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3 - Nocturnal (edited)

wooo another edited chapter.

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3 - Nocturnal

Maya Sumedh

  

 “Would you really have punched that guy if I hadn’t stopped you?”

 Luke spoke very abruptly. There had been silence in the car for the past ten minutes, filled by Led Zeppelin. I had been resisting the temptation to sing along. But then again I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of him just yet. That could wait. Just as Whole Lotta Love was drawing to a close, he turned to me, waiting for an answer to his question.

 “Yes,” I answered without hesitation, keeping my eyes on the road.

 “Oh. That’s pretty badass.”

 “I’m pretty badass,” I joked.

 To my surprise, he agreed. “You are.”

 I chuckled, slowing down as the road narrowed. A guy in a Santro tried to chapo me. I blared the horn, speeding past him. Motherfucker.

 “Thanks, I guess.”

 There were a few more seconds of silence. Santro guy trailed behind me, scowling.

 “You knew him from before?”

 I shot Luke a look, but he was just looking at me with those blue eyes of his. I shrugged and turned back to the front.

 “He was in my school. I haven’t seen him since graduation.”

 “He seems like a jackass.”

 “He is,” I agreed fervently.

  Luke chuckled under his breath, as if he was controlling it. Then he looked back outside the window at the grime of the Delhi Metro ongoing construction around us. I wondered how hot and sweaty things must have looked to his tender, first-world eyes. 

 We were ten minutes away from home when my phone started to blare its bland iPhone ringtone from inside the glove compartment. Luke quickly pulled it out.

 “It’s your mom,” he said, passing it to me. I answered and put it on speaker.

 “Hey, Ma.”

 “Maya, Sam said you’re picking Luke up from the airport today?”

 I could hear noise and chattering in the background – they’d both gone to some fancy gallery opening to mingle with those artist types who scrawled black stuff on a table corner with an OHP marker and called it a feminist piece of work.

 “Um, good morning to you too?” I mumbled, taking a sharp turn.

Ma chuckled. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

 “What’s up? I have picked Luke up.”

 “Good. I was just calling to ask you if you could pick up lunch on your way back home…your father and I might get a bit late coming home. So the three of you can have subs or something, and we’ll be home by four.”

 Luke made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat. I grinned. “Yeah, subs sound good. I’ll pick them up – we’re almost home now anyway.”

 Ma proceeded to give me the usual lecture when Sam and I were alone at home (lock the kitchen door, lock the front door, lock the windows, don’t let creeps in, don’t wreck the house, and if there’s a War of the Worlds scenario, put on your running shoes and run), and I tuned out a little. When she was done, I just gave her an “Okay, Ma. Will do.”