His words should fill me with terror, but all they do is charge me up with excitement.
Over the next few days, in between actual work, we engage in an all-out prank war.
Because I am the idiot who still hasn’t changed their password, Salman manages to get into my laptop once again. This time, he ensures that every time I write an email, instead of starting with ‘Dear’, it autocorrects to ‘Hello lurvers, your daily dose of romantic chaos has arrived!’. And, as if that wasn’t enough, whenever I sign off with ‘Sincerely, Poppy’ it automatically changes to ‘Chief Matchmaking Officer who will be blaming every incompatible match on Mercury retrograde whether or not it is in fact retrograde’. I’m not even mad that he’s once again messed with my laptop because it reminds me how things were before everything went sour between us.
The next morning, I head into the office early again and leave him a present on his desk.
‘What is it?’ he says, eyeing the package suspiciously.
‘Not from me. It was here when I got in,’ I say, looking at the gift as if I too am curious about its contents. ‘Maybe Sadia?’
Salman delicately unwraps the gold wrapping paper, careful not to tear the tape that holds it together, and finds a black box with a white lid. On top of the lid there is a note that readsFor your eyes only. Open at the end of the working day.
‘That’s oddly specific,’ I say, hoping he can’t hear the way I’m trying to hold myself together.
He scratches the back of his neck as he frowns in thought. ‘Screw it, I’m going to open this now.’
As soon as he lifts the lid of the box, there is an explosion of colour, most of it hitting him squarely in the face.
‘What the –?’ He blows out a breath while looking down at his hands, which are covered in dark blue specks. ‘Is this .?.?. glitter?’
I don’t respond because I’m folded over with laughter, mybody hurting from the joy I feel from having witnessed him getting attacked by a glitter bomb.
‘You really should pay attention to instructions, you know,’ I say, wiping away my tears of joy. ‘Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have to walk around the office all day with glitter all over your body.’
He steps it up the next week by offering me a cupcake at lunchtime, saying that he made too many. I’m starving by the time his offer comes around, and my desire for something sweet wins over the plain chicken nuggets and pasta that sit in a sad box in the fridge.
But when I bite into the heart-shaped cupcake, I find that the frosting is not strawberry flavoured but hot sauce. My tongue is immediately on fire and I run to the nearest bin to spit out the cake. I stay in the kitchen for the next couple of minutes, dousing my mouth in water, but even so the burning sensation persists.
‘You really need to work on your tolerance,’ Salman says with a chuckle as he passes me on my way back from the kitchen. ‘You’re giving Asians a bad name.’
The next day, I leave a sticky note on his desk that saysI did something to your deskand watch him try to figure out what I’ve messed with for at least thirty minutes before he asks for help.
‘Oh, I didn’t do anything,’ I finally tell him, because that’s the truth. ‘I just wanted to see how long it would take you to figure that out. Guess you failed.’
Every day, my stomach hurts with laughter, even when I’m on the receiving end of a prank, both impressed and annoyed by the lengths he’ll go to, while also fuelled by ambition to outdo him.
I try not to read too much into it, the fact that we’re laughing more than we’re arguing these days, but I can’t help noticing the butterflies that have begun to stir inside me.
18
That weekend, I don’t get much of a lie-in because Shirin and Lipi summon me to go shopping with them at Cribbs Causeway.
OK, it’s more Shirin than Lipi. Seems like Shirin is having a crisis and needs to shop it out.
‘What are we shopping for?’ I ask when I meet them at the entrance to the mall.
‘I need a revenge outfit for the next time I’m at the courts playing pickleball,’ Shirin announces. ‘Think Diana after Charles but make it sporty, you know.’
Shirin walks ahead, like she knows she’s about to be bombarded by reasonable questions, and Lipi and I have to leg it to keep up with her.
‘Why do you need a revenge dress when he didn’t lead you on?’ I ask.
‘He gave me eyes. You know,theeyes. The ones that say “hey, wanna chat?”’
Lipi and I exchange a look, wondering if Shirin has lost her mind.
Lipi shrugs. ‘She’s been like this all week. I don’t know how to talk her out of it.’
