The grey canvas

📌Chapter 23- One simple clue

Dev:

"Its your buddy's bachelor's night and here you are sulking alone?!"

I looked up in a jiffy. It was Adit standing next to me, his eyes glued to my face as if he was trying to explore the minutest expressions over there. It felt awkward to be read like that. I didn't want him to find me transparent.

-"Not feeling okay." I shrugged and looked at the beer mug in my hand. The froths in it had disappeared long ago.

"Wanna go home?" Adit asked innocently. Wait. Innocent and him?

-"Nopes. I am good here... you go na, enjoy with them." I smiled. A fake one. It would have been genuine if Adit cared to listen to me.
But Adit being him had to act adamant all over again. He stood rooted to his place, reading my facial lines like a pro.

"Missing Nitara? Your grey canvas has turned dark in her absense right?" He giggled. I gulped the saliva lump of my throat and looked elsewhere for a moment.

How come he always knows everything?
-"Bullshit." I frowned irritatingly.

"You suck at lying." He giggled again. "Just accept your heart and I swear I won't disturb you again."

Such a tease!
-"Go away Adit... I am not in a mood of talking!" I dropped my gaze down. Any kind of eye contact was dangerous for me now.

"You were in a great mood while making the wedding arrangements. What happened all of a sudden then?"

-"None of your business." I snapped.

"You can avoid 'me' this way, but you can't avoid 'yourself'!!" He tried to peek in my eyes.

What are you trying to figure out? My defeat??
-"ADIT...."

"Nitara is pregnant with your child Dev....Kshitiz is nowhere in the scene!" He muttered, making me feel all jittery such that even my jaws hung apart! Heights of optimism!!

-"Done? You can go now?"

"But why aren't you believing Nitara? Why do you think she is lying??"

-"How can you be so sure that the child is mine?" I asked back. He was certainly startled with this bouncer.

"Don't you trust her Dev?" He spoke after sometime.

Trust? Her? She deserves to be trusted??
-"No." I replied coldly.

Adit was taken aback. "You love her but you don't trust her? What kind of love is that Dev?" He asked, measuring each word at a time.

-"And who said that I love her?" I replaced my overwhelming feelings with tons of fake frustration. Was my acting good?

"Sometimes words are not needed Dev... becoz the eyes are enough to do the job of our lips." He nodded to himself. Disgusting.

-"You are done with medical or what jo aisa philosopher banke ghum raha hai?" I taunted him in pure sarcasm.

"Fine. Don't accept that you love Nitara." He threw his hands in the air. "But today, I will prove it to you how wrong you were in judging that poor girl!..... just wait and watch Dev!!"
With this, he got up and left for his pals who were busy rocking the dance floor of Zook.

I kept staring at the path which Adit had just taken to walk away. It appeared harmless. But then appearances are said to be deceptive. I knew it was the same path which he would take to walk back to me, to complete the conversation which hadn't yet reached its conclusion. My heart skipped few extra beats to this.