Serendipity [Temporarily Discontinued]

Chapter 12

Saee never thought she would enjoy her job so much as she did now. Well, she had a brief idea she would but this was unexpected even on a minor scale. Professionalism was embedded in her but sometimes she liked being laid back and enjoy the moment. She was perched on the bleachers and taking in the dew settled grass of their football field. Today’s match was the final one for her assignment and it had ended on a good note. Although there were two injuries throughout the match, their team had won with a score of 2-6 on the home ground. Saee had clapped, cheered and sung the team’s anthem and hollered in joy when the final whistle had echoed in the stadium. Saee didn’t think of herself as a sports kind of person before but now she believed she could work in a team setup with professional athletes and actually enjoy what she was doing.

While Saee was immersing herself in the future plans and the nostalgia of the match that had ended some time ago, the two familiar boys of her team entered the field with a six pack of beer. Aarav and Rudra hadn’t changed from their jersey and shorts only slipped the team’s jacket over their jerseys. The game had been a crucial one against Penn State’s arch rivals UCLA. Aarav had given a pretty long prep talk before the game while the coach had looked on with pride filled eyes. Saee had been in the locker checking Bhavik’s recently hurt face while Aarav had delivered the speech. Saee had been moved by the potential of his prep talk and could only imagine the impact his words had on his team mates. When they had stepped out of the back room all of them had been pumped with adrenaline and cheering each other. Rudra had stopped for a fraction of a moment to smile at Saee while he had followed the others out the door. Thinking back on it, Saee had felt really nice that a self-absorbed and half-introvert fellow like Rudra had smiled back at her.

Rudra turned around to take a panoramic view of the stadium that he loved so much and spotted Saee sitting at the top on the bleachers. Saee smiled at him and got a warm and happy smile from him in return. She saw the exchange of words between Rudra and Aarav, got a huge hearty smile from Aarav and then they strolled towards the bleachers themselves.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Aarav nonchalantly passed a beer to Saee, “Why haven’t you left as of yet?” He plopped down next to Saee and placed the pack of beers in between them.

“I didn’t want to leave; wanted to soak everything while I have the time here.” She sipped on her beer and felt the golden alcoholic drink travel down her throat. She wasn’t a particular fan of beer for she preferred wines, vodka and whiskey. But, alcohol was alcohol after all and something was better than nothing.

“Oh yes, your term here is over isn’t it?” Rudra seated himself on the step lower than the one Saee was sitting on. He sipped on to his beer while massaging the crepe bandage on his arm with the other. Saee had ran out on the field when Rudra had called out for medical assistance. It was nothing serious, probably just a strain, but she had rushed in to help with her kit in hand.

“Is that hurting still?” Saee extended her hand for his and he obliged without a fuss. “It doesn’t seem to be swollen.” She inspected his arm while asking questions when needed to which Rudra answered honestly. After she was done prodding and inspecting, she nodded and gave a thumps up and continued sipping on her beer.

Aarav was barely controlling his laughter. He had been looking at them all along and there were really weird images of them as a couple floating around in his head. He wanted to say it out loud so bad but he was restraining himself from doing so. But as soon as Saee was done with her work Aarav couldn’t hold it any longer and blurted out the sentence that was appearing in his head again and again. “You both are so much into each other.”

Two things happened at the same time after he spoke. Firstly Saee choked on her beer on hearing what Aarav had to say and secondly Rudra threw the empty beer can at Aarav after recovering from the initial horror of his sentence. Aarav laughed looking at Saee cough on her beer whilst Rudra tried patting her back and soothe her. Aarav jumped in to help after his hilarious outburst and tried to save Saee from not choking to death, although there was nothing much he could do.