Locke and Key

5

Shruti was coming back to her shared flat, after her last final when her phone rang in the pocket of her tote bag.

"Hi, Mom," she answered a moment later. "What's up?"

"Don't be mad at me," Mauli requested.

"Why would I?" Shruti wondered cautiously. "What did you do? Tell me now, so I'm not still mad when I leave for Mumbai on Sunday." She pulled her keys from her bag and stuck them into her apartment door.

"This could be a good thing, Shruti," Mauli said before hanging up.

Shruti pushed back the door and froze on the threshold; Arjun was sitting on her couch.

"What are you doing here?" she breathed, setting her things down on her kitchen table.

Arjun stood. "I wanted to personally escort you to Mumbai, so I convinced your mother to lend me her spare key."

It had been nine months since they'd last seen each other. They'd sent Diwali gifts and he gave her a beautiful bracelet for her twenty-first birthday in March, but this was their first face-to-face meeting since he'd played "Jannat Ve" for her that night at his home.

"I know it's still unprofessional," he went on, stepping closer towards her, "but damn it, Shruti, I don't care. Neil cannot do anything about your job; only I can. And you're the only girl I want next to me." He paused. "Unless, of course, you've met someone?"

"Arjun," she scoffed. "How could I? You're kind of all I ever think about."

"Good," he smiled, closing the last few feet between them to pull her into his arms. "I'm going to kiss you now."

"Oh, all right," she murmured as he pressed his lips to hers.

"You've been over here for a month now and I feel like I never see you," Arohi complained as she and Shruti sat down for lunch in late June.

"Well, Arjun is recording, so I spend most of my time at the studio," Shruti shrugged. "I know that place like the back of my hand."

Arohi frowned. "He doesn't give you days off?"

"He does, but I'm usually exhausted, so I stay at the hotel," Shruti lied.

It was hard for her, lying to her best friend of sixteen years, but she and Arjun still weren't ready to come clean about their relationship. While Shruti was spending most of her time with him in the studio—which Rishabh could account for—she hadn't slept a single night in her hotel since her first week in Mumbai. Instead, she was staying with Arjun at his house, where they could spend their evenings pretending their lives were normal and they didn't have to hide everything from everyone.

"Well, can you come out with all of us tonight?" Arohi asked. "It's Anmol's birthday, so we're celebrating. Arjun can come, too, if he wants, I guess."

Shruti laughed. "You'll have to ask him, but I'm in."

"Hey, has he recorded that 'Jannat Ve' song yet?" Arohi asked suddenly.

"Uh, what?" Shruti murmured, praying her face didn't turn red.

"About a week before you got here, Neil found his writing notebook lying around his house, and there's a song called 'Jannat Ve' that we'd never heard before," Arohi explained. "When Neil asked about it, Arjun got very defensive and wouldn't answer any questions, but now we're all dying to know who it's about."

"Oh," Shruti said. "He's recorded it, but I don't know."

"Come on!" Arohi cried. "You're with the little narcissist like 24/7. Surely he's mentioned something or slipped somehow?"