Ishqaan Wala Love

36. Cheers!!

Kartik was thinking about his mom's words and he knew that if at all he ever falls in love,  his mother will be his biggest support. He was not sure if he had feelings for Reema but all throughout the evening, he saw glimpses of her in different women whom he didn't even know.  He felt weird about it now,  but for a moment he even considered how would Reema look in that bridal attire that Sonu was wearing. Now that is crazy,  isn't it?  He told himself.

He never felt like this before but the thing that bothered him most was that he did not even know her well and he wasn't even sure that Reema would open up to him any time soon.  She looked the kind who had built such tall walls around her that it will take him ages to climb and hop on to the other side - the side that probably belongs to her innermost circle only. 

He decided to take a leap of faith and at least get to know her better. Who knows she might be the soulmate he had been looking for?  He felt a tad bit envious of both Sonu and Ahaan who found love in the people they fell in love with, while he could not even find the phone number of the girl that intrigued him so much. 

As the guests started retreating back and Sonu and Raj were ushered to the honeymoon suite for their nuptial night,  Kartik found a place for himself by the poolside for some secret agent level snooping of Sameer's social media handles because he was sure Reema would not have much social media presence. After a hectic day with hundreds of people around him, he finally had his little moments of searching his own soul while searching for insights on the girl who had turned him into a "hopefully not so creepy" online stalker.

After going from tag to tag and page to page for almost half an hour Kartik found a page on insta that Sameer had tagged in most of his posts..  "Baked.with.a.pinch.of.salt".

The account was full of recipes,  baking tips and a lot of 'food for thought' quotes.

"Cooking is love made visible"

"Life is too short
for fake butter
and fake people"

"Bake a better world for yourself"

Although these were straight off the internet but the choice of these quotes somehow sounded like Reema. Kartik decided to take a chance and dropped a DM. 

"Hey. What's up? Workshop details?  Don't I need to enrol? ya phir mujhe VIP access dene ka irada hai?

In less than a minute popped a reply that he had not even anticipated

"Sister's wedding. 11PM.. And you are thinking about the workshop?? Anyways, can you come by tomorrow morning? I wanted to speak to you before you join this workshop" 

Kartik didn't know whether to jump in ecstacy that she wanted to meet him or be worried that she was offended at being contacted so late at night and wanted to give him a piece of her mind. In person.  You never know with Reema. Being the optimist that he was, he wanted to believe in the first option. He simply replied, "Sounds great, see you tomorrow then. As it is, next steps bhi discuss karne hai Sameer ke saath regarding you know who. Good Night. Sleep well"

On the other side of the chat, Sameer had typed "By the way, This IS SAMEER".... But then decided not to send it because he did not want to scare him right away.  He wanted to see Kartik's unfiltered, unprepared responses to the qualms of his mind. 

OK. See you around 10am or after your sister's vidaai, whichever is sooner.

Kartik got positive vibes from the last message and was now waiting for this long night to end as quickly as possible. He raised his beer bottle up in the sky and said cheers to the one up above, the almighty who was probably writing his story, his fate right now.