Hustle For Love |COMPLETE| MaNan Fiction

33. Interlogue I: What happens in LA, stays in LA

A/N : Ermm..I'm nearing the endgame of my final trimester now, things are finally getting a bit uncomfortable & peeky! I haven't been able to write this week owing to minor health woes. The li'l one is making its presence felt now more than ever! :P

However, I anticipated these & had a created a chapter bank previously, so you guys are covered this week & hopefully next too! Let's hope I will get well before next week & my health won't impact the publishing schedule in the future too!

Just wanted to thank you for the extra love you guys showered in the last chapter. Hope you like this one too!

Happy reading!

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West Hollywood, Los Angeles circa 2018

(Nandini's Studio, Fiona Apartment, Unit 102 , 375 N LA Cienega Boulevard)

~4 months later~

Nandini Murthy

"What?" That was all Navya could say for the third time in the last ten minutes after hearing what I had to say. Aliya hadn't uttered a word yet, as she sat on the couch looking stubbornly towards the same patch of design on my floor carpet. I knew both were upset & I also knew that they both were upset because of very different reasons. I could dwell on that later. To bring you up to pace, it's been a couple of months since my brother & Mukti's wedding, they are a happily married couple living their dreams. Now as most Indian families behave, my uncle & aunt followed the same tradition; they tentatively started planning their second big gig before their retirement, almost while the first gig a.k.a my brother's wedding was going on. So you've got the point right, second big gig, equals my wedding with Arya. I knew even during Dufus's wedding they were planning for me to tie the knot in another six months, but I only realised how serious they were about it, today!

It was a cold Sunday morning in December, and I had the day all planned. I was to do one thing that I haven't had the chance to do ever since Maldives, the chance to sleep! After our return, I was emotionally extremely messed up & the only way I could keep my mind off anything to do with Manik was by burying myself with so much work that I didn't get the chance to think of anything else after that. Ever since I'd wake up, I'd work so much that by the time I crashed on bed at night, my body would be fatigued to the point of passing out. You see, no normal sleep meant no nightmares & no free wakeful moment meant no distracting emotions! Life was simple. As much as most of my friends & family detested my lifestyle, it kinda worked out for me, & eventually a couple of months later, I was in a better place, my thoughts weren't clouded by Manik, I was falling back in the rhythm of my life & Maldives was slowly leaving my system. Now, after so many months, I had finally decided to relax a little, I was confident I could afford a break now & my mind wouldn't wander into uncharted territories if I wasn't tiring myself out. So you can imagine how precious this Sunday was for me & my lazy a*s, but nope, destiny had other plans for me of course!

Saying I was annoyed would be an understatement of the millenia when my sleep was broken early in the morning with the continuous ringing of my doorbell. I scratched my head, it couldn't be Arya of course & I hadn't planned any other engagements either, then who was here to ruin my Sunday? A few seconds of disorientation & a couple of harmless abuses later, I found myself at my door starting aghast at the visitors standing there with bright lit faces. There they were, my gang, my clan, my girls, Navya & Aliya, in all their glory, walking in uninhibited, sparkling confetti & shouting, "We're the Bride Brigade, we are here to surprise you with the World's best bachelorette trip ever!"

Err..Bachelorette trip?

After a gusto of excitement, fun & laughter, they finally informed me that both my uncle-aunt & Arya's father apparently spoke & they were planning to meet up that week in an auspicious ceremony with the family priest to decide on the closest dates for our wedding! Needless to say, we, the two people concerned, the ones' who were to get married, weren't informed as yet. They were to surprise us once they settled a date & by what my gang told me, it wasn't going to be later than two months tops. If you're wondering why these two girls turned up here, right now? Well Aliya & Navya thought before my wicket went off, we should go all out on a trip & do every crazy thing that is a part of most girls' bucket list; stuff girls would love to do, before saying 'I do' basically!