The first time she saw him that evening was when Yash and Meera danced around with her in between like a human sand which. Her head had lolled back tickled with laughter by their silly ways of doing a three couple dance so that she wasn't left alone. But when he came into her view, standing in a corner with his steady gaze on her, greeting her with his unabashed smirk, her smile stilled and she walked out of their hold to join the line at the nearest food counter.
The orange lanterns strung over the entire stretch lolled in the gentle evening breeze, as if the night had come up with a hundred suns for the occasion, while the opulent lush scents of yellowing maple and dark cinnamon lingered in the air.
She smiled watching him lean back with his palm carelessly perched over the edge of the wall, his hair being ruffled by the last of the wind that was beginning to mellow down, his tie loosened at his neck as a school boy's and his eyes were else where lost without searching as he sipped his beer.
The line progressed by the dessert counters and she picked a mini peach tart to go stand by the far end of the sit-out that was still surprisingly unoccupied.
She spotted him near by from the corner of her eye even before she could look up, placing him to her left. "No simply complicated beverages tonight?" He asked hinting at the creative cocktails they were serving at the bar.
"No..." She said, as she took a bite of the tart, "I figured that would just make things complex..."
He smiled as he took the pool chair opposite to her looking every bit pleased that he'd finally found someone who got his private geeky jokes.
Despite having worked with him for a full week, she still hadn't developed a sadistic streak yet and so, she decided to ignore that he'd managed to come by to a party at which he's usually never there...
"Is it weird?" Her face tipped to one side as she broached an obvious subject without choice, "Working with me at office in a official capacity and also hanging out at the official fall block party as apartment mates"
"Is that how they are calling it nowadays?" He was drinking liquor from a glass, now, instead of the beer she'd first seen him with, "I believe calling me your neighbor is no longer in usage...Too old-fashioned?"
"Of course not" She shook her head as she took another bite, "That would just make the whole deal a bit more personal. If you keep it Apartment mates you still get to ignore me at the elevator if we cross paths again outside office" She shrugged lightly and then a taunting smile came over her face, "But the neighbor deal is a bit more work, you see. You might have to smile at me, chit-chat, inquire on that bandaged leg of mine, sometimes even picnic together and the whole nine yards...It just borders on being friends and all"
At first, she'd gone off without any direction, but then again she suspected, as she continued, that there had been an unconscious motive behind her having intentionally called him apartment mate, all along.
"Hey! What are you guys upto?" Yash showed up with Meera following him closely within seconds of her long discourse without giving him an opportunity to counter her unreasonable theory.
"Nothing...I was just telling Maan..." She looked at Meera for a beat, for having addressed him by his first name and went on, ignoring her piercing stare, "That Yash here is a model NY neighbor..."
Although it took Meera a moment to react, she came back in her snippy style that she reserved exclusively for Yash, never wanting to pass an instance she could pick on him. "And our every nightmare..."
Yash seated himself next to Geet and Meera by the edge of the same pool chair.
"So much so that..." Geet rested her elbow on Yash's shoulder and added, "he begins worrying if we are running out of milk at home..."
"For his daily dose of adrak chai" Meera rolled her eyes, "And ever since Geet is here, I'm starting to think he's moved in permanently..."
"Why not? She is god sent... " Yash circled Geet's neck and pulled her affectionately to him as she tried to fight off his grip by tugging at his wrist.
"For the kind of food she makes, I would move in with anybody, even you..." He pointed at Meera who wrinkled her nose and made a face at him.
All week, she'd observed a trend in the cutting remarks exchanged between Yash and Meera always ascending its peak with the climbing nightfall. As though some secret hope that had come with the rise of the morning was dying as the day drew to its end. Their fights often reminded her of a child's pretend dislike for a lollipop only because she couldn't have it. Almost as if the child can manage living next to the lollipop if it could muster an intense hatred for the sweet treat.
Her efforts to get out of his hold began to die down and when she turned her eyes to him, she saw him look intently into the glass that was nearly empty as if the bartender had promised salvation at the end of that drink, his eyes fiery with an intensity she hadn't seen there before.
