Chapter 4

shazia

@xarmaanx

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--

armaan blinked.

He was in way out of his league.

Burly bikers hollered for service as pimply teenagers rushed around, frantically trying to please the orders of various customers. Grease clung to the air, the smell of French fries and oily plates of burgers wafting over to their table. armaan looked at a gleeful ridz. She grinned back at him. He shook his head in disbelief.

He was in a dingy old diner.

ridz had nearly laughed at the shocked expression on armaans face when she had dragged him from in front a fancy French restaurant to a small, bustling diner across the street. It had taken her a full ten minutes to convince him to eat there, and there was no way she was leaving now. Grabbing a fork, she offered it to armaan. He raised his eyebrows.

"Is it clean?" he whispered, inspecting the chopsticks skeptically.

ridz rolled her eyes. Stabbing into her chilli cheese fries, she waited until armaan opened his mouth to complain about the place again before shoving it into his mouth. armaan looked appropriately mortified with bits of cheese hanging out of his mouth.

"Chew" she commanded.

Inwardly grumbling,armaan began to chew. Pregnant women are so bossy, he thought grumpily as he bit down on the heavily laden chips. His bright blue eyes widened at the delicious taste ridzlooked smug.

"Good isn't it?"

armaan mumbled something about it being 'alright'. ridz laughed. armaan couldn't help but smile. Her joy was infectious. They shared a knowing look.ridz felt her skin tingle with excitement as she stared into armaan's eyes. Her stomach fluttered. armaan swallowed discreetly. He could hear his heart thumping in his ears. He slowly tilted his head towards ridz, and she the same. Their lips were centimetres when the chubby boss behind the counter loudly yelled to them,

"That'll be twenty dollars, you crazy ppl!"

armaan and ridz jolted apart like they had been electrocuted. ridz looked away, flushing with embarrassment. armaan coughed violently. Cue awkward silence. Finally, armaan spoke, his voice two octaves higher than it usually was.

"We should finish eating. I'll take you hom-I mean, to muskaan's place" he mumbled, stuffing his mouth with noodles.

ridz nodded, before inwardly groaning.

She couldn't wait to be interrogated by muskaan and angie--

"Oh. My. God"

"Do you think she's crazy?"

"Maybe it's the hormones. I mean, ridz wouldn't do that if she didn't have five extra kilos dragging her down, right?"

"Did you just call our godchild extra baggage?"

"I may have"

"angie!"

"What? I'm just saying, nearly kissing the guy that raped your virginity doesn't exactly counts as sane, you know"

"For the last time, I wasn't raped!"

ridz glared at her two best friends as they sprawled across muskaan's four-poster bed. Sometimes she really regretted telling her friends everything. angie grinned sheepishly. muskaan played with her hair.ridz groaned, flopping onto her back. angie quirked an eyebrow.

"So, are you saying that you were perfectly willing to get yourself knocked up by armaan malik playboy extraordinaire?"

ridz rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

"No, I'm just saying that we both had a little too much to drink and ended up doing something we both regretted. Didn't we go through this last month?" she retorted.

"He wasn't even talking to you last month! Now the playboy's taking responsibility! Major plot development, girl!" muskaan snapped her fingers sassily.

ridz  groaned. The girl had watched too many TV shows. angie giggled. Then, her hazel eyes twinkled.

"Hey ridz...when you said he leant in, what did you do?"

ridz  spluttered on her Coke. She played with the hem of the blanket as muskaan and angie waited, knowing smirks playing on their lips.

"Er… well, I kind of, maybe tilted my head a bit too" she mumbled incoherently, hoping they didn't hear.

Unfortunately for ridz, her best friends had superhuman hearing when they wanted to.

"WHAT?! OH MY GOD WHY DID YOU DO THAT? DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT HE DID TO YOU? YOU JUST CAN'T GO AROUND KISSING JACKASSES, RIDDIHMA GUPTA !" angie screeched.

ridz cringed at her friend's shrill rant. She looked expectantly at muskaan waiting for another shocked outburst. She looked deep in thought, cocking her head to the side as she stared at ridz

"What?"

"You really like him, don't you?"

ridz spluttered again, coughing violently.muskaan  dutifully patted her back, shaking her head. ridz looked away in embarrassment. angie stifled a giggle. ridz reddened.

"Um..." she stuttered.

angie  and muskaan looked at each other. ridz was always bad at lying.

"Girl, you got it bad"

--

atul and rahul blinked, before bursting into raucous laughter. armaan huffed at his friends, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. Sometimes he regretted telling everything to his friends. atul raised an eyebrow.

"Drama queen much, armaan malik?"

rahul snickered, before a lightbulb went off in his head. A knowing smirk spread across his handsome face.

"Dude, you totally like her! As in like-like, not the I-wanna-get-in-your-pants like. Like you actually car-"

"I do not!" armaan almost yelled out, steam coming out of his ears.

atul chuckled at the nervous expression on his flushed face. The poor boy's finally fallen in love, he thought ruefully. After years of watching armaan  play with so many girls' hearts, he was actually kind of glad that a girl had caught armaan off guard for once. Even if it was a nobody like riddihma gupta

armaan  rolled his eyes.

"For the last time guys, I don't like riddihma! I'm just there for the baby. No strings attached"

"No strings attached? You knocked her up! You've attached your strings a long time ago. The strings are like so stringy they're like, heaps of strings stringed together-" rahul ranted

"Enough with the strings! Just tell us the truth, do you like her or not?" atul interrupted.

armaan  bit his lip.

"Define like"

rahul smacked his hand on his forehead. atul shook his head.

"Dude, you are so into her"