Chapter 18
Kartik
I tell Aarush everything while Samaira answered a call from her mom.
Apparently, word got out and someone told her parents that she was planning to get married to a guy she barely knew.
Now Samaira was telling her mom the story we had spun, that she knew me from my mom, her boss, which technically was true.
Aarush was very quiet when I finished the story and how it would be a marriage of convenience. I sighed, putting my plate down. “Well say something” I finally urged him to speak up.
“Let me put this in the best possible way you understand, brother. You are either going to break her heart and walk away while leaving her a mess or you are going to break yours.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Look at her, when we went to her place that day did you look around her house?” Before I can answer he answers it himself, “Of course you didn't. It is filled with romance books! She’s a hopeless romantic while you’re just…hopeless”
“I don’t know about breaking hearts, but I am going to break your bones if you’re not clear with what you’re trying to say,” I said, trying really hard not to kill my only friend.
“She’s is the kind of person who loves love, there’s a 90% possibility she’s going to fall for you and you’ll lose her before you realize that you are in love with her”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“I just do”
Aarush for the first time looked like he really knew something I didn’t. I was afraid he might be true but it was a little too late to take a step back. Aarush left quickly after saying goodbye to Samaira who had just gotten off the call with her mom.
Samaira
Aarush left in a hurry after getting a call while Kartik brought out food.
“I brought food from your favorite Chinese place because I know it’s 7:30 and that's when you have dinner because you wrote in the index cards. And I brought you some Mint Chocolate Chip Ice cream just in case our friends don’t react the way you them want to and you get upset, so here’s the guilty ice cream.
” Kartik says before pulling out the said index cards and then moving to the freezer to keep the ice cream.
He remembered such a small detail. My heart was beating faster than it should. Maybe I was having a heart attack and didn’t know it. Yeah, that was probably it.
“Thank you,” I said. That’s all I said because I had no idea how to tell him that such a small thing also meant the world to me.
He gave me the cutest grin ever and my deceptive heart that was beating fast started beating faster than I knew it could.
My eyes started welling up at the fact that he remembered the little things and we weren’t even friends yet.
It was just one or two index cards that told him some things about me, yet he remembered it.
No one outside of my family had done such a gesture for me.
Sure, I had great friends. I had an amazing best friend. But this was different.
Kartik
She came and sat beside me on the sofa with a thud with the mint ice cream in her hand. She placed the ice cream tub and a spoon on the coffee table.
“I’m so tired…” she exclaimed.
She let her head fall back and closed her eyes for a moment with a sigh.
I couldn’t help but look at her. She looked gorgeous.
She looked normal. She looked human. The last time I had an interaction with a girl in such close proximity, she dumped me and married my brother.
I don’t remember a time that my ex looked anything close to a human, she always had to look perfect.
Samaira, on the other hand, also had the need to be perfect but something about her didn’t seem so fake.
I knew what my brother said would come true if I kept looking at her like a creep.
Clearing my throat, I started to get up.
She opened her eyes and grabbed my hand to stop me. I sat back down in an instant.
“Where are you going?”
“To wash the dishes while you rest, it’s been a long day for you,” I said with a smile as my hand instantly shot up to her hair to caress them.
“Please stay. I’d like some company.” She whispered locking eyes with me.
There was no way now that I was going until she kicked me out of my own house.
Her eyes had me mesmerized. I could drown in them happily.
She didn’t realize what kind of hold she already had over me.
Maybe Aarush was right, I was going to end up breaking my own heart when this was over because there was no way she was going to fall for a guy like me.
The guys she reads about might have raised the bar already so high.
I couldn’t ever reach them. She deserved the world.
We were side by side, eyes locked. My hand moved to her left ear as I stroked her flesh there. Samaira stilled. I almost stopped feeling like I might have crossed a line but then she leaned into my touch giving me a soft smile. So I continued.
“One spoon only?” I asked
“I don’t share my mint chocolate chip ice cream with anyone. It's a sacred tradition.” She dramatically whispered as if telling me a secret. I tried to keep a straight face.
“It’s a tradition to not share the ice cream with the one who bought it for you?” I asked her mildly amused with where this was leading, my hand still stroking her ear
“Well, when you put it that way it sounds stupid.” She said rolling her eyes
I chuckled. This girl was something else.
“Are you going to tell me? Or is it some deep secret you’re going to take to your grave?”
She sighed. “Maybe some other time, but if you’re scared about germs I can get you another spoon?”
“I don’t mind sharing.”
“Good. Open the tub I can’t” she said grumpily making me laugh and I had a feeling she already tried opening the damn thing and couldn’t.
Samaira
I watched as he opened the tub. I could never open those ice cream tubs with bleeding. And well, the ice cream and blood really don’t go well. Unless you’re a vampire.
Me and Aria were in college when I told her I don’t like sharing my favourite ice cream.
She told me she didn’t like sharing her fries with anyone.
Understandable. My reason however was due to the fact that it was my favourite.
The only people in the world who ever had the opportunity to get a bite were my parents, or my close friends that too if I was in a good mood.
Otherwise, it was just me and my mint chocolate chip ice cream till death.
I don’t know what it was about Kartik that I didn’t mind sharing my ice cream with.
Kartik grabbed a spoonful, at first I thought he would have a bite himself but he held it near my lips.
Eyes trained on him, I opened my mouth and took a bite.
His eyes trained on my mouth the whole time.
I thought he was about to kiss me with the way he was looking at me, the way his eyes darkened.
But whatever that was, was gone in a second.
He cleared his throat before saying, “You know…if you’re trying to make me feel guilty for the ice cream, you’ve succeeded.
I was really trying to control my diet, you know, but I guess now we will have to eat that ice cream. ”
I couldn’t help but laugh as he dramatically grabbed a spoonful and shoved it in his mouth.
We took turns eating the ice cream considering the one spoon, but neither one of us got up to grab another. As I tried to sneak two more bites, he was busy thinking.
“What’s your favorite book that you'll never get tired of reading? Also, why do you like reading romance?”
“That’s like asking a mom of 100 kids to choose from her kids, which is next to impossible…”
“Come on, you're taking those extra bites of the ice cream. I'm sure you can pick one.”
Uh oh, he’d caught me. I looked at him with the most innocent expression I could muster and blinked my eyes several times.
He looked at me adoringly before he ended up guffawing.
I had blinked my eyes several times so far that I made my eyelashes get stuck a bit in my lenses which caused my eyes to burn.
Which of course he noticed. God that was embarrassing.
I was trying to be cute. But here I was in classic Samaira fashion embarrassing myself.
“Come here”
He said so softly, chuckling, I wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t so close to me.
He took the ice cream tub from my hands and kept it on the table before cradling my face with his right hand while using his left hand to brush the hair out of my way.
I held my breath as his face came close to mine.
He softly blew on my eye. My eye was probably red from the itch, but I didn’t scratch it.
If I wasn’t mistaken, Kartik was about to scratch the other one. God my jokes were not good.
“Better?” he asked, still concentrating on my eye trying to get that redness to go.
He looked adorable when he was concentrating on something.
When I didn’t reply for a heartbeat, he leaned back a bit while looking me in the eyes and rubbing his thumb against my lips now.
I had no idea how I was alive at the moment.
“Yeah,” My voice came out hoarse for some reason. I exactly knew the reason why but we were going to pretend I didn’t.
He sucked a breath as I answered almost as much bothered by the closeness and the moments as me. He leaned in. It was happening. And then…it wasn’t.