When I come out of the room, changed in frayed jeans and a white t-shirt, with trickles of fresh water coming out of my freshly washed hair, I am not expecting the image of him, looking so at home, I have to stand back and process for a minute. He is sitting on the yellow chaise lounge he called hideous before, a tweety pillow on his lap. His face is up towards the mantle, concentrated at the TV screen, watching the morning share market news at CNBC. The chocolate pancakes are properly garnished and plated with chocolate syrup on the coffee table. He mutes the news and turns his head towards me, as if he recognizes my presence, his eyes move up and down once, without any expression. Then he motions at the plate on the table.
I move and sit on the chaise lounge, a respectable distance away from him. He raises his eyebrows, gets up from the lounge and a minute later he is standing in front of me with Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream in his hands. I resist the smile threatening to sneak on my face. He scoops it perfectly and places it on top of my pancake.
My mouth is already drooling when he hands over the plate to me and sits a little bit closer to me, so that our knees are touching each other's. The smell of chocolate, vanilla and pancakes is already so heavenly that when I take a bite of it I almost groan. "Oh my God," I gasp. "How do you do this? I hate you."
The warmth of chocolate with cold vanilla ice cream is the best combination ever. I don't know what I am doing in a chocolate daze until I habitually take a spoonful of pancake and move the fork towards his mouth.
He stares at me for a second. My hands freeze when I realise that maybe I shouldn't have done this. He is not the old Kiyansh, we don't feed each other like we used to. My hands are halfway back when he grips my wrist moves forward and takes the bite of pancake, his tongue sneaks out and he licks the chocolate from his upper lips.
I suddenly feel warm and hot, I hope that's not showing on my face. I clear my throat and say, "How the hell I can't make such fluffy pancakes when I am the one who taught you in the first place?"
He smiles at me, and Oh god. "Because I am supposed to make them for you," he then surprises me by taking the plate from me, he digs the fork and offers it to my lips. The unexpected brush of his knees on mine and the cold and warm combination of pancake on my lips surprises me so much that my lips open immediately and I take the whole fork in my mouth. "Ouch" I say when the pointed edge of fork pokes inside my mouth.
Kiyansh immediately places the fork and the plate aside and takes my face in his hand. "Hey are you okay?" his eyebrows creases together in concern. His eyes moving up and down my face.
His concerned voice reaches my stomach, and I get a concern of my own. "I.... I am." I stutter and move far away from him.
His hands stay up in the air, and he looks at me like he would like to ask thousand different things from me and honestly, I don't know what is going inside my head right now.
His face becomes stoic and he hands me back the plate without a word.
I continue to eat and awkwardly offer him the plate, he shakes his head and goes back to watching the share market news. The thing is, I know he isn't. Because there's this thing he does when he is thinking, he fidgets and touches his jaw.
It gets confirmed when he suddenly turns towards me, his eyes burning serious. It's that gaze again, the gaze that makes you feel something when they are focused on you, like it can see everything. "So you won't say yes." Here it is.
"No Kiyansh."
He nods as if he is considering something. "May I ask why?"
I sigh and painful, subterranean truth comes out of me, "Because you don't love me and you can't expect me to marry you just because Sahana broke up with you."
His eyes turn dark, his tone jarring, "Why do you keep bringing her into this, I am not proposing you because of her."
I shake my head, my chest lashing at me, "First of all you are not proposing me, you are ordering me. Second thing," I inhale deeply, "If you would have been in relationship with her, would you be still asking me for marriage?"
He looks at me for a moment, and I think I have made my point. Then, he says something that unnerves me and confuses me so much that I want to throw a pillow at him. "Do you know how do I know that I want to marry you? because I never once imagined the prospect of marriage with anyone else. Not with her, not with anyone, I didn't. But with you, it's real, I can see you with me, with my family. And you are not with anyone else right? not since that asshole, who can be better for you than me."
Then why were you in relationship with her? The question is at my mouth. But I focus my anger on him, he has the gall to say that, I want to strike the plate on his egoistic head so hard, that I say the thing which would irritate him the most. "Oh someone like Ahan? He seemed nice yesterday."
He stills like the clouds waiting for storm, his brow furrows together. "You don't even know him."
"I can know him." I don't know why I am doing this.
He nods his head as if he got a puzzle right. "Ahan is it?" He asks, his voice impassive.
Oh my God. "Kiyansh, No."
He doesn't say anything.
"If anything happens to his career and I mean anything. We are done. I promise you Kiyansh, we are done."
His jaw is clenched. "Is he that much important to you?"
