Love- All : Part 1

Rian (25, civil engineering MSc) and Aanya (24, M Arch) meet at the Edinburgh university tennis club trials. Over the first chapters they build a slow friendship through counted rallies, old-town walks, Rian's bent umbrella, Aanya's sketch of a sandstone wall, and her band Tin Lantern's bookshop gig, where Rian calls her original song his "ninth honest thing." Chapters 13 to 16 give their backstories. Rian grew up in Mumbai with doctor parents and a younger sister, Riddhi. Aanya grew up between Pune and Singapore, carrying the memory of her parents' volatile marriage and a private sketchbook "archive." The pub incident at the Ox & Anchor shows their trust: she handles it first, he de-escalates without violence, and her wrist-grab flashback comes out of it. The middle stretch builds the romance and the stakes. They waltz at the formal, both wanting a kiss, and Rian waits so she can choose. At the Highland bothy she tells him "it's when, not if." Her thesis, "The Third Course," is built around that old wall, and Rian secretly helps with the structural load path. Then both get offers: a lead role in Mumbai for him, a Glasgow set-design placement for her. A June blow-up ("there isn't an us") leads to secret letters, and they agree to make no future decisions until 30 August and open sealed envelopes together at the wall. The Fringe show "Threshold" brings Dr. Ferrier, who offers Rian a third option in Edinburgh. After that comes a long run of near-kisses: the library at 3am, Kathak lessons, the palm-up/palm-down signal after a trigger from her past, tennis-court coaching, a thunderstorm in an equipment shed, a night match, and a dawn session where "Love-All" is explained as the starting score. In chapter 33 she nearly breaks the rule at midnight, he refuses to be her "anaesthetic," she almost says "I love…" and then says "…that you're so annoying," and she falls asleep on his sofa holding his hand….. (to be continued in love all - book 1)