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fishnets-fingers · 2 years ago

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Six Months - Part Twenty Four

Summary - Layla desperately needs a vacation and her Aunt and Uncle come to her rescue. So, at twenty two, she packs her bag and jets off to America. Harry took a break from education and is now a full fledged content creator on OnlyFans. At twenty, he makes more money than almost all of his friends. What ensues when these two meet and realise the windows in their rooms face each other? How will paper airplanes bring them closer together?

PAIRING - camboy!harry x indian!oc

a/n - it’s the one with the wedding and the family celebrating diwali (maybe a tryst in the backseat of harry’s range rover). it’s almost the end of november in the story, which means it’s almost time for layla to bid farewell. thank you so much for reading and loving spy!harry. i’ll probably be writing another part very soon with the princess and the spy, so be on the lookout for that. reblog and like as always. have a wonderful weekend. happy reading!

Word Count - 10.6 k

Warnings - fluff, angst, smut (choking, spanking?)

Masterpost (find previous parts here)

“I have hot gossip,” Layla announces when she gets to the table they’ve been assigned to. The sangeeth has been a spectacle and was currently on a momentary pause as the bride and groom had gone to slip into their third outfits for the night. Three outfits changes for a single evening was too much, even by Layla’s standard of a big fat Indian wedding but she wasn’t complaining. Besides, the grander the wedding, the more fun it was for the guests because Tamil weddings barely have time for the bride and groom to take it all in.

The party didn’t stop with the absence of the bride and groom though. The DJ had invited people onto the dancefloor to give the performing family members a breather. Harry and Layla were the only two at the round table, which was decorated with a centerpiece with overgrown orchids and tealights, and the occupants had abandoned their seats to take part in the festivities. Anne and Earl were chatting away with people who lived on their street, whatever they were talking about seemed spirited from the way the two gesticulated and threw their heads back to laugh. She spares a glance towards Abi and Vasanth swaying on the dance floor to a slowed down version of Unnakul Naane. Vasanth had requested the DJ to pull up their special song, and proceeded to whisk his wife for a dance.

“Lay it on me,” Harry chuckles, turning his body towards her.

“I just heard from a very credible source, aka Dhruv and Ashwin, that the bride and groom are in the stairwell lighting up a blunt,” she tells him, bending down to shuffle the billowing fabric of her lehenga skirt in place once she’d sat down. “Invitation’s open to us too.”

“I wouldn’t risk getting high and walking into this room.” Harry had a point, the giant banquet hall of the hotel had been turned into a wonderful display of colours with the strobe lights and décor, scent with flowers and a concoction of perfumes, and sounds with high energy beats pounded the bass as members of the family danced and put on a show.

“Fair point.”

Ever since Layla professed her love for him - earlier that morning - by the lake, the two were detached from the festivities, preferring to sit back and revel in their feelings. Layla couldn’t tear her eyes away from Harry - in his muted blue grey suit and a mint green shirt that was the perfect amount of see through. She’d even go so far to bet that one else in the room was put together as him whilst also playing with colours. He’d styled his hair to look tousled and it drew more attention to his forest green eyes.

“You look really nice. Pretty even,” she whispers, running her palm down his thigh.

“I’ve been told,” he chuckles. He catches her hand before it could reach the apex of his thighs and brings it up to his lips, pressing chaste kisses to her knuckles. “Feeling me up every chance you get is a great reminder.”

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.

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