Page 11 of Afterglow (Ottawa Regents #3)
Overdue for a Good Wallow
Fletcher
Driving Behraz around every day is my favorite part of the day.
I could listen to her talk forever.
And to think, this brilliant woman thought she was stupid. A tragedy, really.
It’s nice not to worry about initiating conversation or if I’m asking too many personal questions when she offers it up herself.
In a matter of a couple of weeks, I’ve learned so much about her. And I don’t want to stop.
“Wait, did you not know I was Parsi?” she asked when I commented that the language she spoke with her parents on the phone was similar to what I’d heard Indi use with her family.
I didn’t know. The Google search for the word gulabi had inconclusive results, spanning across the languages of Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi. And I misspelled Parsi as Farsi, confusing me further.
“Seemed rude to ask.”
She clapped her hands together as we idled in traffic. “Time for a little history lesson. Parsi basically means Persian.”
Oh, so she’s Iranian? I thought to myself.
“But my ancestors fled Iran during the Islamic conquest, because we’re Zoroastrians and were being persecuted.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Please, it was hundreds of years ago. Anyway, my ancestors basically ended up on the west coast of India and were given asylum by the then-king of Gujarat. There was a lot of assimilation, so we speak Gujarati, too, like Indi, and a lot of our culture is the same, but there are differences in religious customs and traditional food.”
“That’s cool.”
Unlike that response, numbnuts.
“And like many other Gujarati business people during the British rule of India, Parsis found themselves in various colonies where the opportunity arose. My great-grandparents moved from Mumbai to Uganda, then my grandparents shifted to Tanzania, where my parents were born. My brother and I were born there, too.”
I nodded along.
“Dad’s cement business had him traveling to Oman a lot for various construction contracts, so eventually we moved there.
When things were unpredictable financially, we moved to Canada.
My mom’s best friend from high school convinced her it was a stable place to live and for us to get a good education.
But my dad kept getting contracts in Oman, and Mom didn’t want to move us while we were almost done with middle and high school, so she called my Granny to come live with us in Ottawa.
Oh, Granny hated the cold. My mom missed the easy life of luxury she had in Muscat.
When Parvez started culinary school and I was in class 8, Mom started traveling with Dad, being away for months at a time. ”
“Wow. That’s ? —”
“Sorry, word vomit.”
“I think you might be the only Persian-Indian-African-Middle Eastern-Canadian I know.”
It made for a hell of an accent. I loved it.
“Isn’t the South Asian diaspora fun?”
I find myself totally in awe of her resilience. She’s been through so many changes and experiences within such a young life, and to be pure sunshine and emanate joy despite it? She’s amazing.
Today’s ride home is no less exciting. It’s wild to witness her go from talking about how therapy helped her realize her humor is a trauma response from a fear of acceptance in a new place to how her nanny in Tanzania used to sing her lullabies in Swahili, and how homemade rosewater is her grandmother’s secret to healthy skin and asking if I want to do skincare and wallow with her on Friday because her accommodations request got denied.
“I’m guessing by your silence it’s a no.”
“Sorry, I spaced.” I shake my head. “I’ll join for the first part. I’m overdue for a good wallow, but what does skincare entail?”
“I was thinking a turmeric mask with olive and honey?—”
“Sounds sticky.”
“True, and the yellow might stain your skin. We can’t have that, but ooh! We could do a mud mask with rosewater. I think I still have some multani maati, I’ll just have to find it…”
She explains the ingredients and how to prep the mask as we change lanes and continue on our way home.
Friday, it is.
Thursday night, I put down my copy of Analeigh Sbrana’s Lore of the Wilds when a clang follows hurried shuffles in the space outside of my bedroom.
Through the crack in the door, I snoop on Behraz tucking a bottle of whiskey into the liquor cabinet before leaving with a bag slung over one shoulder.
A thin layer of amber lingers in the shot glass she abandons on the counter next to the sink.
