Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter
Twenty-Three
As much as Naina loved her best friend, she didn’t think she’d ever met a more stubborn person. “You need to have fun,” Anil insisted, tugging on her hand so hard her revolving chair almost toppled over. “It’s Friday night, Nay!”
She tilted her head back and groaned. “I have way too much work. Karaoke will have to wait till next week.” She fiddled with her glasses, glancing around the entire office floor.
A frazzled paralegal walked past them, holding a massive stack of reports.
Kumble’s office was empty, but Iqbal still sat at his desk and typed on his laptop, his door ajar.
On the other side of the room, a few lawyers and associates—including Tejas and Dhanush—were packing their things, all chatting among themselves.
As though he’d sensed Naina looking at him, Tejas flashed her a smile.
Naina smiled back, no hesitation. Since the night at Madeira and their recent conversation at the café, she’d realized she could do with another friend in the office, her attraction to him notwithstanding. Just having Anil as her work bestie didn’t feel like enough sometimes.
Anil turned back and caught the exchange, then gasped. “Naina Shetty, did you just smile at Prince Charming? Shit, has something happened since the hand-holding at the café?”
Why do I keep telling him these things? she thought as she rolled her eyes. “No,” she said, “I’m just trying to be…approachable.”
“So you want him to approach you. Understood.” Anil made a salute gesture, then clapped his hands sharply. “People! Attention, please!”
Even Iqbal looked up from his desk. The office chatter died down, and everyone’s eyes went to Anil—and, by extension, Naina. She gritted her teeth and mumbled, “Anil, what the hell are you doing?”
“It’s been such a long week,” Anil said, sighing exaggeratedly as he stretched his arms, “so Naina and I are buying the first round at Madeira. Who’s in for some beer and karaoke?”
People whooped. Tejas’s grin widened, and he locked eyes with Naina. “Count me in,” he said loudly.
“Me too,” Dhanush said. A few others mumbled their assent. Soon, ten or eleven people got up from their desks, discussing carpools to the karaoke bar.
Iqbal strode out of his office, laptop bag in hand, and closed the door with a soft thud. “Do I get an invite too?” he asked.
“The more, the merrier!” Anil exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air as Iqbal chuckled. Then Anil bent and whispered to Naina, “Ready to be even more approachable?”
She gave him a weird look as she begrudgingly powered down her laptop. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll be your wingman,” Anil said, rubbing his hands together like a maniacal supervillain. “And we shall find you a hot guy to make Tejas jealous. Then we’ll really know what he thinks about you being just friends.”
Naina shoved her things into her bag with more force than necessary, knowing arguing with him would be futile. “I hate you,” she declared.
Anil smirked. “Love you too, bestie.”
Beer in hand, Naina stood at the bar at Madeira, smiling politely as the man Anil had forced on her explained how his startup got funding against all odds.
“And my uncle’s VC firm loved the idea, but we still had to work so incredibly hard to convince them.
” He sipped his scotch, looking somber. “It’s a tough climate for startups, whether you have connections or not. ”
“Mm-hmm, sounds tough for sure,” Naina said. “So do you like to—”
“And let me tell you,” he droned on, “we got three million in seed funding—three million dollars. That’s really impressive for an early-stage startup.”
“Absolutely,” she said, taking a big gulp of her beer.
She craned her neck, hoping to signal to Anil to get her the fuck out of here so she could sign up for karaoke, but he was nowhere to be found.
God, he was the worst wingman. Although he’d promised not to disappear on her, he must have found a hot guy for himself.
As the man continued bragging about the funding and how nepotism was a total myth, Tejas walked past them, holding a beer. He stopped in his tracks when he noticed Naina, his eyes going wide. You okay? he mouthed. She gave the slightest shake of her head.
Tejas licked his lips, then joined their group. “Hey, Naina, Anil is looking for you. Shall we?”
With a hurried excuse to the man, Naina followed Tejas to the interior of the bar, where their colleagues sat drinking beers in one of the larger eight-seater booths.
Naina wasn’t surprised that Tejas had bluffed about Anil being around; Anil hardly ever sat in one place with his co-workers when he could instead socialize with complete strangers, a concept that was alien to Naina.
Opposites made the best of friends sometimes.
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Naina said when Tejas stopped a few feet from the booth.
“It’s fine.” He grinned lazily. “You didn’t seem that into him anyway.”
