Loving You

Chapter 24 - Abhimanyu - Confession Time

8:34pm.

I tapped the steering wheel and kept watching the clock on my dashboard intently.

8:35pm.

We had been sitting in my car, parked in the underground parking structure of my apartment building for the past 10 minutes, in absolute silence. I gripped the steering wheel before turning to glance at Akshara who was staring straight ahead, her eyes wide open with surprise.

After tapping on the steering wheel for a few more impatient minutes, I stepped out of the vehicle and crossed over to the other side and held the door open for Akshara.

I held out my hand for Akshara to place her palm into. After the kiss we'd shared at the restaurant, I just needed to be close to her, holding her, touching her to convince myself that this was real, that she was real, and that this moment right here wasn't just a figment of my imagination.

I could feel the tiny hair on the back of my neck rise as Akshara placed her hand in his outstretched one and got out of the car. He's never noticed exactly how tall Akshara was before, now that he did, he could proudly say, she was tall enough that her head would rest perfectly over his chest so that his heart beat with be perfectly in-sync with every breath that she'd take.

Really Abhimanyu? Since when did you, the man who used to get secondhand embarrassment upon listening to cheesy romantic dialogues start becoming the one to utter them?

As we got on to the elevator, I loosened my grip on her hand, in case she wanted to pull away but instead, she tightened her grip on my hand. I glanced at her to see her looking away from me, her lashes lowered, staring at the ground. But a small smile was playing with the corners of her lips. Shy. She was shy.

A smile formed on my lips knowing that I was affecting her. I was the reason she was feeling shy. I lowered my lashes and focused all my attention towards the outline of my shoes before my heart bursted with joy and I found myself spending the these precious moments in the waiting room of my own ER instead of with Akshara.

Although the thought of getting my own private music therapy sessions from my own in-house music therapist did sound very appealing.

The elevator dinged making breaking us both out of our trance. We had reached my penthouse suite. I led Akshara into my apartment and towards the living area where the couches were.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, trying to break the ice.

"Huh?" She asked, turning around to face me. "Hungry? Yes, sure. I could eat, I guess." The Akshara I knew would never be unsure of herself. Was she regretting her actions?

"How does Pizza sound?" I offered.

"Yah, sure, sounds nice."

Okay then, I replied, furrowing my brows. Was she not happy? I quickly Uber eats the food for us and after noting down it was a 40 minute delivery time, I turned my attention back towards Akshara.

A few more moments soo awkward, deafening silence passed as we exchanged glances with each other, hoping the other one would begin the conversation.

"Why did you say yes to the date with Reet?!"

"Why did you ask me to go on a date with Reet?!"

We exclaimed at exactly the same time. Okay, time to try that again.

"How could you?!" We both accused each other in unison.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, you go first!" I exclaimed.

Time to get this show on the road.

"Why did you say yes to go out on a date with Reet?! How could you?!" She accused as if I had committed the biggest crime on planet Earth.