‘You didn’t want to call, get in touch? Afterwards.’
‘There were others.’
This was unravelling expressly, like substandard timber.
‘Nothing serious, nothing that meant anything.’
‘I wouldn’t have understood it even if it was love.’
‘It was just physical,’ he said.
There was a question in his eyes; I could read it.
‘I’m sorry.’
I stared at him; my face was a blank canvas.
Then he shrugged, an involuntary reaction, before getting back on his feet. He stood there for a moment longer, perhaps to get his balance back before walking away.
My head was spinning, and I desperately needed to focus on something or I would kill this man. I wanted to throw up on the pile of rom-coms sitting on my lap. The bitter aftertaste of a cancelled love story.
Our paths didn’t cross for most of the week following our bookshop meeting.
We were both in office. I knew he was around, and I’m sure he caught glimpses of me, too, but we hadn’t sought each other out.
I was stinging from theIt was just physical, and I’m sure he was wondering when and how I had found out about Meena and him. He hadn’t run into Meena in Bengaluru.
It was Friday afternoon when he knocked on my cabin door.
‘May I?’ Andrew asked. His digits were hard on the doorknob.
I nodded. What now? Did he want to discuss rom-coms?
‘A couple of my National Law School mates are in town from London,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m having a get-together at my place tomorrow evening.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘It’s short notice, I know, but I just found out today.’
I nodded before running through my socially robust Saturday mentally. It was a blank page.
‘I would like you guys to finally meet.’
I laughed because I may have caught Chhaya’s laughing bug, but he read too much into it.
‘I would’ve extended the invite to Ravi Rao, too,’ he said, ‘but this is a really small crowd.’
Then I laughed because this was funny.
Andrew had caught on to the difference in the cadence, and he wasn’t smiling.
‘I’m getting a plus one.’
Andrew was on his feet and at the door.
‘Andrew,’ I said just as he was about to yank the door out of its hinges, ‘you haven’t met my father.’
He spun right around, and he was smiling that smile that he saves for Thanksgiving each year. ‘I haven’t,’ he said, knowing exactly what I meant by plus one.
