Arranged Marriage

3. dinner shenanigans

Meera

I enter into Naina's office and am immediately engulfed in her arms.

"How are you? Did anything else happen? Have you already made up your mind? Tell me!"

I laugh. This is so typical of Naina to get worried over things and pestering the other person with questions.

"I'm good. No. And yes," I reply.

"But you should at least meet Rudra yaar, I'm not saying he's perfect but-"

"What I have made my mind about is that I will meet him, talk to him and make my decision without any bias. Okay?"

"Oh, thank god! You scared me for a minute there."

I smiled, "Now that that's settled, are we leaving for lunch or not?"

Her eyes widens, "Yes, let's leave."

She carries her purse and puts a fleece coat over her shirt dress and we are ready to go. Her black hair is tied in a half ponytail, and our boots click the floor while we make our way. It's early February here in Jaipur, and although the weather is not that cold, you could still feel the cool wind.

We get out of the office and move through the glass doors to the restaurant. This floor has the best food with a luxury diner. Guess we do have benefits for being the owner's friend.

We have our lunch, go through some details for tonight. I basically avoid her brother's topic because I just wanted to pretend a little longer.

I think about the man I met in the lift, and how I felt attracted to someone after years. Maybe I should ask Naina about the man. But what if she tells me something I don't want to know. Yeah, it's better to keep just this one thing to myself.

I leave the hotel and get back to my own office as I have to finish the work and reach home early today. It's almost 6:30 PM by the time I reach home. I get in and hear my mother's voice scolding me already, "Gosh, you couldn't come back at time even today."

"Sorry, mumma. Got distracted by my project," I try to reason with her.

I enter the living room, where she's arranging a few gift wrapped packages, probably for some charity, and go sit beside her.

"Uff, go get ready already!" she tries to shoo me away. "Wait, did Kunaal come back? Or will I have to scold him too?"

I laugh, "Yes, we came home together. But he already sneaked away to his room because he knew you'd scold him."

She huffs. "You better go get ready, or else I'll-"

"Fine, I'm going. No need to be violent," I shout behind me, laughing.

I enter my room, take off my clothes, take a nice hot shower and enter into my bedroom with my bathrobe tied around me.

I open my closet to select what to wear tonight. Mumma told me to wear something different from my office attire. Maybe Indian? Yeah, that'd be good.

I selected a black long dress with a pattern all over it. It was a beautiful kurti with thin straps and a backless design. To pair with, I opted for silver junks in my ears and opened my hair, to conceal my back a bit. I apllied minimal makeup and got my stilettos on.

I carried my handbag and got out of my room. I saw Kunaal coming from the opposite direction. We both had our rooms on the first floor, and our parents lived downstairs. They'd always said that after Kunaal marries, both of them would move to our penthouse.

Mumma and papa had an arranged marriage as well. But thankfully, they both fell in love with each other. I'd always seen my parents being there for each other. One day, I had seen them dancing in the kitchen on a slow tune, with my mom's head on dad's chest. They were slowly moving to the song but their love was so palpable, that you could feel it.