Along the Lines of Love | ✓

Chapter 24 : New Feelings

Apologies for the delay, Happy reading :)

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abhi kuch dino se lag raha hai,
badle badle se hum hai

♪

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Sharanya's cheeks were already hurting. Thank God, the night was cool and a light breeze blew towards the covered stage. If not for the naturally cooling weather, Sharanya would be sweating.

She just stood beside Nikhil, nodding and greeting everyone he introduced her to. They were mostly business people, clients, employees and some acquaintances. There were way too many people she had met so far to even remember the names of ten correctly. Some handed flowers, some gifts and others envelopes. She simply passed them back to her mother-in-law who was around to greet the people too.

When a group of her and Gargi's common friends from college had come up to wish them, was the time when Sharanya was the one doing most of the talking. Introducing each one of them to Nikhil. The women laughed, joked and also spoke about Sharanya being saved from being the last one to get married. There was one among them, the shortest one in the group, and the prettiest too, who was the single woman. The rest of Sharanya's friends were married, two had kids too, who were running across the stage like they just found a new playground.

One of her friend, Harshitha, complained about not being invited to the wedding, in good humour, pulling Nikhil's leg. Poor Nikhil had almost broken into a nervous sweat.

Sharanya jumped to his rescue and spoke up, explaining how everything had happened quickly and they had had a simple wedding with just the family members around. In the meantime, Gargi had climbed up to the stage slowly and joined them for a picture. The cameraman requested a reshuffle. Sharanya moved closer to Nikhil to make place for Harshitha beside her. Feeling his gaze on her, she looked up at him. He smiled a little.

Sharanya didn't know what was up with her today. As they stood beside each other, sometimes their arms brushed, for a few photographs he put his arm around her back, not making contact though. He had also asked her if she'd like to have some water couple of times. Everything he did tonight made her heart melt. He was finally showing some husband-like signs, that got her smiling and blushing at instances.

Once the picture was clicked, the ladies proceeded to move off the stage. The host came up to them, asking if they wanted a break from the photograph session. He seemed to have some small entertainment bits planned.

"Yes, we'd like that," Nikhil spoke up and then glanced at Sharanya to make sure if she was of the same mind.

Sharanya nodded wordlessly. Gargi was standing just beside her, correcting her saree from behind that had folded a bit. "The fried baby corn snack is yummy," she spoke up softly, turning towards her.

"That was my first choice, I loved it when I had come for tasting," Nikhil spoke up looking at the two ladies with a bright smile. Sharanya smiled as Gargi complimented his selection.

"Dev, shall we get off the stage?" Nikhil asked the man who was on the phone coordinating with his team.

"We can get to one corner, the staff is going to move the sofas to make place." He said.

Nikhil look confused. "Okay, maybe arrange a table for us down?"

The man shook his head. "Sure, but you have a dance segment right now. After that we'll let you go down enjoy some snacks, we have some stand up comedy in store."