"I need to freshen my drink..."He said, "Excuse me..." Since he didn't offer to get drinks for the others she thought it was a taken he had no intention to join them back. A sliver of a panic rose to her lips and minutes later, she found herself standing behind him at the bar upon having excused from her bickering friends for needing a drink herself.
"A scotch on the rocks, please" She heard him tell the guy behind the counter and when the bartender gestured at her, she placed her order too.
"I will have an Iced tea please..." She said, as he turned and gave her a small smile, "And can you put my tab on Yash Mehra..."
"Let me buy you that drink..." His index finger stalled her even before she could begin to refuse. "No...Put her drink on my tab..." He spoke directly to the bartender this time while he continued to face her.
"I think I owe you for all that I put you through...I'm sure after that evening I'm your least favorite person in that world..."
She'd been looking down at how her fingers had not showed any signs to stop twisting around her one index finger when he'd addressed her and his wry tone made her raise her eyes to him. "No...you are my most favorite person in the world..." She blurted and added after a quick breath, "for now..."
Like putting an expiry on her fondness explained any of that, she told herself.
"Thank you..." Improving on the situation seemed attractive to her and she did just that to justify her earlier statement while her smile lingered, "It means a lot to me. You helped me get my pride back in their eyes...That was very thoughtful. You had it all planned..." Her tone lowered and sounded supposing when she began to contemplate even as she spoke, "You knew exactly what you were doing then..."
There hadn't been much of a pause when she voiced her just sprung doubts, but their orders had arrived by then and so she moved a bit closer to the bar to pick up her glass.
"But..." Her brows had knitted together by then, her head tipped sideways "What I never understood is why you would have thought that I wouldn't have given up half way through those hours and walked out of your room..."
It didn't seem like he would give up his silence any time sooner when he was thoroughly amused, curious even at what she'd to tell him. She felt possessed and her thoughts came out like he had been waiting to hear them out.
"I mean for the first hour, you paid attention to me as much as you did to your table and chair. In the second hour, you hardly spoke and if you did, it were to tell me that I was doing it all wrong. The third and fourth hour felt like you were making me pay for your past life grudge on me...What if I had wanted nothing to do with that kind of work after that?
His brow finally raised in response, "You wanted it, all right..."
"You wouldn't know that..." She seemed offended that he could claim with such certainty, "I wanted the job. Yes. But how you approached everything that evening was a bit extreme too. Don't tell me, you could tell from my face that I would have survived all that? I can't be that transparent, can I?"
"No...you're not..." He raised his glass to his eyes and squinted, as if he was hiding behind the shiny amber liquid that smoothly shifted in the glass, his smile peaking with sarcasm, "by an inch..."
"What?" Her face lit with horror. What was he talking about?
"You wiggle your toes inside your shoes when you are nervous" Her eyes followed his as it dropped down to her feet, "Your fingers get twisted like a fisherman's knot. And..."
"Your eyes look anywhere but the person intimidating you..." He held her eyes and like clockwork she did want to look at anyone but him, but he'd provoked her enough that it didn't take much effort to put all that growing sense of denseness into keeping her gaze at him.
"You want to know what you give away, Maan?" Her tone showed no trace of her pique, "That you enjoy every bit of it when you do that to me..."
It surprised her much when he chose to react to her words. Sliding his half finished drink on the bar top, along with a few dollar bills, he was gone walking towards the crowd swaying to the music of the evening being played by a band at the other end.
She couldn't tear her eyes away from his back when her insides twisted with irrepressible guilt and as she watched him, her initial thought that she needn't have lashed out as intended, despite him having said those implying words, crusted in her mind. There had been an upsurge of anger when he'd exposed her the way he did - when it had taken her everything to keep up the facade - but only seconds later, however late, she'd realized it had been misdirected at him, when she'd been indignant with her own self for having been an easy read to him.
Five days were lifetimes in themselves to live and die in other worlds. Five days were also endless periods of infinity where one day chased the other into a time warp. Those five days bringing things unnamed into being and taking away some. And so, five days were more than enough time for an emotion to be born, felt and to want to evade it...
She did evade it then.
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