I close my eyes. My arm’s already tingling. I don't move.
I memorize everything.
The weight of him. The slow, trusting rhythm of his breathing. The way his curls feel against my neck. The impossible, fragile, world-ending gentleness of his fingers around my sleeve. The hum of the engines. The star-scattered dark outside the window. The four-inch armrest that neither of us is using anymore.
I will remember this flight for the rest of my life.
Several hours later, the cabin lights come up in a slow, artificial sunrise. The overhead speakers chime. A flight attendant's voice, professionally cheerful, announces our initial descent into Delhi.
Arjun wakes up.
It happens in stages. First, the breathing changes. Then the tension returns, rolling back into his shoulders like a wave. Then his eyes open, and for one suspended, half-awake second, he registers where he is: his head on my shoulder, his hand on my sleeve, his body angled into mine like it was designed to fit there.
His eyes widen. His entire body goes rigid. He sits up so fast he nearly hits his head on the overhead console, and the armrestbetween us is suddenly the Berlin Wall, four inches of leather and metal and catastrophic mortification.
“I...” He’s straightening his pullover, smoothing his curls, reconstructing himself with frantic efficiency. A flush is climbing up his neck, reaching the tips of his ears, which are turning that distinct Arjun-proprietary shade of rouge that I want to photograph and frame. “I apologize. That was... the altitude affects circadian regulation, and the cabin pressure can cause involuntary postural adjustments during REM sleep cycles, and I...”
“Arjun.”
He stops. He looks at me. His green eyes are wild and wide and devastatingly vulnerable, and I can see him bracing for... what? Mockery? Discomfort? The horror of being caught being human?
“You fell asleep,” I say. Gently. Like it's the simplest thing in the world. Because it is.
“I fell asleep on you.”
“Yeah. It was nice.”
The word nice lands between us like a warm stone dropped into cold water. He blinks. His mouth opens, then closes. The pink in his ears deepens to crimson.
“My arm's a little numb,” I add, flexing my left hand, which has approximately the sensation and motor function of a rubber glove filled with sand. “But it's coming back. No permanent damage. I've had worse in hockey.”
He stares at me for three full seconds. Then he turns away, facing the window, where the first pale light of the Indian dawn is spreading across the sky like a slow, golden bruise.
“Thank you,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it. “For not moving.”
My heart does something that a cardiologist would find very interesting.
“Anytime, Doc.”
He doesn't look at me again until we land. But when we stand to collect our bags from the overhead, and the aisle crowds withpassengers and the air fills with the bustle of arrival, his hand brushes mine. Brief. Deliberate. The backs of his fingers against my knuckles, a touch so light it could be an accident if I didn't know better.
I know better.
We walk off the plane and into Delhi, and my left arm won't fully work for another forty-five minutes, and I’ve never been happier about potentially permanent nerve damage in my entire life.
Chapter 7
The Arrival
Arjun
The heat hits me first.
It always does. No matter how many times I come home, the first breath of Rajasthani air lands on my skin like a warm, open palm, and something deep inside my chest cracks along an old fault line. It is February. In Toronto, I left behind a city encased in grey ice and frozen slush. Here, the air is dry, golden, and saturated with light, and the temperature is hovering somewhere around twenty-eight degrees Celsius. My body registers this with stunned, almost offended confusion after having spent the last eight months living in a country that treats winter as a personality trait.
We step off the connecting flight in Jaipur, and the tarmac shimmers. The sky is vast and blindingly blue, the kind of blue that does not exist in Canada, that makes the flat, overcast Toronto skyline feel like a memory from a different planet. The air smells of dust and diesel and something floral underneath it all, jasmine or marigold, likely the scent of garlands being strung at a roadside stall just beyond the airport walls.
Beside me, Casey stops walking.