She snorted. “How could you tell?”
Her question was meant to be rhetorical, but Tejas’s eyes glinted, the irises molten. “Because you don’t look at him like you look at me.”
Holy shit. Naina bit her lip, and when her gaze fell to his mouth, he noticed.
Tejas rubbed his free hand over his messy curls, like he was contemplating something, then took one small step closer.
Uh-oh, Naina thought, this is definitely not “friendly” territory.
“I gotta go,” she yelped, rushing back to the bar.
She would take that man’s soliloquies about tech over the simmering tension with Tejas any day.
Thankfully, Mr. Three Million Dollars was nowhere to be seen at the bar; he must have found someone else to bore.
Naina pressed a hand to her chest, letting her shoulders loosen up before she got another beer.
The first sip calmed her nerves, and the second brought a smile to her face.
She went to the karaoke emcee’s station by the makeshift stage—by no means comparable to the massive one she remembered from Goa—and told him her song selection.
He gave her a thumbs-up and returned his focus to the person who was singing “Uptown Girl.”
“Naina? Naina Shetty?”
She turned, blinking at the familiar-looking man who’d just said her name. Was that…
“Zeeshan?” Her heart thudded. Zeeshan was her ex’s college roommate and her former friend; they’d hung out together multiple times over the years, but after the engagement ended, Zeeshan—along with all of their mutual friends—chose Santhosh’s side over hers, since they’d known him longer.
“Hey!” Zeeshan said, giving her a side hug that she awkwardly returned, narrowly missing the gin and tonic that sloshed in his glass. “How’s it going? Are you here with someone? A new boyfriend, I hope.”
Naina smiled tightly. “My colleagues.”
Zeeshan laughed louder than the final verse of “Uptown Girl”; the gin was clearly strong. “Still the workaholic we know and love,” he said.
Know and love? You ditched me for a cheater, Naina wanted to say. She opened her mouth to change the topic when applause sounded and the emcee said, “That was Raju, ladies and gentlemen! Next up we have…Tejas?”
Naina’s brows shot up as Tejas walked over to the emcee’s table and grabbed the mic. Did Tejas go to karaoke nights regularly now? Naina wondered if he’d made it a habit since they first sang together in Goa. She licked her lips, wondering what song he had selected.
As Tejas ascended the stage and the opening notes of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” played, he caught her eye in the crowd and winked.
Naina held back a smile and turned to Zeeshan again. “I thought you practiced law in Lucknow,” she said. “Are you visiting Bangalore for work?”
Zeeshan’s smile faded. “Uh, actually,” he said, shuffling his feet nervously, “I was here for Santhosh’s…wedding…uh, so I’m flying back to Lucknow tomorrow.”
Naina’s hand shook as she sipped her beer, the bottle dangerously slick with sweat and condensation. Santhosh’s wedding. To the other woman. Right.
Honestly, Naina had moved on from her ex a long time ago.
She barely even thought about that doomed relationship, or her former life, as she liked to think of it, on purpose.
But knowing Santhosh was married now, definitely in love, and most likely partner at his dad’s law firm like he’d always wanted… it made something in Naina break.
She forced herself to blink back tears. “That’s nice, I’m sure it was a beautiful ceremony.
Uh, if you’ll excuse me…” Before Zeeshan could say a word, she darted away, past the stage and toward the mercifully empty washroom.
Dhanush walked out of the men’s bathroom, adjusting his belt, but she cut past him, ignoring him when he yelled “Whoa, you okay?” She barely even registered Tejas’s singing cutting off abruptly before she locked herself in a stall and let out a sharp whoosh of breath.
Fuck. Naina unlocked her phone. She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she had to.
Since Santhosh was blocked on all social media, Naina looked Zeeshan up on Instagram, as well as some of their mutual friends, and scrolled through their most recent posts—all of which were about the grand Bollywoodesque wedding.
A video of Santhosh, scrawny as ever, dancing to a romantic ballad with his wife at their sangeet.
A boomerang on someone’s story of the ceremony where Santhosh put a garland around the woman’s neck as she blushed.
And, of course, a frame-worthy photo of Santhosh gawking at her like he couldn’t believe he was with someone that incredible.
Naina shook her head in disbelief. She remembered seeing that exact same expression on Santhosh’s face during their own engagement photo shoot. Based on what she knew, he’d already been cheating on her for months at that point.