I break out of my flurry of thoughts, turning to look back at Rudra, who walks over. He comes to stand beside me, leaning his arms on the railing. His hair is down again, which is how I like it most, one side hooked behind his ear while the other flows in swelling waves.
“Hi,” I say, realizing I’m not as surprised he joined me as I oncewould have been. We’ve been having all thesemomentstogether, but he probably doesn’t see them the same way I do. For him, they’re just moments, notmoments.Because he’s head over heels in love with Priti and I’m, well, a stranger to him.
But does that even matter anymore? When both of us know Priti’s been wanting to get back together with her ex this whole time? Or is Rudra still an option to her, in her head? A backup, if she gets her heart broken?
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he says, turning his body toward mine, making me aware of how close he’s standing.
My heartbeat snags for a second as a million possibilities of what I might’ve said to him whirl around in my head.
“About how it’s been a while since Priti genuinely looked happy,” he says, a pained emotion flitting across his face.
“It’s true,” I say, glancing over at Priti, who is playing with a few stray dogs by the water cooler. “It sounds like her breakup with Soumyaroop really shattered her.”
Rudra gazes in Priti’s direction, his eyes conveying his conflicting emotions, his inner battle with ethics.
“That’s why I think we should do it,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Reunite Priti with her ex.”
I stare at him, letting the words sink in. He looks at me again, his eyes latching onto mine with such ardor I nearly lower my gaze. “You mean—you want to actuallystopthe wedding? Like, sabotage it?Endit?”
“Yes, Krishna,” Rudra says, his lips curving upward. “Stopping, sabotaging, ending. All of it. We need to make sure her ex doesn’t go through with the wedding, or at least delay it until Priti has had a chance to confess her feelings.”
My body quivers with excitement and terror at the prospect of doing such an outrageous thing. I’ve never intentionally screwed up a major event for someone before (emphasis on the wordintentionally, because I might’veaccidentallydone it, like that one time I knocked over a drinks table during someone’s wedding reception).
“You’d do that?” I ask.
“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I? It’s for Priti.”
“Because you’re, like...”In love with her.“Because I didn’t think you were the sort of person to ruin someone’s wedding.”
Rudra bursts into laughter. I watch him, amazed and mesmerized at once, because this is the first time he’slaughedin front of me, with his full chest, eyes sparkling. A smile breaks out on my own face because his laughter is so infectious.
It makes me want to find every chance to make him laugh like that, again and again, until I’m sick of it.
In that moment, I fall for him twofold—no,tenfold—in a manner there’s no coming back from. And it’s not just because he’s so freakin’ cute, those dots in his chin popping in and out of view, eyes crinkled and lashes sticking out, hair escaping the trap of the curve of his ear. It’s also because I’m awestruck by how he’s able to set aside his own feelings and think about Priti’s happiness instead of his own. I don’t think I’d ever be able to do something like that—get over that crass bite of jealousy and think about what the other person wants.
Krishna Kumar, you’re fucking screwed.
“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he says, smiling down at me. “Not everyone’s as chaotic as you.”
A blush creeps up my neck and pours into my cheeks. “Well, you’ll learn. I’ll teach you.”
“I’d love that,” Rudra says, running his fingers through his hair. “We should go—it looks like they’re leaving.”
The campsite is a half-minute walk from the compound where we ate, tents arranged on a grassy patch of land overlooking the gorgeous view. When we get there, Jalaj asks us to split up into pairs because the tents are twin sharing. I turn to Charu expectantly, ready to crawl into a tent and get the sleep I’ve been lacking.
But then the most bizarre thing happens.
Priti turns to me—me!—and says, “We’ll share.”
I gawk at her. But I’m not the only one. Everyone—Digha, Charu, Varun, Jalaj, and Rudra—looks even more surprised than I feel at her sudden declaration.
But I should have been anticipating this, what with all thelooksPriti’s been giving Rudra and me this whole time. I’m more surprised she hasn’t confronted me already.
Okay, she did, in Pune, when Rudra flirted with me right in front of her, but I denied her assumptions. A lot has gone down since then.
