With You

Chapter 6

I move away, releasing my grip from around his waist, and sit facing him, as he looks ahead of him. His jawline is sharper than the tip of the obelisk. Actually, everything about him is so perfect and it is not fair for me to have two distantly hot guys as options to choose from.

"There have been at least 5 girls in my life that I have fallen for a head over heels. I still am in touch with each one of them and might continue to be even after I get married to the 6th. I really want to get married and settle for one, but I know that she is not one of them," he eyes me like he meant the next one to be me. But did he intent to marry, or, just make me one of his next conquests? Only time will tell. "Don't get me wrong. I might sound very non- sensical to you right now, but once you listen to my story, you wouldn't think of me the same," it feels like he just gave me a disclaimer to his entire love life. Like he is opening some sort of a secret letter with a sharp knife and is being very careful not to punch holes into it because it is not supposed to be opened in the first place.

"Yeah, okay," The story already feels like it has been going on forever.

"Also, I won't bore you with all the 5 stories. Only two of them are worth sharing and do hold a very special place in my heart," the word 'special' pierces through me, hurts me and makes me feel unimportant. But I still do want to listen to what he has to say.

"Five years ago, when I worked as a junior editor for a business magazine in Mumbai, I met Noor for the very first time. Her elegant neck highly perched, scanned across the room for a pair of eyes yearning to meet hers. A man, at least two inches taller than me wearing a tux two times expensive than mine, approaches her and gently kisses her at the back of her ear. Her cheeks turn a crimson red; beautiful. He introduced her to everyone present at the event as his trophy wife. Later on, I learnt that he has taken over the magazine, and was my new boss that I would be reporting to directly," he takes a deep breath and looks at me. There is an unexplained sparkle in his eyes, a delight to watch.

"You hit on a married woman?" I am slightly taken aback with his first choice of love.

"Actually, it is quite the opposite. She hit on me, I was just a spectator of her beauty," he winks at me and clicks his tongue against his cheek.

"What did she see in you that made her hit on you?" I analyze his face and his body that is barely visible in the dim light. He is quite attractive. But what made a married woman leave her husband for him? Is it okay to do that? Is it okay for my mother to find Ravi uncle much more attractive than my father? It just seems so wrong to me to cheat on someone, not that I am being any loyal. Is it okay for me to find Viraj much more appealing than Karthik? not that I am committed to him, but it still comes across as a third-rated standard from my end.

"Well, Anamika, you should know that I am the Great Gatsby when it comes to women. It might come across as a dream to you or a lie that is told slyly, but convincingly. Now, for a lesser-known fact, I am what women I've been with, describe, a drug; addictive and hard to get rid of. A habit that is harmful to their relationship, but necessary for their personal well-being," he blows a raspberry and looks at me. Those eyes consume me from space, transporting me into a reality unknown. I take a breath for a second and fall back to my reality.

"You regard yourself very highly. Facts aside, I want to know the story. Continue," the bragging is getting to my nerves and is almost too hard to believe. But the strength in his voice and the confidence in his eyes are eerie.

"You are one curious bird. So, that entire evening, Noor and I exchanged inquisitive glances at one another, catching each other off-guard. After an hour into the party, we became accustomed to doing so, and inched closer to each other by the minute. Until finally, when her husband excused himself, as he had a flight to catch. Almost instantaneously, the two of us looked for each other and were only a breath away from one another within an instant. She looked at me with an eagerness that communicated infinite questions. The two of us fell short of words, and it seemed as if I had known her for decades. She seemed at least ten years older to me by the looks of it. But her curiosity cuts down her age by a half. She stood there, like an answer to all of my unanswered questions. We were only a breath away from one another the entire night, until the party went on to the day and the hall was almost empty, except us and the empty beer bottles that breathed in air and whistled into the emptiness that surrounds. She flinched in pain suddenly, realizing how she had been standing all through the night in her 4-inch heels, desperately trying to match my height. The heels were protected by her long black gown that ran along the floor. Her hair was still pinned up high into a bun, decorated by a jewel so elegantly placed. The rest of her outfit was just an effort to decorate her slender, strong, curvy body that made it hard for me to resist my usually imbalanced rush of acid. A second before she left, she handed over a piece of tissue with her phone number written on it. From what I made of it, there is a number distorted in the sequence. It either is a 3 or an 8," there is a slight smile at the corner of his mouth, that he tries too hard to suppress. There is a feeling of envy and jealousy creeping in on me. I don't have a story that I can recite so passionately, especially when it is about someone you once loved.