I want to shout at him and tell him no, he isn't important like that. No one can be important like that, except him. Sometimes I feel like I am dealing with a kid. I remember some days when we were kids, Kiyansh swore to not come out from his room for a week, I was the only one whom he let enter in the room those days. When I asked him why he didn't come out or let anybody else enter, he said, he just didn't feel like, and then wrapped his arms around me and asked me to stay with him, so I did.
You are a fool, my mother's sharp voice rings in my head.
"No Kiyansh he isn't, not like that. He is a nice person though and you should respect that. He was a gentleman yesterday. "
"What did he do to be a gentleman? Aren't I a gentleman? "
"No you are not." I answer him bluntly.
He frowns.
The memories of, one of the most beautiful day of my life invades my head it's stark clear in my head. As beautiful, as the Juliet roses blooming in his family home. I remember crying on my parent's new yard, covered in dirt, searching for Charlie, my pet rat. And I remember that small cute kid with brown hair and brown eyes, crouching down in front of me and asking me why I was crying. I remember yelling at him to go, to leave me alone, that I didn't want to talk to him, to anyone but, Charlie. And I remember him, covered in sand searching for Charlie with me whole afternoon till evening without uttering a word. He refused to go inside my house when his mother called him for lunch. He just stayed with me and searched for Charlie. When I was crying at dinner because we still hadn't got Charlie back, he refused to go home with his parents and promised me when everybody would fall asleep we'll search again. I would never forget that knock on my bedroom door, how we sneaked on to the yard when everybody was asleep and how Charlie magically appeared in the middle of night. I would never forget that smile that came on his face, the way he was holding Charlie, like he was his. That day, I got myself the best, best friend in the world. I just didn't know that I would love him for the rest of my life and he won't.
Yes it was selfish, but I couldn't marry him as his best friend, not when it cut me so deep inside. Not when I feel like I won't be able to keep it inside me and he would say it on my face that he doesn't love me like that, and we won't be even best friends anymore, I can't.
I start to say, my heart thumping against my chest, "Kiyansh....I can't."
A phone starts ringing, his. He motions a finger at me with dark eyes and picks up the call giving me a long look, he nods his head listening to whoever is on the other side. Then he says his eyes challenging mine, and I know it's for me, rather than the person on the other line. "They did agree, I can convince anyone in the world." and he cuts the call.
He tilts his head, leaning on the chaise lounge. For a moment we both are staring at each other and there's something his tilted lips in the corner is saying. And there's something that I am, with my arms folded on my chest. We both know, it's a game we have played several times.
He gets up from the chaise lounge, his eyes challenging, "Finish up your pancakes." His voice is deep, determined, confident.
I nod my head and take up the plate from the coffee table, narrowing my eyes at him, taking a bite tentatively.
"Evening?" he asks as he closes the button on his suit.
My eyes are on his hands closing the buttons, and I realise stupidly that I am nodding my head. I shake it so hard no, that I stop the plate barely from falling on the floor. "No, I have to complete the script." I am mortified when I look up at him and find him looking at me amusingly.
He nods his head contemplating and says, "I will be going then."
"Well okay." You stupid, stupid girl.
He turns towards the door then all of a sudden he rounds and comes close towards me, he is bending down to be face to face with me, my breath is floundering when he puts his thumb on my lips and it moves a slow half circle on my mouth, it's so warm, calloused and surprising that it feels like someone is putting hot iron on my freezing lips. "Will you do something for me?" He whispers, his voice smooth, soft, hot.
I nod, first because I am sure he can feel my heart bumping in my chest, second, his thumb is still grazing my lips, I feel the jolt of it in my legs.
His thumb stops moving and his face tightens suddenly, he removes his hand so fast as if he is the one being burned from inside, voice hard, he says, "Kiss Ayan."
My brain takes several moments to process that, and when it does, I am not sure I heard it right. "What?" I push him back so hard that I feel my body vibrate, he doesn't move a budge.
Except, his hands are clenched in a fist and he says, "You said that you could marry someone like him. I am not a gentleman Shanvi you know that, but I promise you if you kiss him and feel anything for him, I am never asking you to marry me."
I feel the jut in my chest so hard that I feel like I am drowning in a sunburst of a dessert. "Why?" I am able to force the word out of my mouth.
His face turns to so much distaste that his face is clenched when he says, "I am not going to force you into anything. But if you go on a date and kiss him, and you don't like it, you are going to confess it to my face. And you are never going to touch him again."
My mouth is opened, but nothing is coming out of it. I don't know how to tell him that I don't want to kiss Ayan or anybody else.
He looks at me and steps away cautiously towards the door, the ache in my heart is so hard that I feel like someone is squeezing my heart out of my chest. He glances back at me once, he looks like he wants to say something, but then he slides out the door without another word. The sound of the door code clicking in place is so haunting, it aches in my head.