1.1 | Milkshakes For Sale

07 | mocha

⋆ ——————— sitara ⋮ ⋆

THE PING OF my phone signalled Shaurya’s arrival. I grabbed my phone with a grin and checked the text: mind giving the love of your life some encouragement? At the parking lot.

I put on a long button-up shirt and shimmied myself into a decent pair of jeans. 

“Where are you going?” Ma asked, uncluttering the tea table. 

“Shaurya is here. At the parking lot,” I said, putting on my flip-flops. 

“Doesn’t he know his way up here?” Pa asked, and Ma hit his shoulders. 

“Let her do what she wants,” She told him and nodded at me to go get him. I got onto the elevator and then just like he had said, he stood in the parking lot in neat casuals, his back facing me. I sneaked in behind him and slowly wrapped an arm around his waist. He immediately knew it was me. 

“Sitar, I am freaking out,” He admitted. I pressed my face into his back and hummed in acknowledgement. “What if they don’t like me? Or don’t agree?”

I came around to face him in the front. His hair was perfect and his shirt was crisp and ironed. “Shaurya, my parents had a love marriage. Do you know how much struggle they had to go through because both were of different castes?” I said, eyeing his hastily folded sleeve. “They fell in love after college and they married almost two years later because they had to fight for it on both side of their families.”

I unfolded his sleeve and straightened it out. Then, I evenly rolled it and buttoned it just below his elbow. “I am sure they would understand that we are madly in love like they were once, and that sometimes, you’ve just got to let love win. Because, whatever happens, in the end love will be the only thing standing. And what’s not there to like about you?” I said, rolling his other sleeve. 

“Who is this, Sitara?” I heard Shambavi Aunty’s voice call out. My eyes widened and before I could form an exit plan, she circled us. Her glance glued itself onto our intertwined hands and I knew she was already preparing her speech to go recite to her other friends in the apartment. 

I wanted to remove my hand from Shaurya’s but I knew it was late. “Who is this? I haven’t seen him around before,” She said, cleverly coating her voice with sugar. 

“Um,” I started, raking through my brain to find an excuse. Do cousins hold hands? Or is that a friend thing? I glanced at Shaurya and then back at her. She waited for my response. “Um, he is my…”

I can't say he is my boyfriend. That would become a massive volcano eruption of gossip.

“Well…” She prompted again and I wanted to break her nose. Couldn’t she mind her own damn business?

“He is my... fiancé,” I blurted out, squeezing Shaurya's hand tighter. If she was hell bent on getting information from me, why not give her a juicy one? “Go tell all your friends, Aunty. Wouldn’t want them missing out on such great news, do we?”

She spluttered. “B-but…”

“If you’ll excuse me, my fiancé and I should get going,” I said, and pulled him to the elevator. 

“Okay, what in the hell was that?” Shaurya asked as soon as the doors closed behind us. “You’ve got to stop giving me mini heart attacks.”

“That’s nothing for you to worry about,” I said and backed him against the wall with a smile. “So… are you still nervous?”

“A little.”

I nodded and then raised myself on my tip-toes and tugged Shaurya by his shirt. “Maybe this could be an encouragement?” I whispered against his lips before pressing mine on his. He smiled into the kiss and his arms came around me to rest right above the waistband of my jeans. My hands moved up from his waist and pressed on his chest. His thumb rubbed circles on my shirt as he kissed me back slowly.