When Paths cross...[Completed] - Page 4

marvellous update! Well written! Rahul n Anjali r twins! Geet n Anajli get along! Geet happy meeting them! she refuses to go to the movie! update soon!

Chapter Four

He looked over his shoulder, as he felt the familiar scent of sandalwood touching him, and of course he found her tapping her feet restlessly, standing on the line behind him waiting for her turn to order.

He was on one of the long lines at MC Donalds, in the mall with her standing just behind him, as he observed now. Rahul and Anjali, he checked on once more, were seated in the food court, and were waiting for him to return.

He saw her meet his gaze at the moment, his gaze swept past her face, her eyes lightening with recognition.

"Hey" she said, her voice soft.

"Are you following me?"

If anything, the small smile on her lips vanished as she looked at him, with creased brow.

"Sorry, I didn't catch your name. What is it? Barack Obama, or Bill Gates, or Hritik Roshan?"

His brown eyes were aglow with amusement as the crooked smile of his made its way to his lips.

"Maan. Maan Khurana"

"Bond. James Bond" he heard her add.

He smiled at her narrowed eyes.

"Are you always this cheezed off, or today is anything special?"

She sighed. "Sorry for the tantrum" she said. "It's just that I'm not in a great mood"

He gave her an understanding nod.

"But hello, not entirely my fault, what do you think you are? Tom Cruise, that I will follow you to secretly strike you when you are least expecting and kidnap you?"

"Doesn't seem impossible to me" he said but she recognized the crooked smile, and knew he was teasing her. Oh well, two can play the game at a time then.

"Just so as you know, the probability of you being a kidnapper is also there. Who knows, you have a chloroform coated hand kerchief stuffed in your pocket readily"

"You expect me to kidnap you with two kids in tow? Why would I need a third kid to baby sit?"

"Maybe you are hanging out with two kids to show you aren't that dangerous after all" she said with her hands crossed across her chest, and tilted her head in challenge. A beat later, the latter part of his sentence sunk in and her hands dropped to her sides. "Did you just call me a kid?"

He smiled at her, and turned to the counter, sensing it was his turn, and placed the order, moving aside, letting her to take the honour of ordering.

When she grudgingly placed her order, and moved aside, both waiting for their respective orders, she caught his eye and raised an eyebrow demanding an answer.

"Sorry if I mistook your age but the way you got along with my niece and giving competition to her to fight with my nephew, I had no choice not to"

"Anjali is sweet" she said as her defence.

"And what did Rahul do to you?"

"He is a brother. That's enough for him to get in my bad books."

Upon the bemusement in his eyes, she explained "Come on I am a tortured soul of a sister, and I vowed to protect every other sister like me, and be mean to every brother on planet earth"

"What's your age again Miss Geet?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You won't understand it Mr. Khurana"

"For your information, your attempts doesn't dodge Rahul's feelings towards you" Maan said in a conspiring tone. "The kid seems to have it bad, for you"

Geet looked at him, her face scrunched up, and saw a knowing smile on his lips. Looking over towards the seat where the kids sat, she saw Rahul give her a dreamy look, and almost gagged.

"Congratulations Miss Geet" he said, his voice amused "Or should I say welcome to the family?"

"Oh please," she said facing him "I can crush his crush in a second. I can give people lessons on how to do that. Dude, it is difficult to have someone fall for you, it is so damn easy to not let them"

Maan just crossed his arms, and raised his eyebrows.

"Don't believe it, do you?" she said facing him. "Why don't you bet Mr. Khurana?"

"I can't see you lose Miss. Geet"

"Ha ha" she said dryly. "One walnut Brownie please" she said to the girl and faced him. "You'll pay for it if I win" she said and walked towards the kids, while he stood there watching her back.

"Hi again" she said to the kids, pinched the nose of Anjali playfully, next she went to Rahul, who removed his baseball cap the moment she was close, lest she pull it over his eyes again.

She grinned at him and ruffled his hair, next, she pulled his cheeks, and called him "Cute kid"

After a while, she returned to Maan and said in a breathless whisper "Yoohoo! He hates me"

Despite himself, Maan smiled.

"You don't have to buy a Walnut Brownie, you need to earn it" she said attempting a deep rumble of a voice, and giggled as their orders arrived.

As Geet met Maan's eyes, she saw his gaze stop at her face a moment longer than necessary, and she thought she saw something in his eyes, something strange and magnetic but the moment passed, as soon as it had come. However, that small moment made her smile freeze, as the air around them suddenly seemed strange, tensed.

"Uh" she said trying to pick the conversation they left, while Maan placed the Brownie in her tray, and together they made their way towards the food court.

"It takes more than that for someone to hate you Miss Geet" he had said, and while she had tried to understand what he meant by the cryptic statement, they already reached the kid's table. While he placed his tray on the table, Geet smiled good-naturedly at the kids, and feeling awkward, started to make a move.

"Geet?" she heard him call, dropping the Miss, he usually used.

Surprised, Geet turned towards him.

"You can sit with us" Maan said, and for a moment Geet looked at him, not breaking the gaze, knowing that it wasn't an order, but an offer.

When she averted her eyes after a moment, she wasn't sure why she felt her heartbeat pick up speed.

