Hustle For Love |COMPLETE| MaNan Fiction

44. The One Where We Went On A Date

A/N : Dear Readers, first things first. I think going forward I will update on Sundays only, it is easier for me that way, since I get the Saturday late night window to complete / proof read the chapter. Hope you guys will remember to pop in on Sundays & not Saturdays from next week :)

Also about the chapter, seeing the current Covid situation, I didn't feel like writing something hard hitting, we all have a lot on our plates already, right? So here's this light, fluffy chapter with lots of MaNan romance & nice pictorial references to give you folks a holiday feel, which I hope you truly enjoy!

Happy reading!

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Long Beach, Southern California circa 2018

(Boat Charters Depot, Ocean Boulevard, CA)

Manik Malhotra

I wore a pleasant smile on my face, as a nice tune of the 90s hummed from my lips. The air around me relaxed me, and after almost one month, I felt completely at ease. The ocean does this to me, it calms my nerves. Maybe, these laid back beach vibes reminded me of home at Cairns? We were roughly 32 miles away from LA, at Long Beach. I had planned this trip for Nandini, for us. It was my way of showing her what an easy, worry free, fun life for us could be. After she opened her heart to me a couple of days back, if there was one thing I was sure of, it was this, she was hurt & there were still traces of trauma in her. I figured she needed assurance, my assurance of being around, not just as Manik with whom she's always shared a very deep rooted complicated relationship, the one she couldn't trust as yet; but as the Manik of the yesteryears she thought I was; the fun, goofy guy, she fell in love with.

To be honest, that goofy guy wasn't all charade for breaking her heart. I was no monster hiding under the veil with an evil smirk all those while we had our moments; that happy, silly, fun, guy was me alright, I was like that with Fab 5 always, the fake part was I had no intentions of being 'that' Manik with Nandini & I was doing it to see through my diabolical plans against her. I realised I wanted to bring 'that' Manik back, only with an honest heart this time, and only he can pull the old happy, easily trusting Nandini out of the shell of this one.

I had planned a romantic getaway for her, in fact, I had more than one such escapade in mind. I wanted to overwhelm her with so much happiness that nothing could draw her back to the darkness of our past. I wanted to smother her mind with our happy memories, memories we were to make afresh, memories she could draw from, everytime a dark cloud of the past threatened to enter her heart. That's why we were here, at Long Beach, chartering a Gondola to go for the most epic ride around Venice Canal, a little bit of Europe in the heart of SoCal.

I glanced at Nandini & laughed seeing her running around the place like a sun soaked child, with an uncontainable glee on her face. She was happy, and that made me content. I smirked thinking how she'd react to the rest of the day that awaited her, if the mere sight of the beach made her this happy.

"Maaanikkk, this is perfect!" she sang as she bent down to her right, facing the sun and pouted to take a selfie. "Umm.. #SunKissed" she murmured as she started typing on her phone. I sighed in peace.

"Babe, wait for the day to begin, then start posting" I called out to her, with laughter ringing in my voice. She looked up and pouted like a child, with raised eyebrows. God, I could gobble that cute face right now. She had been a little guarded & cautious from the morning after her confession & I was worried she'd close out on me, but this trip seemed to do the trick, it made her forget the awkwardness, take a beat & breathe a little, just what I wanted.

"Wait for the day to begin? Manik friggin' Malhotra, it began for me at 6am in the morning, when we drove out of home! The sunrise on the highway out of downtown LA, the stop for our pancake breakfast, the 90s rock blasting out of our car, it has made about 5 Insta stories already!" she shouted in excitement & I shook my head in disbelief. Here I was worried, I had lost the old Nandini forever. Here she was, a little upset at me & not showing up, but now I knew how to bring her out, there was no stopping me. Also, did you notice, she was back to her middle naming me habit? I hope her chit chat in her head with Ayappa follows next, I miss those badly.