THE BLOOMING OF LOVE BETWEEN FORCED MARRIAGE

18. Dinner with Friends

            It was Sunday morning and Rutuja was exercising in the living room as it was just 4 am. Rishikesh woke up and look around for his phone to see what the time was. He saw it was just 4:10 am. He got up from the bed and thought to go and see "What Rutuja was doing at the moment?" He opened the door to his room and saw there was a small light coming from the living room. He went to the living room and saw Rutuja practicing martial arts while wearing track pants and a T-shirt.

She immediately noticed Rishikesh and asked him "Why are you up this early especially on Sunday?" He said, "I just woke up early today". "I didn't know you train this early". She asked him, "Do you want to join me instead of looking at me?" He said, sure, and joined her as she was doing push-ups now. She said let's compete "Who can do more push-ups in time of two minutes?" He said, ok let's do it and got into position.

They set a two minutes timer and started doing push-ups Rutuja was faster than him and finished about 30 push-ups in 2 minutes while he was only able to do 20. He said you are fast. They both exercised together for about an hour then went to take a bath. They took a bath and got ready. Rutuja had finished cleaning the house before exercising. She ties her wet hairs into a messy bun before going to the kitchen and cooking breakfast.

Rishikesh came to the kitchen while she was making breakfast and talked with her until she was done. Then both sat down together for breakfast. After they finished their breakfast both sat down in the living room. Rutuja untied her hair bun so she could dry her hair. Her hairs flutter around her covering her back and shoulders. Some of her hairs strands had fallen in front of her eyes and Rishikesh unknowingly took his hand up to her face and arranged the strands behind her ear.

Rutuja was surprised as well as delighted by his action and didn't know what to do. Rishikesh was surprised by his action. So both sat there with complete silence between them for a few minutes. When she processed what happened she blushed and her heart started to beat faster. Looking at her blushing cheeks his heart started hammering against his chest and they turned away from each other's gaze unable to form words to speak.

She was trying to take deep breaths to calm her heart down. When she finally managed to calm down a bit she turned back to him and said, "I am going to the kitchen for preparing lunch". And got away. He calmed himself down when she was busy in the kitchen. Both knew deep down that they were falling hard for each other.

She finished preparing lunch and called Rishikesh so they could eat together. He came and sat down she served their plates and they ate together accompanied by silence. They were done eating and he went back to the living room while she was cleaning in the kitchen. When she was done with her work she just wanted to tell Harshada all that had happened today. She thought for a moment that she haven't met them since she returned. Then, why not call all of them for dinner tonight.

She went to the living room and sat down beside Rishikesh and asked him, "Can we call Rishika and Harshada for dinner today?" He said, "Why not, just call them and tell them for coming here in the evening". She said, sure I will call them both. She excitedly called Harshada and Rishika on a conference call and told them to come to their house for dinner tonight. They both were happy as they would be able to meet her and said, "Yes we will come there by 6 pm". Rutuja said, good I will be waiting, Bye. They both said, Bye to her too.

Rutuja excitedly tells Rishikesh that they are coming by 6 pm today. He just said ok to her. She said we have still got a lot of time till they come for dinner. "Do you want to watch movies together?" He said, "Yes that would be fine". They both set up the movie and sat down together to see it. When they were going to watch another movie. "She asked him should we watch one of the Avengers movies". He asked her, "Do you like the Marvel series?" She said, "Yes I love watching them". He said, "I didn't know you like movies with fights?" She said, "I love to fight, "Why wouldn't I like movies about fights?" He said, "You are right I forgot you are good at fighting".

They put on an Avenger movie and both didn't move from the place till the movie came to an end. Later Rutuja went and made them coffee and snacks. She came back to the living room with coffee and snacks. Both drink their coffee and eat snacks while discussing the details of the movie. She then went and cleaned their mugs and plates.

She was very excited as Harshada, Rutuja, and herself will be together again almost after a week. Rishikesh was happy to see her getting excited to see her friends. She had started the preparations for dinner. When it was 6 pm they all came there. Rishikesh went and opened the door. He was glad to see all of them too. He invited them in. Harshada asked him, "Where is Rutuja?" He said she is in the kitchen doing dinner preparation.

Harshada and Rishika went to the kitchen and saw Rutuja was half done with the dinner preparations. They both got fresh and lent a hand to her while she was cooking dinner. When they were finished setting the dinner table they went and called boys. They sat together for dinner talking with each other about what they did over the week. Dinner went well and Rishika and Harshada helped Rutuja to do all the cleaning.

Boys were sitting in the living room talking with each other and the girls decided to talk in Rutuja's room. She told them "What happened when they were gone" and since they came back here. Harshada and Rishika were happy as Rutuja and Rishikesh were getting closer to each other each passing day. Rutuja asked Rishika "How is it going between you and Aniket?" She told them that, they had been closer to each other than before which was also good news.

Girls finished talking about personal matters and decided to go to the living room. Rishika asked Rishikesh, "What were they all doing?" He told Rishika that they were going to watch the photos from the marriage now. Girls also came and sat down in the living room to see the photos. They were viewing the photos and got to Rutuja's photo where she was dressed in "Nauvari Sari" with a whole Marathi look. Harshada and Rishika told Rutuja how adorable she was looking in that photo. While she grew timid about it.

In the next photos, they saw the one where Rutuja came to know Rishikesh was going to carry her up the stairs and went red with embarrassment. Harshada said, Oh My God! Rishikesh, send me that photo and the other one where you carry her. Rutuja had turned red with embarrassment over the comments of Harshada while Rishika was laughing at Rutuja's and Harshada's reactions.

Rishikesh told them that after he carried her up the stairs of the temple they didn't talk with each other for that whole day. Harshada said I know about that she told me it was hard to face each other after that. Rishika said, "Yes it is really hard to face the person after a situation like that". Rutuja said come on guys haven't you had enough of teasing me. Harshada said, "Ok bestie I will stop teasing you now". Rutuja took long deep breaths until she was calm enough. They also gave gifts to everyone which they had bought from "Goa". All of them loved their gifts which came as a relief.

Harshada said, "Hey guys we need to head back home it's 10:50 pm at the moment and we all have our offices tomorrow". Rishika said, "You are right we need to go now, Bye brother and Rutuja". Rutuja and Rishikesh waved Bye to them till they were gone. They went back inside and locked the front door. Rishikesh said, "We should go to our rooms too as we are starting our work from tomorrow". She said, "Yes we should goodnight, Rishikesh". He said, "Goodnight, Rutuja". Before he went to his room.

Rutuja looked around the house to make sure all the windows were closed then, went inside her room. She went ahead and packed her bag for work. Rishikesh went to sleep after he was done packing his office bag. Rutuja was trying to study as she was going to the lab tomorrow and should know about the data they were working on as the head of the research team. She was studying all night keeping an eye on the sensors she had arranged inside and outside the house.