"Which movie do you think will not make me want to blow my brains out?" Meera muttered as she flipped through rows of the Netflix instant watch queue.
"As a general rule, I only keep to chick flicks on Friday nights" Yash said and everyone turned to him wordlessly, their eyes fixed on him as if he'd suddenly sprouted two horns on his head.
"Arey!" Yash drawled in defense, "Don't tell me you have never tried to mute the movie and lip-sync your own dialogues to the overly predictable storyline..."
Meera's face relaxed visibly and she nodded agreeing with a wistful smile as if she missed those memories of another time, "True...that"
"That sure sounds like fun...I don't mind trying for the part of the cliched best friend to the female lead" She added reluctantly with a brief, tight smile and surprising herself at that when the words came out stringed with coherency. While he sat slightly leaning over, as his elbows rested on his knees, his shoulders casually bunched up and with a teasing, playful smile on his lips, she worked at staying unaffected by the easy casualness he showed around her. Somehow the fact that she had to strive to achieve the same, irritated her further and that made it an uphill task all the more.
"Yeah...Its been a while we did that..." Meera spoke low, turning back and once again her eyes were lost in making a suitable selection from the mind numbing possibilities on the screen.
"We need some wine to loosen us up for the job" Yash gave a calculated nod, a mischievous smile kicking up his lips.
"Geet...I have a bottle on the top shelf" Turning to Maan, she asked, "Will Pinot Noir work for you? I don't have any of the fine wines..."
He shrugged and with a twist of his lips, he said, "I'm not a wine person...so, anything goes"
She took to the kitchen, welcoming that repose when his mere presence enervated her as if he was a black hole into which all of her calm and restfulness was being sucked into while leaving her as a bundle of nerves. There hadn't been a word or so much as a glance at her ever since he'd come in and she wrinkled her nose at that thought.
Opening the top cabinet, she tuned out the living room and the black hole that was seated there with that same wind ruffled hair that bothered her a little too much since that evening and pulled out the bottle and reached for the cork screw that was extraneously thrown around in one of the kitchen drawers. Once she found the cork screw, she lazily and with a bit of uncalled for annoyance at the bottle, twisted the screw into the cork until it worked its way down. With all her might, she clasped the handle and pulled on the air-tight cork to come apart with a loud grunt. But there was no movement and with another sigh, she put all that was left of her into pulling the cork out. Now, third time's the charm, wasn't it? And so, her fingers grabbed on the handle and just as she was about to pull, she felt movement close to the kitchen door and instinctively turned, her body stiff with a chafing tension. There was unseen force that felt poured into that third effort when her eyes widened finding him approach her.
"Perhaps, I can help..." She heard him say and seeing him reach towards her hand, she gave an unforgiving hard tug and with a plop came the wine thrown into the air. Her eyes drifted to the floor and winced seeing the puddle that she will have to mop up, her eyes closing in frustration from the sudden lack of grace that had become the routine on such occasions when she found herself to be in his vicinity. Despite the horror, she felt a small relief from the fact that she hadn't thrown the bottle down in that hasty move, all of which lasted for another two beats until she raised her eyes to him to find a big splash of the wine spill spreading a maroon red onto his white shirt - the same color as the pumping blood in her body that was turning a shade darker with all the embarrassment which had come along.
"Oh! Shit..." She really was all thumbs when it came to him and her hands flew to the roll of paper napkins on the counter. Her countenance shifted to a worried state.
"Sorry...Lord! I'm so clumsy..." She mumbled as she scrunched up a towel and rushed to him, while he was still flicking his hands and looking over the good spray of wine she'd given him.
"It's ok...don't worry" She heard him say vaguely, but before her brain could make any sense of her actions she was pulling on his shirt and foolishly tried to scrub the stain away.
"I will buy you a shirt...I know this one is ruined for good" She added mindlessly, speaking in run-on sentences and when all that hadn't been her undoing, she forgetfully raised her eyes and looked at him. Her scrubbing hand stilled while her other hand loosed her grip over his shirt, when she felt the tip of his fingers graze against hers to take the paper towel from her.
She didn't need a full second to register his full gaze on her and in that measured proximity, in the alarming sense of abrupt awareness that she felt inside her, she couldn't imagine what she would have to do this time - that might perhaps have to cover every inch of her skin - to possibly help wiping away what she felt then.
Faintly, a reckoning of the sorts came into her mind then, that it was always the deliberate touches, the ones she saw it coming and the kind that were the briefest of all that stayed with her longer; a mere brush of his fingertips against her skin, lingering as if they permanent markings on her skin there.
There she saw in that moment of stillness that came be to be, a little of the many things that she would never dare to read. And more so because there were many such little things that sometimes she thought showed in her eyes too...
For now, all those little things were their secrets to keep...
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