. Kajal picks it up. "You read too much, you fucking dork."
Dima ignores my slight and glances down at the toilet paper in his arms. "Really, Mira?"
I offer him a wry, crooked half-smile.
It's not an Aryan Shankar grin. It doesn't light up my entire face. It's sarcastic and cynical, half a grimace. But it's mine and Dima can read it well enough.
"Alright," he says and clutches the toilet paper in hand.
