Chapter 59: Eight Shades Darker Than Mocha
[Not proofed yet]
She saw Vaibhavi limp out of the trees, the same ones that she had seen Rajeev disappear into earlier, and tickled Jay to make him giggle so that Arnav would get distracted.
It worked as Jay started wiggling around in Arnav's arms.
"Hey hey!" Arnav said as he tried to contain the child, a fruitless effort as she kept up her tickling.
Finally he grabbed her around the waist and raised her up to him, startling her, and effectively stopping her tickling.
"Are you hugging Bee maasi?" Jay asked curiously after a moment.
Khushi looked up at and he kept his gaze on hers as he said, "No, I am making sure that she doesn't tickle me."
"But she is not tickling you. She is tickling me!" Jay said, making her laugh and breaking the eye-lock.
Arnav looked at the boy and suddenly tickled him quickly before hiding Jay's head into the crook of his neck before he looked at her again.
"If I were to… say… hypothetically ask you to have a coffee with me sometime, what would your answer be?"
She was taken aback by his sudden question and for a moment, she couldn't hide how stunned she felt.
Jay started wiggling again, which made him tickle him again and when the boy laughed and pushed at him, she reached up to take Jay from him.
Arnav gave the child over willingly, but kept his gaze on hers for her answer.
"I would hypothetically refuse." She answered in a whisper before she turned around with Jay in her arms to walk back towards Sohan and Lee. She could see that Vaibhavi was already there, playing with Nikhil.
She didn't dare turn back to check for Rajeev for fear that she would see Arnav looking at her again.
What a bas***d he was! Just when she had gotten over how he played haywire with her system by stealing kisses at the most random moments, and just when she had successfully accomplished the feat of convincing herself that she could resist him very well if he chose to go down that path with her again – convinced herself 78% that is – he goes and turns the tables on her like this!
Coffee!! As if! Did he forget that a few years ago, she was the one running to make his coffee morning and afternoon at his whim while asked her to call up Lavanya to teach her exactly how he liked his coffee made!
You fill up the K-cup reusable coffee filter with only Timothy's Italian Blend approximately 78% to the top. She heard Lee's instructions from back then in her head now. Well, would you look at that! 78% wasn't so random after all!
And then you press the middle button, not the espresso setting and not the venti, but the middle one. And then you put in 4 of this tiny spoon of raw sugar. Only raw sugar, he doesn't take processed sugar. And mix it really well; raw sugar takes more mixing to dissolve completely. Just a pinch of half-and-half; the final color should be like eight shades darker than mocha.
She remembered looking at Lee with complete disbelief and saying, "How the hell would I remember all that?"
Lee had smiled at her and said, "Practice. In about 3 weeks, you will be a pro at this!"
And she had retorted, "You know Lee, my life's ambition is not to learn how to make coffee for an anal-retentive asshole."
Lee had laughed before she said, "Ah, but to get to your life's ambition, you have to first learn how to make coffee for said anal-retentive asshole. Coffee is like life's blood for Arnav; sometimes it's the only thing that determines if it's going to be a day from hell or not. Learn to make his coffee right and you have found the way to make him silly putty in your hands. Well, as silly-putty as a megalomaniac is capable of being."
She had reached Lee's side by then and Lee looked at her curiously.
"What?" she asked. She swore that sometimes Lee could see into her brain and pick out her exact thoughts. It was uncanny.
"Nothing really. My son is playing with your hair and you have barely noticed."
Then she felt it. Jay hands were indeed in her hair.
"Why are you doing, lil tyke?" she asked.
"I am braiding your hair." The boy said and she smiled as she looked back up at Lee.
Lee took the boy from her saying that he could braid Bee Maasi's hair another time and passed the boy to Rajeev who had been walking by them just at that moment. Khushi looked at Rajeev and raised an eyebrow to which his response was to shrug with an I have no idea what you are alluding to look before walking away. She smiled before she looked back at Lee.
"So, tell me." Lee said impatiently.