"I would love to" Geet said avoiding his gaze, strictly looking at a smiling Anjali "But I'm sorry, I am with someone" she said, looking over her shoulder, and soon enough Maan saw the man who came into the washroom talking on phone wave at her.

Maan gave her a nod, while Geet walked towards her own table.

As they both took their respective places, in their respective tables, they strangely still lived in the conversation that happened a few minutes ago, one of them silently shutting out an inner voice and concentrating on the kids, while the other blocking out the voice of the man before her and slipping into the recent past.

Chapter Five

"Do you like kids?" Geet asked absentmindedly as she tore her gaze away from the table opposite to hers, where two kids and a man were busy shaking French fries added with piri piri mix.

Karan seemed to be taken aback with the question, but there was a knowing smile on his lips, as he grinned at her.

"Do you?" he asked her.

"I am discovering I do" Geet replied, her eyes flitting away towards Rahul who was slurping the coke in the loudest sound as possible, and giving a hi-five to his Mamu at a grossed out Anjali.

They are ganging up against the sweet child, being their boys self? Geet thought infuriated. But the next moment, her anger fled out of the window as she saw Maan talking Anjali to eat the Mc flurry, wiping the corner of her lips with a tissue. He looked so into the kids, genuinely tuned into their conversations, and laughed with them that she felt herself smile at the picture they painted.

"I can help you have one or two" Karan grinned at her, while Geet met his gaze, half tuned out of the conversation.

"Kids" he supplied and winked at her.

Gag, gag. Puke, puke.

This was her problem. Though Karan was genuinely a nice guy; him and her were a generation apart. Maan was right in asking her age. Geet knew she couldn't take to adult conversation without gagging. She puked at the attempt of flirting, and almost ran away if someone complimented her.

Her definition of an ideal date wasn't light flirting or getting to know each other in a private conversation, rather playing video games, or watching superhero movies, and cheering for it.

Kuch kuch hota hain had in fact ruined her for life. For her Pyar, dosti hain. If the person can't be a close friend of hers, with whom she could be herself with her usual unruly curls, and baggy jeans, with whom she could laugh, tease and yet find an undiminished attraction, she can't hope to see a future for them.

Knowing each other doesn't need candle light dinners for her, it should develop in so many smaller moments spent with each other, fighting, laughing, taunting, and caring. That was the reason why she was so against Meher playing her god mother setting her up.

But of course due to her misplaced sense of guilt, she couldn't let Karan down, by not turning up.

Kill me, she thought to herself once more and slurped on her coke, making Karan stop and stare at her strangely.

For the first time since she met him, she saw his permanent adoration stuck face crack to reveal a matured adult who was disgruntled at her unlady like slurping.

"Whoops" she said pressing a hand against her mouth swallowing a giggle.

There, she got her answer already. She thought she judged him harshly and wasn't giving him a chance to really get to know him, but she felt a lot better knowing that her hunch was true. Being fully blown away by a person and liking everything they do in the beginning of a relationship, and as the initial excitement slowly fades away, feeling disgruntled and resenting the cracks in their behaviour wasn't new to her. And she was glad that the Achilles's heel that her behaviour was, already bothered Karan.

"Babes, I love you as much I love him. He's my bestie, but so are you. If you feel uncomfortable with him, just text me, and I'll deal with him" Meher's instruction came back to her, and Geet took her mobile before texting a short but swift message to Meher.

"Save me from the grown up man" she said, and Meher didn't take more than five minutes in joining them.

As Meher returned, the conversation simply flowed, as Meher took away the spotlight from Geet much to her relief. As Geet heard their conversation which was zooming over her head, her eyes flitted over to the table, and she felt a slight beat of disappointment to find it empty.

She chewed onto the spoon absentmindedly as she emptied the hazelnut brownie. Her smile deepened as she saw the now empty cup.

Picking it up by the rim, she turned it between her fingers, hearing a voice in her head.

"It takes more than that for someone to hate you Miss Geet"

Her eyes flitted to the tissue that was under the walnut brownie cup all the time and her eyes scrunched as she found an elegant scrawl on it.

Her heart raced, as she reached for it, making sure her small movement is unnoticed by the friends who were deep in the conversation.

"Anjali tells me you are a die-hard fan of Captain America, and that she wants to rescue you from a certain Bunty"whatever that means. Rahul tells me he wants to date you. If you wish to fulfil either of the kids' wishes, you ought to come to screen 3. I would be made to wait at the entrance by the kids

"Maan"

A bubble of laughter escaped her, which she covered with a pretended cough, as two set of eyes stared at her, bemused.

"Karan, Meher" Geet said standing up. "Emergency. I get to go. Nice meeting you Karan. I will explain later Meher."

With that said, she dashed away.

Meher texted Geet "That was rude. But I smell something cooking. What's it?"

Karan wondered why instead of taking the stairs downward, Geet seemed to go to the top floor of the mall, but kept the thought to himself.

While after two minutes, Meher's mobile buzzed "I've a date, with two hunks and a new best friend. Details later ;)"

The End

Alright, the story turned out to be neither sappy, nor romantic, but take it as a small gift to beat the heat this summer. The story ends here since their paths crossed, leaving ahead a multitude of friendships and other possibilities. Hope you all enjoyed it.