So, fine, coffee bars were mushrooming all over the city. The thing that had quickened Gehna’s interest was how much time people were spending in this place. She marched over to Eram and plucked the phone from his hands.

‘Hey, what—’ he started to protest.

‘Tell me what you see.’

‘I will do no such thing. Gimme my phone back.’ Eram was feeling at odds with life. The Big Drop tournament, with each passing day getting him no closer to having the buy-in fee, was a bitter pill to swallow. He had worked so hard, trained for almost three years, and now with only weeks left he had been forced to accept that he would not even be entering the tournament, leave alone trying to win it. Then, this morning, he had shown up for Gehna’s ultrasound imagining that she would need him to hold her hand or something, but she hadn’t. Eram had become acutely aware that he didn’t belong there. Gehna’s mother belonged there, Gehna’s doctor belonged there, even Gehna’s fat friend belonged there. Who was he? He was nobody. Gehna hadn’t once acknowledged what had happened between them the night before. Eram felt that a kiss was a big deal, especially since it was his first kiss ever, and that someone should write songs about it. But no one had even mentioned it.

It was depressing as hell.

Gehna waved his phone at him. ‘Stop being such a grump. Look around, tell me what you see, and you can have this back.’

Eram cast a cursory glance around the room. ‘People. Coffee. People drinking coffee. Gehna, what the hell, I was in the middle of a big—’

She put a hand on his cheek and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘That was to make up for being sick all over you last time. Now tell me what you see.’

‘Uh, I, that was . . .’ Eram felt like the inside of his skull was filled with cotton candy. Soft, pink, billowing clouds of cotton candy. He concentrated. ‘They’re still drinking coffee. The, uh, the people.’

‘Exactly. Isn’t that amazing?’

‘Amazing.’

‘Anywhere else in the country, if a couple of cuties like us kissed in public, someone would stare. But here, no one even looked.’

Eram was having a hard time understanding her words. Gehna’s lips and eyes and smile kept getting in the way. ‘Didn’t they? I think we should try again, just to be sure.’ He closed his eyes and leaned in towards her. He may even have pouted a bit.

‘What’re you doing?’ Gehna asked.

‘This is me being irresistible.’

Gehna gave his ear a hard twist. ‘This is me resisting you. My point, which I was trying to make before you started kissing me silly, is that people spend a lot of time in here and they’re completely absorbed in what they’re doing. Check it out. There’s maybe thirty, thirty-five tables here and more than half of them are seating a single person.’