"Tell you what?" Khushi asked and Lee narrowed her eyes as she said, "Listen chica, you are not yet completely in the clear for all that you kept from me before. So let's try this again." She cleared her throat and said once more, "So tell me."
"Arnav asked me out for a coffee."
"What??" Lee said rather loudly and Khushi shushed her before looking around. Thankfully, Arnav was with Sohan and Rajeev and the twins were both tickling Vaibhavi who was rolling on the grass laughing wildly, something that effectively drowned out Lee's loud exclamation.
"Sorry sorry…" Lee said before whispering, "He did not! What did you say?"
"What do you mean what did I say? I said no of course! I used to make the man's coffee for him, remember? And now he wants to take me out for coffee."
"What's wrong with coffee? He has kissed you enough times! And you have made him coffee more than enough times. It's about damn time he bought you some damn coffee!"
"Language Lee!" Khushi said, although she was smiling at her friend's response.
"Language be damned! Do you see Jay and Nikhil listening? If not, I can throw caution in cussing to the wind!"
Khushi laughed now, but stopped when Lee said, "So why can't he take you to coffee?"
"You cannot be serious Lee! Do you want me to end up with a f**king weeping willow bonsai tree when he dumps me in eight months?"
"Oh come on! You would get at least a Ghost Orchid. You're worth it."
As much research as she had done on plants when being inventive with the flora for his previous paramours, she knew what a Ghost Orchid was. They grew attached to the bark of a tree and appeared to be floating in air because you couldn't at first glance see how their stems were connected to the bark and hence the white flowers gave the appearance floating in mid-air… and thus its name. They were notoriously difficult to grow outside of their natural habitat, could only be pollinated by the giant sphinx moth, and their locations were almost always kept a secret. It went without saying that they were one of the rarest flowers in the world.
So, she had to laugh at Lee's answer. There was nothing like girlfriends to boost you up.
"I would like to see him chase after one. That way he will know that not everything he wants will be delivered to him on a platter." She finally said, earning a knowing nod from Lee.
A moment later though, Lee said, "But you are looking at this all wrong Bee. Why would you be the weeping willow? If you are woman enough, you would make him one! Date him for a while and dump him before he dumps you." Her friend winked as she offered this suggestion.
"If I am woman enough?" Bee asked with a laugh. "Dramatic much Bee? But either way, you should see the type of women he dates. There was this girl, Brianna, that he brought to that jazz club once. The woman looked like a supermodel! He chews up and spits out girls like that. I don't want anything to do with that mess. Or be in the league of women who date him thinking that he will change for them."
Lee sighed and turned to shoot a quick look at the scene behind her. Sohan and Arnav were talking while the twins were on Rajeev and Vaibhavi, one each. Satisfied, she turned back.
"Listen to me. Do you know how to deal with competition? Believe that there is none. You are not competing with other women. If you and he decide to go for coffee, it has nothing to do with anyone else. You go and enjoy your coffee. Have a good conversation. And that's it. End of story. Everything that happens afterwards doesn't have to be planned already. If the coffee sucks, you go to another coffee shop and if the conversation sucks, you find a man who is more interesting. It's as simple as that."
Khushi burst out laughing at this monologue, but when Lee didn't respond she stopped and asked, "You're serious?"
"Of course I am serious! If you guys have kissed as much as you have, you need to decide whether you want to get this out of your system or whether you want to keep it in. And for that, you can't play this game with each other where all your moments rest of stolen kisses and forbidden romance. That loses its luster pretty quickly. And you both have too much history for that sort of bullshit anyways. Evidently, he has decided to cut the BS and take a grown-up route. Why don't you do the same?"
She stared at her friend for a moment, her words having a strange amalgamation of logic and nonsense.
"What the f**k!" she finally replied.
Lee smiled then. "The f**king can wait. Let's start with some C&C."
When Khushi raised an eyebrow, Lee answered, "Coffee and Conversation of course."
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Edited by -publicenemy- - 13 years ago
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
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