Sleepless in Dubai by Sajni Patel

Author:Sajni Patel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2023-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had never walked so much in my life. My feet ached, but I was happy to rest on the evening of the first day of Diwali. It was nice to chill out for a bit in Yash’s room. I was sitting on the edge of his bed, with Yash tucked away closer to the headboard, and flipping through one of a dozen hotel brochures for tourists, my right knee tucked into my chest in what I called “peak Asian sitting style.” I got it from my dad and realized it was the only true comfortable sitting position for me.

Our parents said they’d be right up, and Lilly had hung back with them.

“Can you believe they still use paper?” I asked.

“Hmm?” he muttered, barely looking up from his tablet.

“I guess not everyone has QR readers. I do, on my phone, and it still doesn’t work half the time. Like, whenever we go to restaurants now, they have touchless menus. Almost always have to ask for a menu. My parents always do. They don’t like squinting at my phone.”

“Same.” Yash swiped across his tablet in delicate, artistic strokes with a stylus, and I knew he was drawing.

“Can I see what you’re working on?” I asked, twiddling my thumbs. Maybe he’d let me see. And if he let me see, then maybe that meant we were back to full-on normal best friends again.

“Nah,” he replied casually.

I frowned. “Really? What’s so special about it? Is it a secret?”

I leaned over and he shrugged one shoulder to block my view. “Stop,” he said with a chuckle.

“Let me see. Are you drawing erotica?”

“What!” He laughed even harder, shoving his shoulder so high it had to be hurting his neck.

“Obviously something you’re really into. I’ve seen you drawing all the time on this trip.”

“You think I’m really into erotica?” he asked dryly.

“I dunno what you’ve been into since spring.”

His shoulder dropped. “Yeah, if you’d talked to me since then you’d know I’m not into erotica.”

“Puppies?” I said.

“How the hell did you go from erotica to puppies?”

“Tell me what’s so amazing.”

“You assume it’s amazing,” he said, twisting from me so that I only saw his big head instead of any part of the screen.

I gently tugged a tuft of his hair. He needed a haircut. Who let him walk out the house like this? “If you’re drawing it, of course it’s amazing.”

He paused and glanced back at me. “Your tactics won’t work.”

“What tactics? I’m being honest. Your drawings were great before you stopped. You’re drawing again. Which means you’ve been practicing, and practice makes art better. So, yeah. Amazing,” I added with a smile. A genuine smile, because there was one thing we could all agree on, and that was how fantastic of an artist Yash was. He could go places with his illustrations. Maybe do cover art for books or get featured in major magazines or commercials or—gasp—work on animation. Maybe he’d get his dream job at Disney.

Whoa. My heart was beating out of control with exciting possibilities.

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