Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
RAASHI
That fake kiss…she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She’d spent all night sneaking glances at his mouth and wishing she could get another taste. A real one, this time. A heated flush had her turning away from Harsh and towards Aadhya who was sitting on her other side.
Aadhya’s curls were having a very bad hair day. The breeze that was stronger than normal that night had it standing up in a riotous mess on her head. She looked like a witch in the middle of casting a spell.
“Want a scrunchie?” Raashi offered watching Aadhya battle to keep the hair out of her face. She dug her spare one out of her tracks pocket and held it out.
“Thanks.” Aadhya took the satin band gratefully, grabbing her hair in a chokehold and tying it up.
“I love your hair,” Raashi said wistfully.
“You’re joking right?” Aadhya was still wrestling her hair into submission, rebellious curls slipping out of her grasp.
“It has character.” She fingered her own limp, straight strands. “Mine on the other hand mimics limp, wet noodles.”
Aadhya laughed, a full-bodied throaty chuckle that had Raashi smiling back. There was something about Aadhya’s confident fire that had always drawn her to the other woman. Raashi had the fire. She just didn’t have the confidence.
Today had been full throttle. From her day at the salon to the engagement party to that kiss, no not the kiss…she was not going to think about the kiss anymore. From the engagement party to this hang out on the terrace, it was a lot of peopling. Raashi didn’t normally people so much and now she was starting to feel peopled out.
“Marrying Harsh Kodela,” Aadhya mused from beside her. “That’s a whole vibe right there.”
Raashi bristled, her cranky pants side coming to the fore. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Easy,” Aadhya laughed. “He’s my friend. A great friend but that’s all. I just meant,” Aadhya waved a hand in a circle in Harsh’s direction. “That’s a whole vibe. Being married to him is going to be a roller coaster.”
Raashi’s hackles subsided. “A roller coaster on LSD,” she muttered.
Aadhya stretched out beside Raashi, her maroon jumpsuit beautifully accentuating her brown skin and the long, lean body beneath it. Raashi truly was jealous of how supremely comfortable and intrinsically fashionable Aadhya was. Ram glanced over at them, his face darkening. Raashi frowned at the disapproval darkening his face.
“Are you ready for the ride?” Aadhya asked, drawing her attention back. When Raashi continued frowning at her, confusion deepening, Aadhya added, “For the roller coaster that is Harsh.”
“No,” Raashi replied honestly. “But I’ll make sure I stay buckled up for the ride.”
Aadhya grinned, tipping her beer bottle to Raashi in a toast. “I’ll be your ride or die.”
A soft glow lit up in the pit of Raashi’s belly. “You will?” she asked.
All her life, all she’d had were her siblings. She doubted there was anybody else in this world who loved her, truly loved her. She had been too prickly, too strange, too nerdy to make too many good friends. Until Anant…But then the friends who came with him had disappeared with him too.
Maybe it was time to make new friends. Maybe it was time for her walls to be lowered a little.
“How dare you?” Harsh plonked himself beside Aadhya and poked her in her ribs. “You said you’d be my ride or die, you sneaky, little traitor.”
Aadhya giggled, clearly ticklish. “What can I say? I’m fickle.”
“Truer words…”
None of them had noticed Ram walk up to them until his coldly, condescending words cut through their laughter.
Raashi’s frown returned as her brother skewered Aadhya with a gaze that had the smile fading from her lips.
“You have something to say, Gadde Garu?” She uncoiled herself from the ground and rose to face him.
“Gadde Garu is my father,” he replied, sipping from his glass of whiskey. “I prefer being called Ram.”
“Do you now?” Aadhya took another languid step closer. “But the problem is, Mr. Gadde,” her voice dropped an octave. “I really don’t give a shit about what you prefer.”
“Is that right, Ms. Reddy, because I seem to remember you feeling very differently the other day?”
Ram’s voice was a level of intense Raashi had never heard from him before.
“What other day?” Harsh asked, his hand cupping his chin, looking for all the world like a tween waiting for gossip. Raashi snorted a laugh at his idiotic pose.
“Well come on!” Harsh waved a hand at the two warring parties. “Don’t leave us in suspense. What happened the other day? What did Aadhya want? How did she feel? Tell us everything.”
Raashi was full out laughing now, her hand held to her side as Ram and Aadhya jumped apart, identical scowls on their faces.
“Idiots,” Ram muttered before walking away from Aadhya like her very presence was branding him with its existence.
Aadhya just shook her head and walked off in the opposite direction. Leaving Raashi and Harsh alone in this little corner of the terrace.
Alone, in the dark, on a terrace on a beautiful moonlit night. Raashi swallowed, looking away from him and towards the laughing, chatting group gathered on the other end of the space.
“Raashi,” Harsh’s voice was soft, quiet and coated in sin.
“Yes?” she croaked. Mortified, she cleared her throat and tried to sound brisker and more sensible.
“Look at me.”
She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. She should be stomping on the memory of that kiss and reminding herself that she hated his man. But she didn’t, did she? Had she ever? Or had she always resisted this … this pull that he exerted on her and everyone else who came into his orbit. She should be stomping the very essence of that kiss into oblivion.
“Look at me, Raashi.”
It was the sound of her name, her actual name, on his lips that had her caving. She turned her head slowly and looked at him, meeting that intense, hooded gaze. Her insides shivered, her heart flashing danger signs that she forced herself to ignore.
“I want to kiss you again, Raashi.” The words were whiskey swirling over crushed ice, the heat of the liquor draping over the chill of the rest. “Are you going to let me?”