I just landed a few minutes ago, I’ll call you later.
Khushi read the message on her phone.
“Who is it?” Lavanya asked seeing her look at her phone. She came with the bowl of popcorn and took the seat that was next to her on the sofa.
“Arnav, he said he just landed and will call later,” she replied.
“Hmm,” Lavanya said stuffing her mouth with the popcorn, then offered some to Khushi who grabbed a handful also, “So you never told me how this all happened though.”
“What happened?” Khushi asked. Lavanya grabbed the remote and started scanning through the channels, “Oh for God’s sake Khushi, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Your wedding obviously!”
“My wedding hasn’t happened yet,” Khushi said.
“Yeah, but it will in some weeks.” she said and fixed the tv to a channel that had a movie going on, “Ohh and let’s watch this film, I haven’t seen it in a long time,” she then turned back to Khushi, “So tell me how it all happened. I can’t believe it, my best friend getting married to one of the biggest bachelors in the country. Who would’ve ever thought?”
Khushi narrated to her the story of how Arnav and his family had come over and all the misunderstandings that had originally happened.
“So he’s pretty serious about this then,” Lavanya added.
“La it’s marriage, so obviously he will be serious about this,” Khushi added.
“That’s true, marriage is a big commitment,” she said, “So do you love him?”
“Love?! La you know what happened last time. I thought I was falling in love with him, but maybe that was just because of the situations we were in at that time. And now I don’t want for that to happen again. We’ve only known each other from some time, and yes I do like Arnav, and he’s trying hard to make this work. But I don’t think love has made its way into the relationship this early, well for me at least it hasn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to bring the past up,” she replied.
“I know you didn’t,” Khushi said turning back to the movie.
After some time of silence Lavanya asked her, “So have you both kissed yet?”
“La you’ll never change!” Khushi answered back chucking one of the side pillows at her as Lavanya went to get more popcorn.
“So is that a yes or no?” Lavanya teased her with a full grin on her face while putting on her slippers.
“No!” she replied and curtly turned away from Lavanya pretending to be watching the movie.
“Khushi you’re getting married to such a handsome business, atl east make a move!” Lavanya yelled from the kitchen and Khushi’s thoughts went back to some hours ago.
********
Khushi didn’t have any time to respond verbally as he lifted her up and ran through the rain to where the car was parked, so she held onto his shoulders by instinct. There weren’t many people out so that was good, but the ones that were nearby just smiled. Once reaching the car, he put her down.
“What was that?!” she asked.
“What?” he asked.
“You can’t just pick me up like that,” she replied.
“And why can’t I?” he asked again.
“Because you can’t! We could’ve waited, or you could’ve just gone,” she answered back.
“I can if I want to and no one will stop me. And I wasn’t just going to leave you there in this kind of weather,” he replied opening the car door and motioned her to get in it. Arnav went to the other side and got in also then pulled out of the parking lot. A few minutes later she hadn’t spoken anything and he looked over at her to see her looking out the window.
“...Are you mad?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” she answered still not looking towards him. Arnav contemplated her reply, it shouldn’t matter at all, but at the same time it did matter to him. He didn’t expect for the date to end like this and on top of that he didn’t want to leave her in a foul mood and come back for the engagement in a few days then act like as if nothing happened. But he wasn’t the kind that would apologize for his behavior, he never had done in the past and he wasn’t going to change that now.
**********
-- Three days later—
Arnav walked into his room and threw his bag in the corner. He was supposed to arrive yesterday, but do to some error of the plan his stay had got extended and it took longer. Di and Nani had bombarded him with calls over this spam of time, telling him that he better be there in time for the engagement. And now when he had come home, he saw that all the preparations had been done, and Di had told him to quickly go get ready and come down as he was already late
After taking a shower and changing, Arnav headed down. While walking down the stairs Arnav was clasping on his watch and didn’t notice when he bumped into another figure, who happened to be going up. On instinct his hands went forward and he caught the figure from the waist, dropping his watch in the process, which landed with a shatter as it made its way down the flight of stairs.
Khushi was going up the stairs as Di had asked her to call down Arnav, but being too engrossed into looking at the ground she had bumped into someone; and closed her eyes in anticipation of falling back but it never came. Instead she had felt another pair of arms engulf her and she slowly opened her eyes to see who it was. Her eyes were met with a pair of brown ones that were looking down at her.
Realizing the position they were in, Khushi moved out of his hold created some distance between them.
“Tum teek ho?” he asked and she nodded, not giving a verbal response.
“Di said to call you to come down,” she added adjusting her dupatta.
“Let’s go then,” he replied and led her down also. Once reaching the bottom she saw some small pieces of shattered glass and she gasped bringing her hands to her mouth, “I broke your watch,” she exclaimed.
“It’s fine Khushi,” he told her.
“It must’ve been so expensive,” she added.
“I have many more, just don’t step on the glass. I’ll get one of the servants to come clean it up before someone hers hurt,” Arnav said moving her around and away from the glass.
The engagement was supposed to be a small affair, with only close friends and family invited, and some business partners of the Raizada’s. Arnav had asked for Aman to keep the media strictly away, he didn’t want any specific details to go out or it become a problem later. Especially keep Khushi and her family’s name out of it all, he didn’t want for the media to get involved in their business and trouble them. A public statement was going to be made by him about his engagement tomorrow, but he didn’t want any pictures or anything printed that would allow for Khushi to also become a target to the media.
As the party progressed, Arnav introduced her to many of his business people. Khushi wasn’t used to going to these kinds of parties in the past, so she didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know anyone other than her family and his, also everyone we engrossed in conversations with one another, and she didn’t know how add as they were talking about business.
“Khushi this is Aman,” Arnav told her as they were approached by a couple, “And this is his wife Piya.” Both of them looked like they were in their mid or late 20s. The man was wearing a suit, his hair a bit curly and a pair of glasses framed his eyes. The woman had on a lime green anarkali, and her hair was curled, ending just a few inches past her shoulders.
As they talked, Khushi realized that she loved their nature. They both seemed very sweet, and by the way that Arnav and Aman conversed, it seemed that they have known each other for quite some time. While she was still talking to Piya, someone called Arnav’s name and he turned around. Khushi felt as if she knew that voice and turned around also, excusing herself from Piya. But her view of the person was covered by Arnav.
“Nice to see that you could make it on such a late notice,” she heard Arnav’s voice as he talked to the guest.
“It’s a pleasure to have come,” the other voice replied.
As Arnav turned towards her she was able to see who it was, “This is Khushi,” he said introducing them, “Khushi this is Shyam Manohar Jha, we’ve just recently started working with them a few weeks back,” looking at her but saw the the smile she had been wearing on her face from the beginning of the party and disappeared.
“We’ve met before,” he heard Shyam add. Arnav remembered the Shyam had told him about where he had attended college, and it was the same one Khushi had gone to, but before he could ask them about this he heard Khushi’s voice as she added, “We were supposed to get married.”
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