CHAPTER TWELVE
Sharon was sitting with a grumpy face beside him and Swayam was now driving since forty-five minutes but they both hadn't found her CHOCOLATE ICE- CREAM yet; and to add to Swayam's dismay Sharon was getting impatient with every passing second."Sharon let's get back home! I will bring you chocolate Ice-Cream, the first thing tomorrow morning." Swayam suggested wishing in his heart she would oblige.
But she was Sharon Shekhawat! What she wants she gets! She looked back at him with draggers in her eyes and Swayam quietly pulled the car forward because he wished to live for few more years.
"What is it when they talk about the bloody night life?" Sharon cribbed getting impatient now.
How could you just not get something as common as a chocolate Ice-Cream!
"Swayam , find me a chocolate Ice- Cream please!" Sharon said pleading like a child pleads to his parent for a new toy.
Swayam looked at her smiling at her cuteness and turned his eyes on the road and saw one oce-cream stall at the far end of the road.
"Sharon! Look there! There is an Ice-Cream stall!" Swayam excitedly pointed towards it and Sharon followed the direction of his finger and clapped her hands happily at the sight.
"Ice-Cream!" She screeched in happiness which Swayam cut off.
"Chocolate Ice-Cream!" He said making his eyes go wider and she smiled broadly at him.
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"Where is the vendor, mahn?" Swayam looked around keeping his hands on his hips. When his eyes fell on a sleeping figure on a bench near the stall.
He calculated something in his mind and moved towards him shaking him wildly while Sharon watched him shocked.
"What the hell Swayam? What are you doing?" She tried to stop him but the guy had turned unstoppable.
The man stirred in his sleep and woke up shocked and scared with an unfamiliar face hovering over his head.
"Excuse Me Sir, do you own this stall?" Sharon and the man watched him stunned.
The man nodded his head in daze. Swayam's face shone with a smile brighter than the stars.
Finally he has found it!
"You think you have chocolate ice cream in there?" Swayam asked immediately.
"Yes!" The man answered still not over the shock.
"OH MY GOD!!!" Swayam hugged him tightly while the man couldn't even understand what was happening to him.
"Please! Please! Please! Will you give me? My wife is pregnant and is craving for it! To be frank, acting like a mad woman without it!" Swayam mumbled softly but Sharon heard him all right and opened her mouth at his audacity rewarding him with a smack on his arm.
***************
Five minutes later, Sharon was eating two chocolates ice creams at the same time relishing the flavors in her mouth totally lost in some chocolate dreamland and Swayam watched her happy face with a smile. The smile which gave his life a meaning. The smile for which he lived his life.
"Who would believe she was going to be a mother pretty soon and was carrying a baby already? Such a child she was!" Swayam thought to himself and shook his head at her adorable antics.
Looking up Sharon found him smiling at her and she smiled back at him mumbling a "Thank You" to him before getting lost in her chocolate world again.
*****************
Swayam drove back home with a sleeping Sharon on the beside seat. He felt tired, sleepy and yet so content. This day had turned out to be the best day since past five months. He stopped the car in the garage and looked at Sharon who was sleeping in deep slumber, he didn't have the heart to disturb and wake her up so he stepped out of the car and opening her side of the door he leaned forward to pick her up in his arms. She looked so innocent, a broken angel, that is what she was. He sighed and slowly picked her up as she adjusted her head in the crook of his neck. Swayam felt a sensation run through his body and his heart skip a beat. For a moment he didn't wish to move. He wished the moment to last forever. He stared at her lovingly and then sighing he opened to door somehow and moved towards her room.
Moments do not last forever, after all.
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Swayam lay her down on the bed slowly and covered her with blanket. She looked at peace. His eyes travelled to her baby bump and suddenly an urge to touch it and feel started overpowering his senses. He slowly hesitantly leaned towards her stomach and watched, just simply watched. He didn't know if she would like it if he touched her, she had never allowed him come near herself, a safe distance that is what she maintained. He wanted to feel his baby, he hadn't been able to do that in the six months but he didn't want to breach whatever little trust he had seen in her eyes today for himself after so long. He looked back at her face, she slept, and sighed as he started to move away but she turned to a side in her sleep and held his hand. Swayam looked down but didn't try to pull her hand away, he kept staring at her and he didn't know when sleep took over him and he slept.
***********
How can someone feel so familiar and so alien at the same time?
Sharon thought as she looked down at the sleeping figure of Swayam lazily half lying beside him with his head resting against the back of the bed.
How long? How long it had been that he had actually seen him sleeping like this? That he had actually been in this room? This room that was once theirs. His smell beside her felt so good to her; she stared at his face, his long hairs covering his eyes and in that moment she suddenly wanted to touch his face; suddenly wanted to kiss him hard and feel his skin against her palms. It had been so long that were actually close. But there was so much in her heart that made her scared, that restrained her from making a move and in amidst all her self-thought she didn't realize when Swayam had actually woken up and was gazing back at her intently.
"Sharon?" He spoke gently but she looked lost, lost in him.
He called her again "Sharon?"
This time she heard him and just as her thoughts touched reality she realized he was awake and was watching her stare at him. She felt like being caught red handed and averted her gaze away from him.
