The public toilet block near the east pathway smelled like every public toilet in every Mumbai park had agreed, collectively, on a standard.
He was already there.
He had been there for approximately eleven seconds when Priya appeared from the path, slightly out of breath, her performance of the headache abandoned because there was nobody left to perform it for.
She stopped when she saw him.
Leaning against the wall beside the facilities block entrance, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the dark tree line with the patient quality of someone who had been here for a while.
"'How—'"
"'I'm faster than I look,'" he said.
She looked at the entrance. Then at him.
"'What will you do next?,'" she said. Not a question. The specific, reading of the situation.
"'Eat you,'" he said.
Priya breathed.
He was looking at her.
The specific look. Not the assessment. The other one.
She had the lotus still.
She looked down at it.
