SEAL THE DEAL

chapter 26

Manisha let the laughter that she'd been holding back escape past her lips as she moved towards him so that she could rescue him from the predicament he'd gotten himself tangled in (literally). She stopped when she was  mere inches away from him and her fingers started
to undo the tight knots.

Manisha looked up as she pulled at the fabric that refused to budge and raised her eyebrows in question, as if she was asking him how he'd even managed to get stuck in this mess. She hadn't anticipated how close he was to her and it alarmed her a little, causing her pet butterflies to awaken and flutter around inside her stomach.

Manisha had been finding herself in situations like this quite often recently, and she didn't know if she liked it or not because they always made her feel like she was one small step away from going into cardiac arrest.

Abhishek looked down at manisha, trying to resist the urge to drown in the endless sea of her eyes that overcame him out of nowhere. He felt the blood rushing to his cheeks and he looked away, hoping that she could get the tie off his neck fast so that he could move away from her
and breathe properly again, "Dad forced me to wear one today...I don't normally wear ties, and you can probably tell why," he said, looking at anywhere but her.

Manisha smiled triumphantly once she managed to loosen the last knot, letting go of the tie and putting her hands over the collar band of Abhishek's dress shirt, "Good thing you'll have me to help you with them then," His eyes gravitated back towards her at the unexpected action, and he bit down into his lip as she inched closer to him so that she could prop up his collar from the back as well. He could have moved away, he could have taken the tie off by himself now, but he was frozen in his place.

The question arose as to whose heart was pounding faster and whose cheeks were burning hotter as Manisha wordlessly put her arms around Abhishek's neck and pulled the tie over his head, smiling victoriously as she held the constricting piece of fabric up in the air.

He stared at her, wondering when she starting having such a spell binding effect on him...and more importantly why. He carefully took the tie as she handed it to him and managed to shoot him a grateful smile before he mumbled that he'll be back in five minutes and hurried up the stairs, taking two of them at a time and disappearing.

Once he was out of sight, manisha groaned loudly and bit down on her tongue, cursing it (and mostly cursing her heart) for stupidly racing ahead and doing stupid things before her brain could keep up.
There had been no need to say something so...intimate. It had just slipped out, and she could just tell that it had freaked Abhishek out a little and she wanted to die.

This one-sided infatuation thing sure is tough work, she thought as she sighed and put her hands over her warm cheeks in an attempt to cool them down.

"Why did you open the school all the way in the country side?" Abhishek asked as he glanced at the GPS to make sure he was on the correct road. He'd taken a wrong turn and been re-routed on the way to the school earlier that morning and it had ended up making her slightly late to her first class.

Mani:-"I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do," she answered, rummaging through her bag for a tissue. She wiped away the splodge of green paint on the back of her wrist that had survived when she washed her hands, "I felt that the kids there would benefit from it much more,"

The two of them was driving back to pune now after what Abhishek could only call an
extremely interesting day. Once they left his house, she embarked on the 3 hour car
journey with light-hearted chatter and smiles colouring the air around her. Then Abhishek had received a call from work and he  looked at manisha apologetically before sticking the bluetooth headset in his ear and answering it. The call hadn't taken too long and he'd only spent a total of 8 minutes and 44 seconds on the phone, but when he hung up and glanced at her, he chuckled when he found her fast asleep, her legs crossed and he head resting against the window.

Manisha slept soundly for the next hour and abhishek almost felt bad for waking her up when he reached the destination. He only gently tapped her shoulder but she startled awake instantly, almost elbowing him in the nose in the process. Then strings of apologies had stumbled out of her mouth for falling asleep, for being bad company on a long drive, for almost breaking his nose, for being the reason he had to waste his day in the first place.

Abhishek had needed to assure her more than once that they weren't necessary as both of them walked towards the gates of KIDZEE School for Special Needs.

KIDZEE was her greatest accomplishment, her biggest pride and her biggest joy. The
school was close to her heart because it had been her brainchild, her project to plan and her wish to fulfil. It was a small, non-profit school for young children aged between 4 and 12 years old that had some sort of special quality that set them apart from other children. Manisha had poured her blood, sweat and tears into making her dream to give back a reality.

She mentioned the school to Abhishek before and he knew that she gave art lessons to the kids a couple of times a week. Her words had tugged on his heartstrings then, but seeing it in person had just made admiration for her swell in his heart.

He'd seen her in a completely new light that day. She'd been in her element and he'd felt
happy seeing Manisha do what made her happy. He'd watched as she waltzed into the classroom and all the kids had swarmed to her like bees to a honeycomb, the love and affection simply oozing out of their eyes as they enthusiastically greeted her.

She dragged Abhishek along to the lessons too because there was nothing else for him to do, and the class had ooh-ed and aah-ed at the presence of a new person. One of the kids, a bubbly ten year old who had learning difficulties, had excitedly asked her if abhishek was her 'Prince Charming in a hoodie and trainers', and she glanced at a smirking Abhishek before nodding shyly. That was how the nickname had stuck with him for the next four hours
and he didn't really mind it at all. It was worth it, because the kids found it to be the most amusing thing in the world...and he kind of did too.

He sat down in the rear corner of the art classroom so that he wasn't too much of a
distraction and had quietly watched as she headed three sets of classes, each class consisting of about 10-15 students. Over the four hours that flew by, he'd realised that she might have been beautiful on the outside, but she is ten times more beautiful on the inside and he hadn't thought that was even possible.

He was in awe of how supportive and understanding she is with the kids who needed extra help and attention, and he was also in awe of how calm and patient she is with the kids who threw tantrums or the kids who struggled to focus. Most of all, he was in awe of how great she is at what she did; he'd known that she is a fairly reputable painter but this was the first time he had witnessed it firsthand, and he honestly thought that even the
self-portrait she roughly sketched up in five minutes belonged in an art gallery.

At the end of the day, Abhishek had actually felt privileged to see this side of her. And he
was so glad he'd been recruited as her substitute driver because the day had been an incredibly healing experience. Spending time with the kids and their innocence had
rejuvenated him and made him feel all the more grateful for all the blessings he had.

Especially the one next to him. Manisha was playing around with the radio, a disappointed pout on her face as she tried (and failed) to find something worthwhile to listen to. Abhishek had been dying to ask her about this one thing, but he wasn't sure if it was right of him to. But he really wanted to know so he went for it anyway.

Abhi:-"Has Ashish tried to contact you again?" Manisha turned towards him at the question; she would later realise that it didn't feel her lungs constrict hurtfully at the mention of that name anymore.

She shook her head, her finger hovering over the station changing button, "Nope," she replied with a satisfied smile, pressing the button one more time and leaning back in contentment as the melody of one of her favourite songs sounded out through the speakers,

Mani:-"He wouldn't dare to reply after what you said...I'm sure you scared him off for good,"

She tried to ignore the way her knees threatened to turn into jelly again at the mere thought of the text message Abhishek had penned and sent.