• chapter twenty-four • 

The room was empty. He had pushed all his clothes to a corner. I laughed. This was his concept of cleaning up? My bags were resting against the wall. I started to walk towards them. The door opened suddenly. 

"Hey!" I cried, and reflexively pushed it with one hand.

"Sorry," Liam's voice said from the other side. "I didn't realize you'd come out." He removed his hand from the door, and the pressure lessened.

"Um," I said, biting my lip. It was just the two of us in the apartment. The door hadn't closed completely. I peeked at him through the crack. He smiled at me. I could see him breathing nervously, his muscular chest moving up and down. There he was, wearing just shorts, and here I was, wearing just a towel, and here we were, separated by just a door.

He started to move away. "Liam!" I said, and it took all my guts to say it. This was way harder than I'd thought.

"Yeah?"

"You can... um... come in if you want." I moved away from the door. He paused for a moment, then came in slowly, and looked at me. His gaze traveled down my body. And that didn't make me feel awkward at all. In fact, it felt good. I wanted him to keep looking at me like that, like I was something amazing. He stepped closer to me. My back was already touching the door. He put his hands on my waist, and even through the towel, his touch raised goosebumps on my skin.

"You should wear a towel all the time."

I laughed. "I'll consider it."

Very softly, he placed his lips on mine. I looped one arm around his neck to pull him closer, and used my other hand to clutch the towel to my body. It felt so magnificent that I wanted to cry: this feeling of his body pressed against mine, his chest touching the bare skin on my shoulders. There was a tingling between my legs. I'd thought that I'd never get to kiss him again. He pulled away just for a moment to look at me, tracing the shape of my lips with his thumb, and then kissed me again. His fingers traveled down my waist to the edge of the towel, and stroked my thigh. It made me weak down the knees. I knew his fingers were itching to go higher, but they stayed there.

He pinched the towel and tugged at it— a very soft tug, not enough to yank it off, but just enough to let me know.

My throat suddenly felt dry. I pulled back and looked at him, into his warm, warm, kind eyes, and at once felt foolish. What was I scared of? I put my other arm around his neck. The towel fell around my feet in a pool. 

He caught his breath. His gaze roamed over my body, taking in the scars and the burns. I saw his eyes fill with pain as he imagined what all I'd gone through.  

He smiled and kissed my jaw, his lips advancing down my neck, stopping at my shoulders. I shivered. "You're so beautiful."

He hooked a thumb inside his shorts and pulled them down, and then carried me to the bed, pulling the sheets over us.

  ∞

Some time later, we lay on our sides, facing each other. He twisted a lock of my hair between his fingers.

"And then?" I asked.

"Then they told me that 7 months had passed. I'd been in a coma all this time. I had no idea what was going on in the world. I had no idea about anything. A nurse lent me her phone, and I called you. Your phone was switched off. I called dad. He was okay. He'd thought I had died. Then I called Zack, then Ash. Both of them were fine. I kept calling you...I called you every day, but you never picked up. So I contacted Window to the Soul and got in touch with Sam. She told me you were alive and had searched for me everywhere before going back home. She gave me your parents' number, and when I called them, they told me you were in New York. Then I contacted NYU, but they told me that you weren't there. You'd never gone to the university at all. Then I made a Skype account to search for you. I e-mailed you. You never replied to me, not even once. But Sam kept telling me that you were alive. By that time my book was ready to be published. So I wrote the dedication for you and made sure that the books went to Delhi so that you could see them. I'm sorry I didn't put the address there. I thought you'd remember. Plus, it's not very wise to write your address somewhere and then circulate that thing around the entire world." He paused. "I really wish you were there with me when I got published, you know. I'd always thought we'd share that moment together.  You were the one who made me write my first scene."

I touched his dragon tattoo. "I read your novel. It was beautiful."

"It was?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm so proud of you."

He smiled at me. "So... if you weren't living with your parents, where were you?"

"I was living with Sana." I gasped. "I forgot to call and tell her I'm okay. She must be worried."

He tightened his arms around me. "Do it later. You're not going anywhere."

I tickled him. He laughed, but didn't let go. I sighed resignedly. "Fine." 

"Go to sleep."

"Hm." I slid down a little to place my head on his chest. 

I heard his heart beating. Finally, after a long time, I was going to get a good night's sleep.

  ∞ 

I was woken next morning by my stupid alarm clock. But the alarm sounded different. I reached out and turned it off, and then realized that it wasn't my alarm clock, it was Liam's. He still had the habit of waking up early to go jogging. A strong wave of emotion drowned me as I looked at his sleeping form; the way a smoker feels when he smokes a cigarette after a hiatus: he can't believe that something can feel so good. I had forgotten how good it felt to just look at Liam.

I blushed as the memories of last night came to me. It hadn't been a dream. I touched him just to make sure he really was here. He was.

I stood up to go to the bathroom. It hurt between my legs. I brushed my teeth, and when my hair fell back from my shoulders, I caught sight of something on my neck. A tiny red bruise. There was another one on my breast. A smile crept onto my face. I blushed such a deep red that the bites camouflaged for a second. I couldn't remember him doing that, but then again, I could hardly remember any other detail. All I knew was that last night I was drenched in desire, and my body was moving with his on its own, driven by a wild passion, stretching towards him, longing for him, asking for more.

