They’re sitting at her dining table. She’s got her laptop open, highlighters scattered like war debris, a half-drunk chai on one side, and a bun poked messily through her claw clip.
Saad’s pretending to review his gym schedule. Keyword: pretending.
He’s got one AirPod in. Music off. Just there in case she tries to talk to him and he needs to pretend he wasn’t listening the whole time.
She’s been quiet for twenty minutes. Only sound in the room is the soft scratch of her pen and her muttering under her breath about “capital budgeting ratios” like it personally offended her.
Saad can’t stop staring at her hands. The way her pen keeps tapping. The way her bottom lip keeps tucking into her teeth. The way her hoodie sleeve is stretched over her palm.
He’s so far gone it’s laughable.
“Okay wait,” she says suddenly, pushing her laptop toward him. “Does this look right? I swear this Excel sheet is gaslighting me.”
He leans in without hesitation — fast, focused — even though he didn’t hear a single word she was reading five seconds ago.
Their arms brush.
He short-circuits.
“Yeah,” he says, squinting like he knows what’s happening. “I mean… see, the formula’s right but your formatting’s… confusing. Want me to clean it up?”
She tilts her head at him. “You can use Excel?”
Saad blinks. “I can watch a YouTube tutorial really fast.”
She laughs. Full laugh this time. He feels it like a sunbeam. Like a reward. Like maybe she doesn’t know she’s the center of his universe but maybe she will one day.
“Here,” she says, nudging her glasses up and gesturing to the keys, “just fix the column widths. You don’t need a whole course for that.”
He types obediently, elbow brushing hers again. She doesn’t move away.
And when she rests her chin in her hand and watches him in that soft, easy way — like he belongs here, in this moment, in her tiny world of deadlines and assignments and late chai — Saad knows it.
He’s done for.
Not the protein shakes. Not the MMA fights. Not the way everyone at the gym thinks he’s this cool, flirty himbo who’s always joking around.
None of it touches this. Her gaze. Her trust. Her voice when she said his name and smiled like she meant it.
He clears his throat. “You hungry?”
She shrugs. “Kind of. But I need to finish this part first.”
“I brought you a Chips Oman roll.”
Her eyes snap up. “You did?!”
He slides it across the table like a smug idiot. “Knew you’d say no but get hangry later.”
She’s already unwrapping it. “You’re an angel.”
Saad leans back, arm slung over the chair. Shrugging. Smirking. But inside?
His heart is doing star jumps. His brain is printing wedding invites. His entire soul is screaming:
“Bro. You’re in love with your best friend.”