Chapter 3
‘Kashvi, what a surprise running into you here,’ Swayam greeted, a cold smile playing at his lips.
For a heartbeat, she wondered whether she was hallucinating him, but one look into his burning brown eyes erased that possibility.
His broad shoulders were framed by a faded navy sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His hair was longer than before, curling slightly over his ears, and the dark stubble lining his jaw had crossed the line from charming to dangerous.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Kashvi blurted.
‘That’s your first question?’ Swayam asked, raising a brow.
She stepped inside and shut the apartment door behind her with a bang, the click echoing loudly through the small space. ‘You’re in my apartment, so yes, that’s my first question. So, what are you doing here?’
Swayam straightened up from the shelf as she walked towards him and moved a little closer to her. His shoulders were relaxed and his voice was even, but his eyes held a restrained intensity that made her stomach drop. ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he said.
When she didn’t reply, he tilted his head, watching her closely. Kashvi folded her arms across her chest, hoping it would dull the rush of nervousness crawling up her spine.
Of all the days to forget applying concealer, it had to be today.
Her laid-back, cheery roommate was gone. In his place stood a version of him she rarely saw. Composed, unwavering, and refusing to let her deflect.
‘Where’s your friend? The one you’ve been staying with?’ Swayam asked.
There was no “friend,” and his tone made it clear he already knew that.
When she didn’t respond, he continued, ‘This doesn’t look like Rhea’s home in Malad. I think you might be in the wrong place. Isn’t this the old Bandra apartment you and Siya shared until a couple of years ago?’
A flicker of irritation rose within her. ‘How did you get in here without a key? Did you break into my apartment?’
A faint muscle ticked along his jaw, betraying the crack in his calm exterior. ‘I found it in the box of spare keys you keep in the shoe rack back at our home.’
The way he said home made her pulse pound so loudly in her ears that she barely heard her own voice. ‘What I’m doing here is none of your business.’
Swayam stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. ‘You made it my business when you told us you were somewhere safe, while all this time you’ve been here alone.’
‘This is our old place, so in a way, I am safe at home, aren’t I?’ Kashvi shot back. ‘Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.’
‘I know you can, but that’s not the point.’
‘Then what is the point, Swayam?’
He held her gaze without flinching. ‘The point is you lied to me.’
The words hung between them, undeniable in their accusation.
‘You’re assuming I lied,’ Kashvi retorted, the frustration in her voice carrying something dangerously close to guilt.
‘Oh, so this apartment belongs to Rhea now?’ he asked, raising a brow.
There was no way out of it, so she gave in halfway. ‘The plan was to go to her place, but it didn’t work out. So I came here. It was a last-minute call. Then I got stuck with work and lost track of time.’
‘And you failed to mention this in your texts because…?’
Kashvi shrugged. ‘I forgot.’
‘You also forgot that you told us you’d be gone for a couple of days, and now it’s been over two weeks. But you didn’t forget to pack this,’ Swayam said, glancing down at the paperback in his hand.
The lamp near the window cast a dim, honeyed glow across the living room, and even in the semi-darkness, she recognised the blue cover of her favourite book.
Swayam ran his thumb along its spine, and a sharp, unexpected spark shot through her veins at the thought of him doing that to her. Kashvi shook her head, forcing the tempting image away.
‘You always pack this when you know you’ll be away for a while, so clearly this wasn’t a last-minute call. You’re low-key addicted to this book.’
The familiarity in that observation struck somewhere deep inside her chest. ‘Instead of analysing my reading habits, you should leave.’
His jaw tensed. ‘Okay, I’ll go, but I’m taking it with me.’
She moved forward on instinct and grabbed the book, trying to tug it free from his grip. Kashvi narrowed her eyes. ‘If you want a book, you’ll find tons back at home.’
He tightened his hold just enough to resist her pull. ‘I don’t want a book. I want this book.’
‘What? Why?’ she demanded, tugging harder.
Swayam opened it and slowly flipped through its pages. ‘Just in the mood to read romance.’
Kashvi let out a short, incredulous laugh. ‘You hate romance.’
He corrected her with a faint smile. ‘I hate badly written romance. This is a great one.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because it’s your favourite book.’