She doesn’t see me, but the brief glimpse is too long, because now the image of her in one of those short dresses with tiny, delicate flowers all over them is gonna be stuck in my brain forever. She pre-gamed. She obviously had plans. Plans that didn’t include me.
And why would they include you? You don’t even like having plans. You’d cancel plans if you even had them. Though I like anything that has to do with her. I retrace her steps, inhaling the incredible scent of roses she’s left behind, trying not to think about who she has plans with.
Yikes. I need to go cool off before I start feeling jealous of someone who possibly doesn’t exist. But what if they do exist?
I jog back to my room and change into a pair of swimming shorts, grabbing a beach towel from the linen closet before taking the elevator to the rooftop.
The air is cool against my bare skin, but the pool is supposed to be heated, so I suffer the goosebumps from the shirtless walk from the lounge chair to the water.
I clamp my eyes shut while taking a dunk, and sigh loudly when returning to the surface, swiping the damp hair back from my face and stripping my beard of excess water.
Sitting up on the edge of the pool, I keep my legs in the water.
The view is nice from up here. Lit up Gothic-style church steeples and parliament buildings line the dark sky alongside more modern skyscrapers and glassy condo buildings like mine.
My arms prop behind me while searching for any sort of star, but it’s no use.
There’s too much light pollution. After a few minutes, my gaze returns to the water. I freeze. I’m not alone.
The dark figure at the corner of the pool moves to an underwater light, only her head visible in the deeper end. Every muscle in my body tenses tighter and tighter as Behraz wades closer, exposing more and more of her body above the surface of the water.
Her hair is slicked back from being wet. Oh, God. She’s wet all over, dripping with the saltwater from the pool. Droplets hang from her lips, crown her defined collarbone, and hug her shoulders. Only two strings sit tied around her slender neck, her full chest bobbing below the water line.
Don’t stare. Don’t stare at her tits.
“Hi,” she starts.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
My nipples shrink, tightening to the point of pain. I release the edge to dip into the water, bending my knees to submerge my chest. The heat of the pool feels cool against the flush rising on my skin.
She turns to walk backward to the stairs, revealing even more of her body. “I got sick of studying. Thought I could clear my head with a swim.”
“Same.” My head shakes a denial. “I mean, I came to clear my head, too.”
But my brain is filled with thoughts of you , I want to say. And it doesn’t seem to want to be free of them. I think my heart might explode.
Behraz stands on the bottom step and looks up, showing me her perfect chest and the curve of her bare waist. “Isn’t it crazy?”
Yeah, whoa. This is crazy. She looks…phenomenal. My cock pulses.
Shh . Go away. Let me have this.
“What’s…crazy?”
“How insignificant we are compared to” —she waves a hand in a semi-circle over her head— “all of this.”
“Uh-huh.”
You’re a pervert. Stop. Staring. At. Her. Nipples. But they’re?—
“Fletcher?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re pierced.”
I clench my eyes closed. “I?—”
I’m pretty sure this pool water is boiling me alive. She sits and reclines on her elbows on the step behind her, tossing her head back to laugh. The subtle movement sends trickles of water down her breasts and returns them to the pool. “It’s okay to look. I know you’re otherwise a gentleman.”
A gentleman who wants to untie your top with his teeth, strip it away, and suck on your tits until they’re dry. A gentleman who wants your pretty mouth on every inch of my skin.
“Right.” I flatten my arms over the cement edge of the pool in an attempt to appear relaxed.
“Hey, Fletcher?”
“Mmm?”
She chews on the inside of her cheek, leaving a dimple. “I know I said I didn’t want you to, but thanks for driving me to work and around town.”
“Of course.”
Her teeth sink into her lower lip next. I suddenly and desperately want to be her teeth at this moment. Christ, Fletch. You sound deranged.
“And I know I talk a lot, so thanks for listening, too. It makes me feel less alone.”
Her eyes lock onto mine, and I can’t help the grin splitting my reddened face.
“Anytime.”