Priti blows a raspberry. “Acouple? Quit acting modest. You got into Juilliard, for fuck’s sake.” She starts typing into her phone. “He has loads of covers up. Plenty of originals, instrumentals with his guitar, ukulele, keyboard, cajon, some new instrument he picked up a few months ago—”
“Kalimba.”
“—yeah, that, and then he has his beats up for sale on BeatStars and some stuff on SoundCloud. Not to mention”—Priti turns her phone toward me—“one hundred and forty thousand followers on Instagram.”
I take the phone from her, my eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as I scroll through his page.A couplewas an understatement. And all his reels have six-figure views. Some have even crossed a million.
“You could do with a new handle, though,” Priti says to Rudra. “@rudradesaimusic is bleh.”
“It’s easy to find,” Rudra protests.
“There’s amillionRudra Desais on Instagram. Your name is the John Smith of brown dudes.”
“My name isnotthat common.”
“I can prove it to you right now. Watch.” Priti twists to the side, cupping her mouth in an O with her palms, and yells, “ANY RUDRA DESAIS IN HERE?”
“Jesus.” Rudra cringes.
“I don’t know you,” I say, ducking.
Everyone in the café turns in Priti’s direction, shooting her surprised glances. Priti, being Priti, yellsagain, “I ASKED, ANY RUDRA DESAIS IN HERE?”
Pin-drop silence.
Priti drops her hands. “Fine.” She sticks her tongue out at Rudra. “You win.”
“I wasn’t competing.”
I go back to scrolling through his page. I notice he hasn’t shown his face in a single post. He either has his camera angled below the neck or he’s turned away from it, hood up. He probably doesn’t like being perceived. But he makes sure to use aesthetic setups—like blue fairy lights, cloudy Mumbai skies, and clear mugs of black coffee—and high-end production equipment.
“You have a nice mysterious-guy-in-a-hoodie mood to your page,” I say, handing Priti back her phone.
Priti snorts. “That’s one way to put it. If only he’d show his face so he doesn’t look like Joe Goldberg the guitarist.”
“I don’t like to draw attention away from the music,” Rudra says, shrugging.
“A little attention to your dashing face might get you even more followers.” Priti pulls at his cheek as she gets to her feet. “I’m going to pee. Be right back.”
As Priti heads to the bathroom, Rudra watches her go with an unreadable expression on his face. And it hits me then that I... know that look. Very well.
That’s the lookIgave Amrit all summer. The trying-really-hard-to-suppress-my-yearning-but-failing-miserably look.
Oh god.
Rudra definitely likesPriti.
I mean, all of us cousins suspected they were screwing because they’re so attached at the hip all the time. So even if they aren’t screwingnow, who’s to say they don’t want to? Neither of them denied my assumptions earlier either. Priti’s flirting is playful, but she’s probably using it to mask her real feelings. And by the looks of it, Rudra’s in deep. And hard.
Very dirty, Krishna.
I take the last bite of my pav bhaji as an awkward silence settles between us. Rudra clears his throat and stands. “I’m going to get myself some coffee.”
I nod as he pushes his chair back and walks to the counter.
Priti is still not back by the time Rudra returns with a cup of black coffee. How pretentious. If you ask me, black coffee drinkers don’t actually like the taste of the concoction. I had a siponceand spit it right out.
As Rudra sits, I get a trace of his cologne—sharp enough that I know it’s not his soap, subtle enough that I know it’s not his deodorant. The heavenly apricot scent suddenly stands out because it’s just him and... Gross, why am I thinking of Rudra’s cologne?