She tugged at the book again, irritation flaring as she tried to mask the way her heart fluttered at the fact that he had paid attention to what she loved.
Swayam held it out of her reach, and when she tried to grab it, she stumbled straight into his arms. ‘Give it back,’ Kashvi insisted.
In one smooth motion, he turned her around, the world tilting for a second, until her back was pressed firmly against the bookshelf.
Kashvi flattened her palms against his chest to steady herself, and he wound an arm around her waist. ‘Careful,’ Swayam murmured, the word brushing against her skin as much as his fingers did.
There was no more space between them.
The scent of his woodsy cologne mingled with the faint dustiness of her old books, and for a moment, she felt like she was home. Her breath hitched, and her body betrayed her by leaning into his warmth for a second too long.
Swayam studied her, his coffee-brown eyes darkening with helpless frustration. He gently cupped her face and traced his thumb beneath her hollow, sunken eyes as he said, ‘You look exhausted.’
Kashvi hated how easily he could see through her. Her lips trembled and she pressed them together to hide it. ‘How did you know I was staying here?’
‘Luv. We were having breakfast when you called him this morning to pick you up. He didn’t want to tell me, but I got the address out of him.’
‘So you interrogated him too?’ she snapped, irritated that he wasn’t rising to her anger the way he usually did with teasing remarks.
Swayam shifted his hand at her waist, brushing the curve of her side in a bid to reassure himself that she was okay. ‘No. I told him you’d been having nightmares for weeks, and that knowing you were going through it alone was driving me insane.’
The anger she had been wielding so confidently faltered under the intensity of his concern. Kashvi had no sharp reply this time. ‘But I didn’t want you to know.’
‘Why?’
The question was simple. Direct. Infuriating.
In an instant, she remembered Swayam, just two weeks into being her roommate, knocking softly on her door after hearing her cry out. He had sat by her bed all night, holding her hand through the nightmare, whispering that she was safe until her breathing finally evened out.
The first time, he had looked startled but determined. The second time, he had come before she had even called his name. Somewhere along the way, she’d begun to rely on him, and that terrified her.
‘It’s no big deal. I’ve been away just a few days.’
‘Twelve days,’ he insisted.
‘You’re counting?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Of course I am. You thought I wouldn’t?’ Swayam replied without hesitation, and her pulse stumbled at the hope swelling in her chest. ‘And if you’re really so fine, why do you look so pale?’
Kashvi bristled. ‘It’s my new skincare routine.’
He raised a brow. ‘Oh, really? And what’s the goal? Looking like a ghost?’
‘It’s a minimalist trend. You wouldn’t understand.’
His gaze didn’t waver. ‘You really think I’m blind and stupid?’
‘I needed a little break,’ she mumbled the only thing she could think of.
‘From me? Kash, if I’m the reason you’ve been staying away, then I’ll move out tonight. I would have left the moment you asked. All you had to do was talk to me,’ he said, and the simplicity of it disarmed her.
A pulse of panic flickered through her chest. The image rose unbidden in her mind. The apartment stripped of his laughter, his shoes gone from the doorway, the empty space on the couch where he always sat. None of it felt right.
The thought hollowed something inside her, and the anger she had been clinging to began to unravel. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why would you move out? It’s our apartment.’
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and the glorious sight of it made her heart skip a beat.
‘Then help me understand what’s going on, because I know you’ve been avoiding me. Especially after we nearly kissed… or is it because of that?’
The memory of that evening at the beach sent a shiver down her spine.
She remembered it as though it had happened yesterday.
Beneath the fairy lights of the giant wheel and the full moon above, she had stumbled into his arms, their lips only inches away from crossing the fragile boundary between them.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, though she couldn’t fake the conviction.
He traced the edge of her jaw with the tip of his finger, and she became acutely aware of how little distance remained between them.
‘Let me remind you. After we almost kissed on the beach, we came back for the group dinner. Halfway through it, you announced you were planning to stay with a friend. You didn’t look at me or say a word when you left.
Since then, you stopped picking up my calls and only replied with one-word messages. Does any of that ring a bell?’
