Addicted to you

Chapter Seven

Maybe that was how it was with all first loves. They own a little piece of your heart, always.

~~ Jenny Han

Present Day

Spain

"Jesus, I missed this place!" Arnav said as he placed the menu on the wooden table, shushing the waiter with a flick of his hand after placing the order. "You saved me from dying without tasting my favorite Tapas that Con Tenedor served. And salmon tartere, of course."

Khushi chuckled, finally realizing that her best friend had not changed, after all. He was the same talkative, naughty and irritating boy she had once known. And his love for his country and the food it served was one of the first things she had ever noticed in him, which attracted her towards him – ironic enough when she was never the one that can be categorized as food lover.

She had been staring at him all the while as he drove around the city, talking animatedly as he pointed out places and its memories, time and distance being chucked out of their consciousness in their own world of comfort zone. Gone were the boyish grin and casual flirtations and instead were the roughed handsomeness that highlighted sharp, angular features, prominent cheekbone with his five-o-clock shadow. His eyes were as lively as ever, but they held a decade's experience, maturity and determination to conquer the world. His skin was healthy and tanned, resulting from his regular travelling. His hair, which once was as dark as his chocolate irises, was now a shade of dirty blond –the major change in his physical appearance. This was a grown-up man, a known stranger looking at her with a warm smile that stirred a havoc of emotions in their teen years.

Shaking her head, Khushi sipped her chilled water. "Do you mean to say," she asked with a knowing smile as she placed the glass back on the table, "that life has been busy enough to keep away from this restaurant?"

Arnav pouted with a nod. "Don't even start with life and its craziest ways of keeping one away from the things he loves the most."

Khushi nodded and looked away. Now, as they settled down and took a moment to study each other, she couldn't help but wonder what her friend was doing for his living. He seemed to be the one controlling things at his work place from the few minutes she had watched him instructing over phone throughout the ride – which was not surprising knowing how fair he was in doing such things. And he deserved no less than that, Khushi thought; her heart welled up with pride. The phone conversations did range from being soft to threatening, yelling to demanding, information sharing to decision making, his voice deep and curt as he shifted effortlessly from English to Spanish to French and to some language she didn't recognize. And she cursed, not for the first time, for not being able to give herself a chance to complete her course in Spanish language. It would have been handy, she thought with a disappointed groan. Only if she was considerate enough to guess that one day she would be visiting Europe.

Because you asked him not to come back to India, a small voice whispered in her head, someone has to take that first step and Arnav is too much of a gentleman to not back off from his word.

"So," she looked at him just as the waiter served the table with dishes she hadn't tasted in all her stay there, "what do you do?"

"Here we go," Arnav remarked, his eyes and hands focusing on serving with the items as he shooed the waiter off with a nod. "You will love the "desi Spanish" dishes."