I shrug. “I can’t help it. It’s the Bengali in me.” She definitely never complains about me being a food snob when she’s having dinner at my house.

But now she pokes me in the ribs and says, “Admit it. You kind of like it.”

A fresh flurry of butterflies flutters through my stomach. I don’t think Flávia realizes what her touch still does to me.

“Okay, I guess it’s not that bad,” I concede.

She grins, and I reconsider whether she does know exactly what her touch does to me. I don’t have much time to think about it though, because in the next moment she’s looped her arm into mine and is resting her head on my shoulder.

“We should study,” she sighs. That’s the excuse we gave both of our parents to venture out for the afternoon. Neither of us make an effort to reach into our bags, though; I’m not even sure what books I have in mine.

Instead, I lean into her and we watch the way the cars and buses and the Luas zoom up Westmoreland Street. The sunlight begins to dim slowly.

“I want you to do my henna.” Flávia’s voice startles me out of my reverie. She sits up and says, “You never did it. That one time—I got henna all in my hair and you never finished.”

“You’re realizing this now?” It’s still only been a few weeks, but it feels like an eternity has passed since the competition finished, since our first kiss, since Flávia and I began our more or less public relationship.

She frowns and turns all the way around so we’re directly face-to-face—like we’re in the middle of a serious discussion and not just talking about henna.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” she says.

“About henna?”

“About … yes, henna. Kind of. I talked to your friends and your sister and—”

“Behind my back?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic, Nishat. It’s a good thing. Think of it as a present.”

“Are you feeling okay?” I wonder if this is a side effect of pumpkin spice lattes. They do have a very strong scent.

Flávia just smiles. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her jeans and taps it for a minute before thrusting the screen toward me.

“I didn’t know when was the right time to show you, but … I think we’re ready.”

The Instagram page that I disabled after the business competition stares me in the face, but I barely recognize it. The profile picture is brand new. In bright red cursive handwriting it reads Nishat’s Mehndi, with the same written in faded Bengali script in the background.