Chapter 6 #2
By the time they stepped outside, Anant had already left. Arundhati pulled out her phone, her fingers flying over the screen as she booked a cab. Kushal watched her for a moment.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
She didn’t even look up. “At the service centre,” she replied curtly, continuing her search for a ride.
Kushal signalled the valet. His car was brought around, and he took the keys, turning to her once more.
“I’ll drop you home,” he said simply.
Arundhati didn’t pause; her fingers still continued to type on her phone. “No, thanks. I can manage.”
He glanced around, taking note of the dwindling crowd, and the late hour and then his gaze flickered back to her.
“It’s too late, Arundhati. I don’t think it’s safe enough for you to hire a cab and head home alone. I’ll drop you.”
She didn’t even look up from her phone. “I said I can manage.”
His brows lifted slightly, but he didn’t press. “Alright then,” he shrugged, before sliding into his car and pulling out of the parking lot without another word.
For a brief moment, Arundhati stood frozen.
She wasn’t sure what irritated her more—that he didn’t push further to drop her or that he actually listened and left her alone.
A strange sense of frustration curled in her stomach as she attempted to book a cab again.
But every request was declined. She switched to another cab service, tried again. Still nothing.
And then, just as she was about to call for an alternative, a car slowed to a stop in front of her. The familiar headlights illuminated her form.
Kushal had returned.
He didn’t get out of the car. Didn’t turn off the engine. Didn’t even look at her properly.
He was simply there, waiting.
She tightened her grip on her phone, stubbornly hitting the cab request button once again. Ignoring him. But when another minute passed and her request was still unanswered, she exhaled sharply, shoving her phone into her bag before stepping forward.
Without a word, she opened the front passenger door and slid inside, shutting it firmly behind her. She fastened her seatbelt, her fingers lingering on the strap, as if debating whether to say something.
But she didn’t need to.
Because neither did he.
Kushal drove off without a word exchanged between the two. Without any stolen glance. She let out a sigh as she looked outside the car window, thinking that no matter how much she wanted to ignore him, somehow, she still played by his rules.
The entire thirty-minute car ride passed in silence.
No music, no words exchanged. The only sounds that filled the enclosed space were their steady breaths and the faint movements of his hands, gripping the steering wheel, shifting gears, tapping lightly on his thigh when waiting at a red light.
Despite the desolate roads and the late hour, Kushal followed every traffic rule, as if he needed something to focus on other than the woman sitting beside him.
Arundhati, however, was not as disciplined.
More than once, her eyes flickered toward him, stealing glances that she had no business taking.
But he never once looked at her. His attention remained fixed ahead.
At times, his one arm rested on the steering wheel while the other draped over his thigh, a posture she had seen a hundred times before, but tonight, it felt different.
She swallowed as memories of their past resurfaced.
They were newly married then, almost two months into their marriage, heading to work together in this very car.
She had noticed back then how he always folded his sleeves up to his elbows while driving, revealing his strong, veined forearms. She had asked him once why he did that.
“I don’t like the hindrance of my cufflinks when I’m holding the wheel,” he had said, before turning to her with a slow, knowing smirk. And then, in that deep, sinful voice, he had added, “When my fingers are at work... I tend not to invite any hindrances until the job is done.”
The double meaning had been unmistakable. The heat in his gaze had burned through her then, just as the memory of it burned through her now.
Arundhati clenched her jaw and tore her gaze away from him. She needed to stop thinking about the past. It didn’t matter anymore.
But then she saw it.
His wedding ring.
The same one she had slipped onto his finger on their wedding day fourteen months ago. Even after their separation, their fights, the legal proceedings that had turned their divorce into a nationwide spectacle, he still wore it.
Whereas she, on the other hand, had shed every symbol of their marriage the moment she walked out of his house. No ring. No Sindoor or Mangalsutra. Nothing to remind her of what they had been.
Guilt gnawed at her insides.
She turned toward the window, gripping her hands together in her lap as she didn’t want to acknowledge these emotions that settled over her. In a few minutes, the car slowed down and finally stopped.
They had reached her apartment gates.
Kushal parked the car but didn’t move. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her as she unbuckled her seatbelt. But just as she reached for the door handle, her thoughts still clouded with guilt and confusion, she made a careless mistake.
She didn’t check behind her.
The moment she stepped out, a motorbike came speeding down the wrong side of the road.
It happened too fast. Despite alerting her with a blaring horn, the reckless rider brushed against her left arm speedily with a painful impact.
She gasped, stumbling back as pain seared through her arm. The biker didn’t even slow down. He just vanished into the darkness, leaving behind only a trail of Kushal’s furious yell.
“Son of a—” His curse was cut short as he threw open the car door and rushed toward her. Before she could stop him, his hands were on her, pulling her to him as he scanned her in concern.
“Aru… are you okay?” His fingers skimmed over her arm, trying to assess the damage. “He hit you too hard. We need to go to the hospital.”
Arundhati bit the inside of her cheek, nodding in denial, her mind still processing he just called her ‘Aru’…
her nickname, which only her uncle called her, and Kushal too did when they were living together after marriage.
Not wanting to get diverted by their past again, she pressed her other palm over the aching spot, determined to deal with the pain herself. She didn’t need his help.
But Kushal was having none of it.
His touch was surprisingly gentle as his fingers brushed over her skin, rubbing slow, soothing circles over the sore area. It was an innocent gesture, one meant to comfort, but it was too much. Too intimate. Too familiar.
Suddenly, all the memories she had spent months burying clawed their way back. The way he used to touch her, hold her, whisper against her skin when they used to kiss.
No.
She couldn’t afford to fall into this trap again.
With a sharp inhale, she pulled away from him, breaking the contact between them, and without sparing him a single glance, she turned and walked briskly through the apartment gates.
She didn’t look back.
Kushal watched her go, a storm brewing in his dark eyes as he exhaled harshly. That woman was too stubborn, too frustrating, and unlike anyone he had ever met in his life.