70. Chapter 6
Lule:
“ This lecturer is actually trying to break me.”
Rahul:
“Cyber sadism. Should be your dissertation title.”
After submitting his thesis in a rare moment of indecision.
Rahul:
“Do you think I’m messed up?”
Lule
“You taught me how to clone a phone. You’re a badass. No way it gets rejected.”
The storm had rolled in around midnight - thunder like cannons, rain like claws on concrete. Lule’s building, of course, had lost power halfway through the downpour. Hallie was away with her latest “non-boyfriend” and the flat was pitch black, damp, and already starting to smell like mold.
She texted Rahul immediately.
Power’s out. My fridge is crying. Mind if I crash?
He replied in thirty seconds.
Bring snacks. Bring your own toothbrush this time, for fucks sake.
Now she was here, camping in Rahul’s room again, towel-drying her hair after a quick shower. She’d borrowed one of his oversized t-shirts -white, soft, worn thin with a Mandalorian print across the front. It skimmed the tops of her thighs and clung just enough to make her feel… aware .
Jacob had been there earlier in the living room-loud, confident, full of inside jokes Lule didn’t quite care about but tolerated. He’d been trying to get her into another round of GTA.
“Come on,” he grinned, sprawled across Rahul’s desk chair, something Rahul was scowling about behind his back. “One more game, pretty. I’ll let you blow up my car again.”
“She’s tired,” Rahul cut in, his voice clipped.
Jacob raised an eyebrow. “She can decide that.”
“She’s got an exam tomorrow,” Rahul added, “Come on, Lule. Up.”
He sounded lame and completely unconvincing.
Jacob looked at her. “Lule?”
Lule blinked. “Yeah. I do need to get my rest.”
He finally got up, grabbing his backpack and tossing a goodbye over his shoulder. Then, his bedroom door clicked shut behind him.
A pause.
Then Lule turned and followed Rahul into his bedroom, smirking.
“There’s no exam.”
“I know.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t like him.”
Rahul didn’t meet her eyes.
“I don’t like how he looks at you. He said ‘blow up’.”, he muttered, obviously furious. He looked calm but Lule knew him well enough to know his temper was close to a blow up .
Instead of laughing it off, there was a silence full of tension, hanging between them like storm air.
These episodes had been happening more often, of late.
She tried to make it light. “Well… I am single, you know. Wild and free. Possibly available for car explosions…and blow ups”
It was half-joke, half-hook.
Rahul didn’t bite.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said softly changing the subject.
He turned away, started unrolling the sleeping bag beside his bed. Summer meant he was in shorts and nothing else -lean lines of muscle, dusky skin, the soft curve of chest hair that dipped down his stomach. Lule looked, then looked away. Looked again because her eyes were drawn like magnets.
I shouldn’t creep on him.
He is my best friend.
His buttocks are not biteable.
And his cock is not as big as I think it is.
Suddenly he turned and their eyes met.
He caught her eyeing his junk.
But he was not innocent.
He was distracted by the way the thin white fabric stretched over her breasts, the slight shadow of her nipples against the fabric. The curve of her hips. The fall of her black hair down to her waist, damp and curling at the ends.
She bent over to plug in her phone and his eyes caught on the slope of her legs.
He dove into the sleeping bag like it might scrub the images from his brain .
Too late.
Lule didn’t miss the tight line of his jaw, the flicker of embarrassment in eyes that did not meet hers, and the outline of the erection he tried to hide as she watched through lowered lashes.
Neither of them said a word as they tried to settle.
The lights were off. The storm had moved on. But the tension sparked like a livewire.
They both lay in the dark inches apart, backs to each other, hearts hammering like drums while they tried to regulate their breathing. It wouldn’t do to give the game away.
It was going to be a long night.
Lule blinked bleary eyes and woke to the smell of burnt toast. She buried her red face in her pillow which vaguely smelt of Rahul and pondered her existential shame. Yep, she should have worn that bra.
The room was dim, hazy with early light filtering through half-drawn blinds.
Rahul’s desk lamp still glowed faintly. She was still wrapped in the Mandalorian t-shirt, twisted awkwardly around her thighs.
Her hair was frizzed in a halo around her head, her skin clammy from the summer heat, and she was 97% sure she’d drooled on the pillow.
She rolled over. Rahul was definitely up.
Seconds later, the doorknob turned and he walked in with a plate and mug.
He didn’t make eye contact and hurried to turn his back to her as he hunched in front of the tiny desk and carefully placed the plate down.
Shirtless, he poked at a piece of toast with the defeated air of someone who knew he shouldn’t cook while Lule stared at the play of his muscles.
She sat up slowly.
“Did you kill the toaster? ”
“Maybe,” he replied, still facing away. “Murder investigation is ongoing. Timing was off”
Neither of them said what they were really thinking.
That she’d seen his erection. That he’d seen her nipples through his shirt.
That they’d lain inches apart all night pretending to sleep while their brains threw a rave of inappropriate thoughts.
It felt like they had been subconsciously collecting them over the years and now someone had made an album out of them.
So, she got up, padded to the kitchen corner and poured herself some water.
Rahul didn’t follow her around.
The silence between them stretched like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe - thin, uncomfortable, sticky but tenacious.
She desperately wracked her brain for a joke, anything to defuse this awkwardness which made panic bloom in her chest, when he pre-empted her and abruptly said, “I’ve got class.”
Right. Class.
“Me too,” she lied, close to tears.
She turned her back and pulled on her jeans like she was on a timer before shoving her charger into her bag.
The t-shirt clung to her like a memory, so she tugged it off and tossed it onto his bed.
“You forgot your bra,” Rahul muttered without looking.
“I forgot to wear one,” she retorted as if daring him to say anything about it.
Then, regretting that honesty immediately, she grabbed her keys and fled .
The next seven days were hell.
Slow, creeping, awkward as shit hell.
They texted-kind of.
You in class?
Yeah. Coffee later?
Can’t. Study group .
Cool.
Cool. Cool? Since when did Rahul say cool?
Every message was shorter than the last. Every “ see you later ” came with the sensation of a bison sitting on her chest. A bison which was slowly morphing into an elephant with every message.
He avoided being alone with her.
She avoided asking why because she was afraid of the answer.
And every morning Lule would get dressed, stare at her underwear drawer, and mutter, “Should’ve worn the damn bra.”
She thought about it constantly-the heat of his eyes on her breasts, the way his eyes had dropped to her thighs, the way his jaw had clenched when he looked away.
Had she imagined it?
She was constantly tearful. It was teenage all over again. Or PMS that never ends.
Then, one frustrating night two weeks after the near-meltdown, Lule texted him.
It’s over. VisionOS 4.2. The software update was shit .
Rahul texted back immediately
You, okay?
Lule:
Not ok. I’ll cry. And I’m out of ice cream.