Two Birds One Arrow (Completed)

Chapter 6

"Hey, do you want to hang out with me tomorrow?" Gautham asked me. He had called me as soon as he had reached home and claimed that he missed me already. I didn't know if I should find it cute or creepy.

"Like on a date?" I asked him back and felt really silly about my question.

"Yes. I will pick you up." He answered back excitedly.

"Uh, I have got a meeting tomorrow. How about day after tomorrow?" I asked him knowing well that I had destroyed the hopes of going out that he had carried with him.

"At what time will your meeting be over?" He asked me back without missing a beat.

"Around six or seven." I told him.

"Okay." He replied back but the excitement in his voice had long died.

"Can we reschedule on Tuesday?" I asked him hoping that it would cheer him up.

It most definitely did.

"Yeah, sure. Want to go out for a coffee date with me?" He asked me chuckling and I was really happy that I could bring out his excitement back.

"Sure. You can text me the details when you are free." I told him.

"Why are you talking so formally? Be casual. " He said.

"I am being casual. It is just that I am not really good with phone calls and stuff. " I gave him my answer away honestly.

"Hey, Mom is calling me. Can I text you after some time?" He asked me in a rushed manner.

"Of course." I told him and with the conversation ending with a bye from both the sides, I cut the call.

*~*~*

"So, cafe coffee day, huh?" I asked him as he pulled out a chair for me to sit.

"Sorry, I just could not think of some other place. But you do not have to worry. I have lots of date ideas planned in my mind. This might probably even be the last time we will be having a date in a coffee shop." He smiled at the waiter who walked to our table who handed us our menus.

"One cold coffee, please." We both said at the same time and then looked at each other. I was the first one to break the eye contact as I began to feel my cheeks heating up.

"Two cold coffees, please. " He informed the waiter who left after noting down our orders.

"So tell me about your husband." Gautham asks me as if his question was not weird at all.

"I am sorry, what?" I asked him believing that I had wrongly heard him and he actually said something sensible.

Or maybe he is screwed up in the head and that is why he likes me. He will probably run for the hills when he gets his senses back.

"Your husband. I mean you will have had dreams about how he should look or how he should behave and all right. Tell me about. I will try to be him." He tells me.

"Well, ever since I was a child, I was really confident that my marriage was going to be an arranged one. So I did not even take any initiative to get committed or lead some guy on. I want my husband to be my boyfriend first because that was the only character that had never been casted in my life. When I mean boyfriend I do not mean a relationship that we two carry on because we are going to get married, I want a real experience. You should first ask me out, then impress me. I should tell 'okay' to you first. I want my love story to be as cliche as possible. I honestly live for all the cheesy stuffs. As a girl who grew up seeing almost all the movies, I also want ours love to be movie style. So yeah." I tell him.

"Wow," he muttered to me and then continued, " will you accept me as your boyfriend, then?"

"Definitely not. Like just imagine like we were in college. I am this girl who you have been eyeing, do you just walk straight up to her and ask her 'will you accept me as your boyfriend?'. You cannot do that. You should impress her, you should make her fall for you. Then, she herself would accept you as her boyfriend. That is what I want. Make me fall for you. See, even though our marriage is arranged, I want to have a love story so give me one." I tell him to which he silently nods.

"What about you, Gautham. How do you want your wife to be?" I ask him curious to hear his answer and see if I can make myself the wife he had wanted.

"To be honest, I don't have any dreams about my wife. But, I definitely do have dreams about the relationship I share with her. I want to be the one she can trust with every. I want to be her best friend. I want to cook the dish she loves the most and then feed it to her. I want our days to begin and end with kisses. We need to make up all our fights with kisses. I want to dance in the rain with her and so much more. I do have a lot of fantasies about her." He tells me with a smile and something warm tugs my heart.

Just at that time, the waiter walks in with our coffee.

"So Neha, my parents spoke to your parents about our engagement yesterday. They told me that it will at the end of this month, which is barely two weeks away. But, within this one week, I will woo you with my moves and make you fall for me and become the boyfriend you always wanted." He told me and then proceeded to drink his coffee.

I smiled at him though he did not notice. The thing is that I do not have any problem in accepting him as my boyfriend even now. But, I just want to see up to what extent he is going to win my hand.

"Gautham, that is going to be very difficult. Seeing that our engagement is only ten days away, I will be quite busy after today. We have to do a lot of shopping and so many other procedures. So I will not be able to go anywhere with you until our engagement is over. So it will be really difficult for you to impress me within these ten days. So, you can take time till our marriage. Let us see if you are ever able to become my boyfriend." I inform him and then gulp the drink in front of me.

"Let us see."

"Yeah, we shall." I laugh at him.

We finish our drink and have several other conversations too. Deciding that it was time to leave, Gautham signaled the waiter to bring the bill over.

"Get into the car, I will pay the bill and come." He tells me.

"No, I will wait we can leave together."

The waiter brings the bill and he takes his wallet out from his pocket.

"How much?" I ask him, picking up my purse.

"Keep your purse inside. I will pay." He opens his wallet and picks out a few hundred rupees notes.

"Why?" I ask him, not understanding the concept of guys always paying the bill.

"Well, if you are so insistent, you can pay me back after marriage. Right now, I am this guy who is willing to give away his entire life so that the girl he loves will accept him as her boyfriend. So I am going to turn up the chivalry. " He places the cash alongside the bill and gets up. Just as he gets up, I get up too.

We walk towards his car and he opens up the door for me, being a true gentleman. I smile at him, thankful for his polite gesture.

He then walks to the other side and sits down and starts the car. "You can pick the music you like." He informs me and I nod and surf through various tracks and finally find my favorite song.

"Hey, that is my favorite song. " He exclaimed, really happy that out of the various tracks, I was right in choosing his favorite song.

"It is mine , too." I tell him and listen to the song, content with the comfortable silence prevailing within us.