‘No—’
‘Hey, maybe Vicky will break up,’ she says with a smile. ‘I torture him a lot. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes he’s with the world’s worst girlfriend.’
‘You should be with a nice guy.’
She catches my eye. After a pause that seems like an eternity, she says, ‘Like you?’
My heart thumps. Her words wrap around my heart like a blanket on a chilly morning. My body warms.
‘I’m hardly a nice guy.’
‘Of course you’re not, Daksh. You’re the worst guy ever.’
‘And you’re the world’s worst girlfriend,’ I announce. ‘We are a match made in heaven.’
Just then, there’s a call on her phone. It’s Vicky.
‘I will go now and video-call him from the hotel or he will go mad,’ she says.
The thought of Vicky and her being held hostage in a dead relationship makes my entire body revolt.
‘Aanchal. I thought the point was to make him mad enough to leave. I should pick up and tell him that his girlfriend is with me, in my house. I should tell him that we just had the most incredible kiss in the brief history of time.’
‘What else would you tell him?’ she asks, her eyes meeting mine.
I step closer to her. ‘That I have had the biggest crush on his girlfriend for the longest time.’
‘We can hardly call it a crush any more, Daksh.’
The lower register of her voice makes my heart race. ‘I don’t want to call it an obsession.’
‘I’ll allow obsession.’
I want to take her face in my hands, truly see if she’s real. I’m obsessed with who she is, what she is, her face, her body, every inch of her, every moment of her existence.
‘He will call my parents and tell them what you tell him.’
‘He really needs to meet my fist.’
‘My cab’s two minutes away, Daksh.’
‘I want to drop you to the hotel,’ I say.
‘Can you?’
‘Rabbani.’
‘It’s a good thing you can’t, Daksh. I don’t want you to,’ she sighs.
‘Why?’
‘Because I am alone in my room and my room is just a one-minute walk from the cab drop-off,’ she says.
‘You’re giving me reasons why I should drop you, not why I shouldn’t.’
‘Things are already too complicated.’
The invitation and rejection rolled in one makes my heart pound against my insides. I feel a stirring within. A desire I haven’t ever felt before. We stand there, looking at each other, and for a brief moment, we are the only ones at that traffic signal, beneath the yellow glow of the streetlights, and the universe has melted into nothing.
