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One
HARSH
“Green?”
The man sitting across from Harsh nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Sir.”
“Green?” Harsh repeated. “Like the Hulk?”
The scriptwriter paused. “Welllll…” He drew the word out. “Not exactly like the Hulk.”
Silence fell around the formal living room of Kodela House. The phallus shaped chandelier above their heads glittered with what felt like the light of a thousand stars. Harsh reclined against the gilt-edged teak wood sofa and stared at the other man. He’d written a green, bulked up superhero and he hadn’t considered the resemblance to the Hulk? And here everyone accused Harsh of being empty headed eye candy.
“We could make you blue,” the scriptwriter offered.
“Is it necessary for me to be a different colour?” Harsh asked mildly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Maybe I could just have an interesting costume?”
“OH!” The other man’s face lit up with inspiration. “Like the chaddis on top of pants.”
“That’s Superman,” Harsh snapped. Did the man not have a single original thought in his head?
“Correct.” The scriptwriter scratched his head. “But other than that, did you like the narration? What did you think of the story?”
He thought it was crap, but he needed to say that with a little more tact. How would Agastya Anna put it?
“Listen Abhiram,” he began.
“Abhinav Sir,” the other guy interjected.
“Right.” Harsh ran a hand through his shaggy hair, holding the waves away from his forehead. “I’m not really feeling it. It needs something more, something with more…let’s say punch?”
“Punch?” Abhi-something furrowed his brow like Harsh was talking a foreign language. “We could make you orange?”
Harsh groaned. “Lay off the colours, Abhishek. Focus on the story. What’s the plot, the characterization, the conflict?”
“Abhinav Sir.” He leaned forward. “I told you you’re a superhero who will save the world. You will be unique.”
“Unique how?” Harsh asked. “And don’t mention a colour,” he warned.
The man shut the mouth he was opening to answer. “You don’t like it,” he said defeated.
“No,” Harsh said, feeling regret pinch him. He hated shitting all over people’s dreams. He’d spent years with people doing that to him. “But if you rework it, fix the flaws and come back with something better, we could discuss it again.”
Abhi-whatever clicked his fingers, inspiration seemingly flashing through him. “I could give you a tail.”
A snort of laughter behind him told Harsh that someone was listening to this idiotically humiliating conversation. His fraying patience snapped with an audible thwack.
“No,” he said repressively, getting to his feet and forcing the other man to do so. “Go home. Think about it some more. This doesn’t work.
Harsh gestured to his guard to escort the dejected writer out before turning to face the snorter. It had to be either his sister or his sister-in-law. Nobody else knew how to laugh in this house.
But when he turned, he came face to face with a hobbit who haunted his most vicious nightmares. Topping off at five feet max, pink cheeked and dagger tongued, she looked deceptively innocent. Harsh knew better. The woman was a viper permanently coiled to strike.
“Hello Rash,” he said coolly, purposefully mangling her nickname.
“Hello Desi Hulk,” she sneered. Honestly the woman and her flickering, forked tongue were a disservice to the lush, soft lips she’d been blessed with. Very lush, very soft.
What the fuck was he doing looking at her lips, he thought in horror, backing up a step.