I came out and took out a t-shirt from my bag.

"Are you getting dressed already?" Liam asked.

I jumped. "You're awake?" That silly smile still hadn't got wiped off from my face.

"Girls named Hazel are not allowed to wear clothes in this apartment."

I giggled and wore my t-shirt.

"Nuuuughhh!" he groaned. I laughed. This was fun. I put on a pair of pajamas. He scowled. I walked up to the bed and sat down. "Don't worry. We can have... uh... another hot night of passion. Later." I looked into his eyes meaningfully.

He grinned, causing a dimple to appear. "You still remember that joke?" 

I leaned in and kissed his dimple. "Of course I do." As soon as I went close, he grabbed me and pinned me against the bed. I had a feeling he wasn't going to let me go for a long time.

I finally got up, again undressed and thoroughly kissed. I wrapped the sheets around my body and used his laptop to talk to Sana while he showered.

"So," she said. "I take it you're alive?"

"I found him," I said gleefully.

"Wow," she said excitedly. "So did you guys... ahem ahem."

"Yeah, we ahem-ahemed." I tried not to blush. 

He came out of the bathroom. Sana saw him. "Hey, he's actually good-looking. I thought you had picked someone as boring as yourself."

"Gee, thanks," Liam said. I laughed. "I'll make breakfast." He went out.

"Ooh!" Sana said. "He cooks  too?"

"Yeah," I said, "but I don't trust his cooking very much. I'll have to help him out. I'll talk to you later."

I switched off the laptop and went to the kitchen, forcing him to sit down and let me cook. I took out milk and eggs.

"I told you that Zack and Ash were coming to New York, didn't I?"

"You did."

"So... they haven't found an apartment here yet. Is it okay if they live with us for some time? We can give them the little room and put up mattresses and stuff there."

"Of course that's okay. Did they get accepted at NYU?"

"Ash did. She'll do a fashion course. Zack's gonna go to the School of Visual Arts for a photography course."

"Okay." I started to say something else, but then I noticed that he had taken out a piece of paper from somewhere and was scribbling on it, so I decided not to bother him.

After breakfast, when we were sitting on the couch after removing its plastic wrapping, he said that he had bought some buckets of paint aeons ago and then totally forgotten about them, and if they hadn't dried up yet, maybe we should paint the apartment and make it more livable now that Ash and Zack were coming, too. That got me excited.

We fetched the paints from the little room in which Ash and Zack were to stay. It was currently being used as a store room. "Take this." He threw an old, oversized t-shirt at me. I put it on. "Oh, wait. That's the only bad t-shirt I own. What should I wear?"

"We can wrap plastic around you," I suggested.

"How will I move around?" he asked. I picked up the plastic sheet and cut three holes in it, one for his head and two for his arms, and made him wear that. "This looks like a bib," he complained. I laughed.

"Hmmm..." I rubbed my hands together. "Okay! This wall, we're going to paint beige and coffee brown. And we will just mix colors together, that will create a nice effect. We don't have to blend them together. Like, the brushstrokes should be visible, are you getting me?"

"Kind of," he said. "So basically I can paint as haphazardly as I want, and that should look like art?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

I paused. "I think that art is an expression. If by splattering paint I can express an emotion — say frustration, or, in this case, indecisiveness — I'll call that art."

"Wow," he said. "I like that approach."

"Yeah. Before that we need to paint a base coat with beige. Go get a ladder."

He did. He climbed on it and painted the top part, while I painted the bottom, taking care of the paint that dripped down from his part of the wall. The brush felt so good in my hand. Everything felt great. The smell of paint which people usually hate, the oversized t-shirt which smelled so much like him, the fact that he was so close to me, everything. Half an hour later he got bored, came down and waved his brush near my head. "What if I painted your hair?"

"Then I'll kill you."

"But your hair has become red again."

"I'll get it dyed."

"By the way, you look beautiful in my t-shirt."

I raised my eyebrows and turned my head to look at him, but the moment I did that, he kissed me. I pulled back, and while his lips were still pouting, I painted a brown mustache on his face. Then I laughed cruelly. He seized my waist and painted all over my (his) t-shirt. Then he laughed cruelly, and moved away from me before I could attack. "This painting job is too boring. I'm gonna unpack your clothes and put them in the closet, okay?" He blew a kiss at me from there, not daring to come close, and it was a good thing he didn't because I was planning to paint all over his face. "Clean the dust in the closet before you do that," I called after him, but I was pretty sure he hadn't heard me. "Liam!" I said, louder, making him come out of the bedroom.

"Yo?"

"I love you."

He nodded. "Nice."

"What? Say it back."

He grinned like he did when he was trying to annoy me. "Nope." He disappeared again.

My back was aching by the time I finished. Liam came out of the bedroom, and whistled. "That looks amazing. You must be tired. I ordered pizza for us."

"Oh, yum." I tied my hair in a loose knot.

"Reddie," he teased. I smiled. "I've missed that nickname. But you can only call me Hazelnut."