Kashvi bit her lip as she remembered the chatter around the dinner table, and his unwavering gaze trained on her from across it.
She hadn’t been able to meet his eyes, because she hadn’t wanted him to see how badly she wanted to finish what had almost happened. Acting on impulse, she had faked an emergency call from a friend.
‘Did you really expect me not to notice?’ he asked.
She truly hadn’t. She had thought he would be glad of her absence. Yet here he was, standing in front of her, holding her close, showing her just how wrong she had been.
Kashvi swallowed hard when she felt the rasp of his breath near her lips. ‘You’re reading too much into a small moment. It was nothing.’
‘Am I?’ His voice dropped, softer now, as he shifted his hand from her waist to the shelf beside her head. ‘Because it felt real to me, Kash, and so did the way you shut me out after that.’
A pang of guilt twisted through her. He was right. She’d thought leaving would protect them both. But standing this close to him, Kashvi couldn’t deny that every second of that memory still felt as real as her heartbeat.
He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers, and the world seemed to narrow to the rhythm of their breaths mingling together. ‘To me, it looks like the second we came close to admitting there was something between us, you ran. But why?’
She tried to gather a response, but the words stayed tangled in her throat.
He pulled back, his eyes searching hers with a patience that felt almost unbearable. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to answer that, but at least tell me why you’re doing this to yourself.’
Kashvi frowned. ‘Doing what?’
Swayam glanced around the apartment, and she followed his gaze. The room looked even more desolate through his eyes, stripped down to the bare minimum.
An old mat lay folded in one corner beneath a faded sheet. There was no fan humming, no stocked refrigerator, no kettle on the counter. Just blank walls and hollow space that echoed with the bitter memories of her and Siya making do with what little they got from their father.
‘You’ve got nothing here except a lamp and your favourite book to keep you company.’
She folded her arms across her chest, hoping it might shield her from his scrutiny. ‘I don’t need much to survive. A bed does the job.’
‘A bed?’ Swayam repeated softly. ‘That thing is barely a mattress.’
‘I sleep fine on it. It’s enough for me. Not everyone is a giant like you,’ Kashvi huffed.
He ignored her jab. ‘I’m glad you got some rest, because I haven’t slept properly once since you left.’
The vulnerability in his voice made her heart clench, and she drew back a little. ‘You don’t have to worry so much. I’m not your responsibility.’
The warmth of his palm against her skin sent a tremor through her. ‘Maybe I don’t see it that way.’
‘But why? I’m just your friend’s sister,’ she said, looking away, afraid she might crumble under his gaze.
The words tasted bitter even as she spoke them, a shield she had used for years to keep her feelings at bay.
‘You’ve never been just that to me,’ Swayam said.
Her breath faltered. ‘Don’t say things you can’t take back.’
‘I don’t want to take it back. I care about you more than I say, more than I should, and more than I know how to handle. Being away from you felt… wrong.’
The words sank deep into the bottom of her heart. ‘I’m sorry. I really just needed some time to myself.’
‘But why lie to Siya? You could’ve told her you were here.’
Kashvi shook her head. ‘I didn’t want Di to show up here every night, and you know she would have. She can’t leave me alone if she thinks I need help.’
Swayam chuckled. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve only made things worse for yourself.’
Her brows creased in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
He glanced briefly at his watch. ‘Everyone’s meeting at Siya and Abhay’s for dinner in an hour. She called me, and I covered for you, but she explicitly told me to bring you along.’
A knot formed in her stomach, unease crawling beneath her skin. ‘I don’t think tonight is a good time—’
He countered with a smirk. ‘Siya needs you to sign some legal paperwork, so you can’t dodge her this time. If you don’t come with me, I’ll tell her you’re here. I’m sure she still remembers the way back.’
Kashvi shot him a scathing look. ‘You’re enjoying this far too much.’
‘Guilty as charged.’
Kashvi felt a slow, reluctant acceptance settle into her bones. If she refused, Siya would come here with more questions and even more scrutiny.
Smile. Sign. Leave. It’s just one evening.
She grabbed her book from his hand, shoved it into her bag, and said, ‘Let’s go.’