Khushi walked into the house after the servant had let her in. The house was filled with complete silence, she assumed that most of the family was probably out. The servant told her that Arnav was in his room, so she made her way towards the stairs. Khushi noticed that it now had railings, she smiled to herself as she went upstairs, she would have to thank him for this. And also for a lot of other things he had done for her.
She knocked in his door and heard a 'come in' from the other side and turned the knob to enter.
She walked in and saw that his back was turned towards her, he was removing something from his wardrobe. There was a suitcase layer open on his bed, and he turned around to put something in it.
"Hey," he said in a husky voice once he saw her, and she broke out of her reverie of staring at him.
"Hi," Khushi replied.
Arnav had been running late because the meeting in the morning had took longer than expected. And of course he had forgotten to pack for the trip and told Khushi that he would be late, but she said she'd come straight here and then they could leave from here.
He zipped up the suitcase and checked around the room for last minute things, picking up his keys from the nightstand he walked towards her. And he noticed what she was wearing for the first time since she entered.
"You're not wearing a dress today," he said looking at her.
"You don't like it?" Khushi asked looking at what she was wearing today. She had decided to wear a pair of black skinny jeans with a red top.
"No," he said walking towards her and she diverted her eyes away from him,, "Red is my favorite color," he stopped and stood right in front of her. She looked up at him and noticed he had a slight smirk playing on his lips.
"Aur tumhari naak bhi laal ho gaye hai," Arnav added flicking her nose. Khushi's eyes widened a bit at his actions and she saw him leaning towards her.
She turned her head to the side and he smiled. He grabbed around her to the door that had closed, "Chalein? (Shall we go?)" he whispered into her ear.
********
Arnav sipped his black coffee and blacked the mug in front of him as he watched her continue to talk. They had come to this coffee shop an hour ago and she had started talking right away. In the past, he had never done this with other women that he'd dated. Well if you would count it dating, because a lot of them were just relationships for benefits of their business or just physical.
Not had he ever sat down like this and held such a long conversation with someone. He had always found it difficult to hold up and continue a conversation. Formal conversations about business didn't bother him, but at times like this one he always ran out of stuff to say. But with Khushi, he didn't have to worry about that. Ever since they had ordered, she had started talking, and hasn't stopped since then. Occasionally she would ask him something and he would just smile and nod, then she'd continue. But he didn't mind this at all, and was rather enjoying it.
“Do you come here often?” she asked looking around the coffee shop.
“Not really, but occasionally Aman schedules a meetup with some business partners here,” Arnav said picking up his cup to take another sip of his coffee.
“Aman?” she enquired.
“He’s been my PA ever since I started the business, and he’ll be coming to New York also,” he replied and he got a confused expression from her, “There was a change of plans and stuff, now Akash will be handling the AR branch here, and then Aman, along with his wife will be accompanying us to New York.”
“He’s coming to the engagement on Saturday, I’ll introduce you to him,” he added finishing his coffee.
"Do you want anything more?" he asked looking at her empty cup also.
"No, I'm done," she said, "what time is your flight?"
"It leaves in 3 hours, but I have to be there two hours early," he replied.
"Hmm," she said and nodded, "we should get going then."
As they stepped out of the shop, she continued her chattering and asked more about him. While walking on the sidewalk, Khushi felt some wetness against her skin. She ignored it thinking it was nothing, but a few seconds it fell harder. Looking up they saw that it had started sprinkling and in just a few moments turned into rain.
“We won’t be able to make it to the car if it stays like this,” Arnav told her; he quickly took her hand and led them to a canopy on one of the stores before either of them got wet.
People were rushing through the streets trying to get out of the rain, some now had umbrellas to keep themselves dry. The rain didn’t seem like it was going to stop in a few minutes, so they’d have to wait some time for it. The breeze had picked up and it was getting windy.
Arnav looked at the time on his watch, hoping that the rain would decrease quickly so he would have enough time to drop of Khushi and get to the airport on time.
He looked at her and saw that she had taken a seat on one of the outside chairs and was looking around while biting her lip, which he had seen over the past week she did without knowing she was doing it. And it wasn’t helping in his urge to want to just grab her and kiss her senseless, but he didn’t want to rush her into anything. She needed her space to get used to it, to them, and he wanted to give that space to her. Then is if on cue she turned to look towards him, she moved her eyes up asking him what he was thinking about.
Khushi got up and approached him, “The rain doesn’t seem like it will stop, and it’s just pouring down more and more. It’ll be hard for me to get to the car with this kind of weather, and you need to catch your flight on time, so maybe you should just leave and when it clears up I’ll take a rickshaw home.”
“Khushi I already told you that you aren’t taking the rickshaw again, ever,” Arnav gritted through his teeth. Why was she so hell bent on risking her life?
Khushi then remembered to how when they were in the car ride to the coffee shop earlier he had asked how she got to his house since there wasn’t anyone else that came. Khushi had replied that she had taken the rickshaw, and in that moment she had seen anger rise within him. He had completely called her out for it and told her it wasn’t safe for her to be taking the rickshaw, well any public transportation for that case. He didn’t want her to get hurt, and knowing that people here weren’t the nicest, always being pushy and fighting for a rickshaw. Arnav had requested to her that she never use the rickshaw again, and just call him and he’d send over one of the drivers. As much as she tried to refuse it, saying that she had been using the public transportation all her life and didn’t have problems with it, he wasn’t someone who would budge and change his decision.
“I’ll call Payal of Lavanya and ask one of them to pick me up,” she replied back.
But she only got a “are-you-kidding-me?” look from him. Like hell he was going to leave her all alone here in this kind of weather, and that too after their date.
“You’re coming with me,” he replied sternly.
“But the rain isn’t stopping and you’re going to miss your flight if we stay here longer,” she told him.
“So lets go to the car,” he said.
“But it’s going to take me such a long time to walk to the car, and we’ll both get completely drenched in this rain,” she replied.
“Who said anything about you walking,” he said to her, and what he did next swept her off her feet – literally.
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