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, with our plates resting on the newspapers spread in front of us, we ate the cheese pizza. "I should give you a nickname too," I said. "Something that sounds similar to your name. And something related to food, since you're such a foodie. Like... how about 'lime'?"

"Please. No."

" 'Lemon'?" I continued. "Yeah! That's perfect! Lemon is your new nickname."

"NO!"

"Okay then... 'Lemonade'? That's your final option."

"Whatever," he said grudgingly. "This is what I get for being the best boyfriend in the world. I asked you out for prom by writing on a pizza box. Have you ever met someone so romantic?"

I snatched the piece he was eating — it was the last one — and wolfed it down. "You're gaining weight," I teased when he protested. "You should eat less."

"I could kiss you. Kissing burns calories." He jumped on top of me.

After lunch I opened his fridge and made a list of all that was required (which was everything, since his fridge was nearly empty) while he sat on the counter and gazed at me with a wide, creepy grin the purpose of which I knew was to annoy me.

"You can do something, you know," I said, but he grinned wider. I rolled my eyes and continued scanning the kitchen. I already had 75 items on the list. I circled the most important ones: flour, milk, potatoes, eggs...

"I love you," he said out of the blue.

I smiled and looked up. "Thanks for finally saying it back."

"You've made this apartment into a home ever since you've come." He got up to kiss me. "I'll find some work to do while you prepare the list."

But I told him that the list was ready and sent him off for grocery shopping. While he was gone I painted the rest of the walls in the living room beige, and left the ceiling white. Then I packed up all the paints, because it was seven in the evening, and removed the plastic wrapping of the centre table, and mopped the floor, and then went to our bedroom. Surprisingly he had arranged all my clothes properly. I pushed my bags to a corner and made the bed, and went into the bathroom to take a shower.

The doorbell rang when I was midway, with the shampoo in my hair and all. I ignored it, at first thinking that my ears were ringing (or rather, ear) and when the second bell rang, I ignored it again, hoping that the person could wait, but then the person started ringing like a maniac, and I had to wrap a towel around myself and run out like that. I looked through the peephole. Liam was standing there, weighed down by around ten bags. Quickly, I opened the door.

"Oh, you're alive?" he asked sarcastically, trying to look annoyed, but the look didn't work because he was struggling with all those grocery bags, and a dress, and also looking at me half-undressed. I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing. He staggered in.

"Dress?" I asked.

"Yeah. For you. I'm going to take you out for dinner tonight. There's a Mexican restaurant just round the corner. Santos Anne. Ever heard of it?"

"Yeah, of course I've heard of it. I've been living in New York for the past three years, how can I not know that restaurant?" He smiled. I picked up the black dress. It was strapless, and the skirt would probably fall to my knees.

He looked at me, dripping from head to toe. There was a pool of water around my feet. "Um. Sorry about that. I'll mop it up later."

"No, don't worry. The walls look great, by the way." But he wasn't looking at the walls. He was still looking at me. He came closer, probably to hug me or kiss me, but I backed away. "I'll get you wet."

"You're making me wet anyway." He grinned.

"Ugh. I regret hearing that. Worst joke ever." I turned around and started walking towards the bathroom.

"Can I join you in the shower?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Please? We should save water by showering together."

I laughed. "Nice try, but no."

We walked to the restaurant, since it was so near. It was a great place. There was live music. We sat in the backyard, on the wooden benches. Fairy lights were twinkling, draped over the branches of trees. Pretty people in pretty clothes were seated around us. We ordered cocktails and salmón burgers, and Lemonade cracked the silliest jokes ever, yet I laughed. He told me about the Oedipus Complex— something all boys of ages 3-6 go through, a complex which causes them to develop a sexual desire for their mother and jealousy of their father. In females, girls are sexually attracted towards their fathers and want to kill their mothers, and this is the Electra Complex. I almost gagged when I heard all this, and changed the topic.

I drank way more than he did. He let me. He told me that I could try out whichever beverage I wanted, since this was the first time I was trying out drinking (apart from the wine on my birthday) and that he was there to lug me home. I was dizzy but otherwise functional. We entered our apartment. I blinked when he turned on the lights. We tottered to the bedroom. I was wobbling as if I was wearing heels. I stood in the doorway for a while, massaging my temples. Liam got me a glass of water, and waited while I drank it. I stared at the unmade bed.

"Liam... didn't I make the bed before we went out?"

"You did?" He leaned against the door-frame. "I don't remember."

"I folded the sheets, puffed the pillows," I said slowly. "I made the bed, I swear. Did someone break into the apartment?" I breathed nervously. That person could still be here.

He frowned. "I'll check." He went out I heard him opening all the doors, going into all the rooms. I looked at the balled-up comforter, the wrinkled sheets, the pillows on the floor. I was dizzy, sure, but I hadn't suffered from a memory loss.

"Doesn't look like anyone's been here," Liam said.

But I was sure someone had been in our room. There had to be a broken window or lock somewhere. A person couldn't simply materialize into the room, could he?

"Actually, I remember now. I didn't make the bed," I lied. 

My brain was busy thinking about that one entity that could materialize into a room.

∞