A Big Fat Indian Wedding

Chapter 8

Millie woke up to the sounds of kids running outside her door giggling on the way. Somebody tell them to keep it down, she wanted to shout from her spot but decided against it. Half of the house was already pissed off at her, she shouldn't push her luck any further than that.

Last night was different; good different of course. She and Eric had spent a lot of time chatting.

She'd come into the party because she couldn't skip it, her mom would have grilled her to death over it. But she didn't regret her decision when she shoved a few shots down her throat and seemed to return to her happy place.

Her cellphone on the side table beeped with a new text message from an unknown number.

Sleep well? E x

She sure did. She smiled, not giving a thought to how he end up with her number. Being the over-talkative person that she transforms into, in her drunk state, she herself seemed the plausible culprit.

She picked up her phone to reply but instantly decided against it, for God knows why, and fell back into bed.

She'd come into the party with the intention of apologising to Dahlia, not because Millie thought her sister wasn't at fault but because she didn't want to spoil Dahlia's special moment. Dal was busy with Aman when she saw her. Then came Eric and she was engrossed into talks. She didn't remember seeing Dal after that.

But what she did remember is Eric giving her company in the ride home.

Alcohol is funny, alright. You drink it down and the few seconds after that, you vow with your life that you're in control. And the next morning you wake up with a headache that's killing you and a watermelon the size of an infant orangutan. That was all that she remembered about the first time she met Eric.

Her arch nemesis beat her to a promotion and Millie decided there was nothing better in the world to do other than get wasted. She called all her girl friends, who had boy friends apparently, and what she end up with was a night filled with adventure she didn't remember. It was almost a year ago. But five months after that, the arch nemesis took her job over to Japan and Millie filled in as the new Editor. Life was glorious post the offer, post the arch-nemesis moving away to foreign land.

All the evidence Millie had of the adventure-time though was a letter she wrote to that nemesis of her, threatening her and the watermelon. She racked her brains to come up with an answer but to no avail.

A reminder came to life on her phone which Millie could swear she didn't set. It read 'lehenga.' Just that, nothing more.

"Darn it." Millie's mother knew she would forget and had taken the chance of her phone lying unattended to set a reminder for her forgetful, clumsy daughter.

Millie shot out of the bed running around the room like Usain Bolt and getting ready in mere seconds. There should be a Guinness World Record for this, she considered.

Before she stepped out of her room, she called Eric. "Hey, you free?"

She could very well use come company to the store.

***

"Seems about right." He pushed his sunglasses up his nose and gave Millie an already bored look, to which Millie couldn't help but smile back.

He was dressed up and heading towards the store himself since he'd forgotten his own tie back in New York, the one he planned to wear to the wedding. So when Mille told him about her lehenga pick up, he gladly took the offer of hopping along.

As for Millie, she couldn't keep her eyes off him. Over night, he'd seemed to have grown rather handsome. His skin was radiant and his smile just gave her butterflies. What the heck? Moreover, his chinos and light blue shirt paired with those god darned Ray Bans made him look like he stepped off the set of a Gossip Girl episode. Oh, Millie was swooning.

Was she still drunk from last night?

"Hi, my sister saved the two lehengas yesterday." Millie explained to a young woman from over the counter. "I'm here to pick it up."

"Yes, one moment please." She stepped away, into the back looking for the said items while Eric took the liberty of strolling around the area. Millie followed him into the men's section and soon they were looking at his ties.

So many colours, such vibrance. Honestly, she felt like a kid in a candy shop, with too many hues taunting her.

"Pink or purple?" He asked Millie. Ironically, it was the one question Millie herself didn't have an answer to. "I'm wearing a white shirt so it's confusing."

"I couldn't decide either. So now, I own two lehengas."

He laughed picking up both boxes holding his ties and looked at himself in the mirror. Damn, he looked fine, Millie thought.

"We'll take both then." He gestured at the closest salesman and winked at her. "To match each of your lehengas."

Okay, did he just do what she thought he did? Like, flirt with her. Oh my God, the teenage girl inside her jumped. This feels unreal. More than the fact that Millie has not behaved like a fangirl since she grew out her obsession with Tom Hardy when she was seventeen, hung his life size posters on the wall and saved that autograph on the page he signed hurriedly on the street, but that he was stirring foreign feeling in her. Just a hint of a smile from those pink lips, or the arch of his shaped eyebrows in a playful glance, that's all it took for Millie to agree, agree to jump off Eiffel Tower if he so much as asked her to.

And, the phone went off again. Such a distraction.

"Hello?" It was Fi, breathing heavy, possibly working out.

"Take a breath." Millie joked. It was almost afternoon, Fi had weird timing.

"Listen, I need a favour from you."

Millie stepped away from Eric as he was paying for his ties since the lehengas were already paid for, at the counter, and into a little more private area.

"Tell me."

"I need you to go check the flower decorations. Please, please, please?"

"And why can't you?"

"You owe me. For tagging along for that city tour with the boys. So, no questions asked."

"Fine." Millie sighed.

Good thing, she had a handsome company for herself.

***

A/N: because a certain someone pushed me to update :)