For a while both didn't know what to say. Finally it was Swayam who broke the silence.
"Umm. . . Sharon! I. . . I don't remember when I feel asleep. I came to put you to bed but you held my hand and . . . . and. . ." Swayam tried to explain desperately wanting not to ruin the previous day for her and for himself but was cut off as he heard her speaking,
"Swayam, I didn't ask anything." Sharon said ever slowly looking at him that he almost froze in a trance.
"Oh! Yeah! Right. Yeah. You didn't, yes!" Swayam said almost not believing what she said.
But then she actually did it. She hadn't ask him anything about what he was doing on her bed .
Swayam didn't know what else to say. So he just said
"I will prepare something for breakfast." Swayam said and she raised eyebows at him.
"You will?" Sharon said as a faded smile came and disappeared from her lips as her thoughts wandered to the day when they had come back home after her accident and how he had prepared food for her. Doesn't matter that it was half burnt.
"I can help you. You wouldn't be able to make it alone." Swayam was about to protest but then decided to go with her plan. After all he was there to take care of her.
***********
Swayam was in the kitchen following Sharon's instructions because that was all that he allowed her to do.
"Swayam, you don't whisk omelet like that. Come here let me show you." Sharon said and Swayam came to her with a pout that wrote cuteness all over his face. He was loving this sudden change between them. After so long the change came as good. It felt like a part of good old days coming back.
Swayam was working on his omelet trying to make it perfect and Sharon was watching his face amused when Swayam's phone kept on the dining table in front of her started buzzing. It grabbed her attention and she saw Rey's name flashing on screen but it made her stiff.
Swayam realized his phone was ringing and he turned his face to see Sharon sitting on the chair and the phone kept in front of her. His thoughts wandered to the night when he had shouted on her for touching his phone. He didn't know whose phone was it but he knew he wasn't letting the blooming closeness between them shoo away so easily.
"Sharon, pick up the phone. It's ringing." Swayam's casual tone and words surprised him and she looked up at him to find him engrossed in plating up the breakfast.
"Swayam it's your phone." Sharon said suddenly feeling uncomfortable as the ringing died.
Swayam carried the plate towards the table and sat in front of her as she fidgeted with thumbs of her fingers. He sat beside Sharon and hesitantly reached out for her hand and took them in his. She didn't protest. Emotions were choking her insides.
"Sharon Shekhawat, yes that is my phone and you are my Wife and so whatever is mine is yours too." He said softly caressing her hands and she looked up at him with her wet eyes.
"Sharon I know that day I shouted on you and to be frank, I despise myself for that. . . I shouldn't have done that. . ."
"Then why did you do?" Sharon asked quietly staring into his eyes.
"Because I am a mess and. . . and I still love you way too much." Swayam said his last words barely audible but she heard them.
Before Sharon could say anything else Swayam's phone started buzzing again.
"It's again ringing." Sharon said breaking their silence.
"Then pick it up maybe." Swayam said leaning back.
"But you are here now." Sharon said confused.
"I know. . . But I am busy you see." He replied pointing towards his hands active in buttering the toast.
Sharon rolled her eyes at him and then a bit reluctantly picked up the phone to find Rey's name flashing on the screen. A smile came to her lips seeing the name and she picked the phone.
"Hello?"
"Swayam, buddy what happened? Why does your voice suddenly sounding like Sharon?"
"Shut Up Rey! I am Sharon." She replied in a playful tone and Rey chuckled knowing well if he would have been in front of her she would have rewarded him with a smack.
"Oh! What Swayam's phone doing with you? Have you hi jacked it from him so that it cannot disturb your romance?" Rey said playfully.
Romance! Sharon looked at Swayam who was busy in the kitchen grabbing juice for them. How long it had been since they actually had romance? She pressed her mind and realized it was the same day when she got those pictures. The flashes disturbed her and made her heart heavy.
Rey sensed her silence and knew maybe it was a bad question for now. So he quickly changed the topic.
"Sharon, Can you please pass this phone to Swayam. I am dying to talk to your husband." Rey said over the phone but it was the doorbell that broke Sharon's trance.
"Shut Up Rey." She replied and held Swayam's hand who was passing by to open the door.
"Rey wants to talk to you. You talk. I will open the door." Sharon passed the phone to Swayam leaving him to talk and went to attend the door.
Swayam looked at her retreating figure and moved to towards the lawn.
"Yes Rey! What's up?"
"When you went to Ahmedabad did you go alone?"
"Yeah. I was alone. But why?" SWayam asked confused.
"Your travel expenses account tell me a different story. . . It shows two tickets booked on the company's name for Ahmedabad." Rey said, seriousness dripping from her voice.
"Yeah, Oh that! That's me and my personal assistant. . . Yeah she went with me."
"Pia Mehra? Yeah?" Rey asked his voice attentive.
"Yes!"
"Interesting!" Rey said and Swayam could tell he was smirking to his fullest.
"But why are you asking about her?"Swayam asked utterly confused with his questions.
"Because I would like you to meet me. We have to talk." Rey said and cut the call.
Swayam turned around totally dazed and confused as he looked up to find Pia sitting with Sharon smiling in his drawing room.
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