Becoming Sweethearts [✓]

Part Thirty Four

Omkara and Gauri were exhausted, to say the least. The whole drama that they both had been dealing with in the Oberoi Mansion, from the moment they woke up till the moment they left the home, had taken a toll on both of them. Gauri was new to it all, but she was surprised to notice how it left Omkara drained too. No wonder every time he visited his family, he looked like he had come back from a battlefield. Right now, the two of them just wanted to have a shower and crash in bed, longing for a good night’s rest, especially Omkara, who was coming back to his own apartment after ten long days and nights.

While Gauri had gone ahead to have a shower, Omkara had decided to sit with his laptop and check a few emails from work. Since Rudra had put up a cutesy picture of their intimate wedding in his Instagram story, a few tabloids had run the news about the middle Oberoi getting hitched in secret. Headlines like ‘secret-wedding’, ‘office romance’, ‘friendship-turned-love’, ‘lovebirds’ were some of the common words highlighted.

Then, there were a gazillion congratulatory messages pouring in too. Some were from work friends, and he was obligated to reply to each of them, on behalf of Gauri too, since after a week’s holiday, they both had to turn up at their office for work. Ishana was one among those who had wished them.

Omkara had always been a slightly closed person when he was a teenager, so there was no surprise that only a handful of his college friends had wished him. Then there were a few relatives who had congratulated him, not before grumbling in their messages about why they weren’t invited. Omkara replied to some, deleted some, and blocked some. He didn’t want to waste his time and energy on the people who appeared only once in a blue moon.

He was still in the middle of replying to Ishana’s congratulatory message when he heard Gauri’s voice from the bedroom, “Oberoi, which kurta of yours can I borrow?” Omkara’s fingers paused typing as he thought for a moment, and then shrugged as he told her from the living room, “Wear any, as long as you’re comfortable.” There was silence from her before he heard her rummaging through his wardrobe as the doors of the cupboard opened and shut. “Found something?” he asked from outside after a minute, and he heard a distant “Yeah!” from her.

“Ishana messaged, wishing us a happy married life.” Omkara said as he copy-pasted a formal reply to her, just like everyone else: ‘Thank you so much, Regards, Gauri & Omkara’ The door flung open merely three seconds later and Gauri walked out with a frown, “How did she know?” Omkara was a bit too stunned to notice she was wearing one of his favourite navy-blue kurtas that reached just below her knee, and the side slits of which began a few inches above her knee. Gauri was slightly flustered at his intense gaze on her legs and cleared her throat when she saw him studying her smoothly waxed calves.

Omkara mentally chided himself when she caught him staring at her legs. The way he stared, he probably gave off an impression that he had a foot fetish. He immediately looked at her face, now not daring to move his gaze anywhere below her chin.

Omkara said, “Rudra’s karthooth. He put up our picture in his story, a couple of tabloids brought out an article that we got married, and boom, half the country knows we got hitched.” Gauri stared at him for thirty long seconds, before she said in a shocked voice, “Our wedding is in the news?” Omkara shrugged with a nod, saying, “It was expected. Irrespective of how I feel about the unnecessary attention by the paparazzi towards the Oberoi name, the media still knows me as an Oberoi. Well, some still know me as the reformed drug addict, but that’s a different story…”

Gauri looked a little worried at that. She hadn’t told her parents about Omkara’s dark past. If any tabloid published anything with regard to his history, would her parents still be so nice and loving towards him, the way they were at present? For some reason, she didn’t want Omkara to be painted in a negative light in front of her parents. She knew right away that, if her parents asked her about his past when they learned about it, she would tell them that she was informed about it and had no qualms accepting him the way he was, even embracing his past. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Until then, she wouldn’t bother much about it.