In today’s day and age, finding a decent man who is interesting and non-fictional is rare and Rayan was an exception. Rayan was exceptional in more ways than one. If you were in a room full of hot men, and you see one man and think to yourself ‘Wow, he is the hottest man in this room’, then congratulations you have just spotted Rayan. Even though Aliza's first meeting with Rayan was straight out of a Hollywood rom-com movie with a Christmas release, it wasn’t the same for me. He didn’t make an action hero entrance into my life. Honestly, for me it was kind of random.

You see, in my twenties I was sad, broke and living in a small, rented apartment with my roommates Riya and Julia, Riya was the definition of the high-achieving eldest daughter. She graduated as the top student of her class and as soon as she graduated, she got a glossy job at a reputed bank. Julia was a law student who barely had any time to herself, but when she did, she spent it watching and promoting movies and TV shows. While they were living their boss babe fantasy, I was waking up in the middle of the afternoon, stuffing my face with whatever crap and leftovers I found in the kitchen and crouching down on my bed writing the flintiest smut I could manage with my lack of experience. But even in writing smut you can’t escape writer’s block.

One day I was just sitting around struggling with brain rot and struggling with massive writer’s block.

“I need some inspiration before this brain rot ends my career or kills me from boredom” I said dramatically.

“I think you just need some inspiration. Have you tried going out and talking to actual people?” Riya suggested.

“How dare you bring reality into this? The sole reason I do this is to escape reality.”

“You don’t need reality, just a hot muse to spice things up? How is online dating going? Maybe you met someone worth fantasizing about at least”, Julia said.

She was right. Even though my expectations of the universe were slim to none for a hopeless romantic, I was still holding out hope for love and, like a desperate little gremlin that I was, my idea of a fairytale romance was meeting someone on Tinder. Even as someone who mostly wrote romance, my standards for myself were exceptionally low, and even with those ground zero standards did I manage to find love? Of course not. I thought back to my past few dates.

***

“So, do you watch Bollywood romantic movies? Which is your favorite movie?”

I asked the guy I met through a dating app.

“Kabir Sigh”

He said, did I need to know more? Absolutely not. I paid half of the bill and stood up and left without saying another word.

***

“Tamasha is so overrated”

Another guy said and I repeated the same routine.

***

“Who even listens to Taylor Swift anyway?” Asked another.

“You got to be kidding me.”

I said as I sprinted out of there like my life depended on it.

***

“Yeah, none of those experiences are useful in my book research, but in hindsight it does prove my theory that I am going to die alone.”

If you ask me what it's like being an erotic writer, it’s kind of fun honestly. Even though it’s not what people read my stories for, I still worked really hard on my plots, and I was genuinely proud of my work. Unfortunately, today wasn’t one of those days. I hadn’t written anything worth a penny in months, and I was on the verge of giving up moving to the Himalayas and becoming a monk.

“Julia, will you please shut her up. I have got work to do”, Riya said.

“Don’t worry, I got this here” Julia said, handing me over her phone. “If this doesn’t inspire you, nothing will.”

And that was when I laid my eyes on Rayan for the first time. Little did I know that this gorgeous man on the screen of Julia’s phone was going to change my life forever, and apparently neither did Aliza.