To Love Or Not To Love| A FEATURED STORY

Chapter 28

He gave her a small smile and stood there, taking in a fill of her. She quickly called out to her fellow volunteer and moved away from the counter to reach him. She grasped his wrist and pulled him to a nearby, relatively empty lobby. He wanted to touch her and hug her tight, yet, had to restrain given the surrounding of their rendezvous.

She let go of his wrist as soon as they reached the lobby, yet, he clasped her hands firmly and interlaced their fingers. She looked at their intertwined hands and sighed. She did not bat an eye at his state of unkempt. He had hair everywhere like a caveman and felt that he should've taken time to run a comb, just to be presentable. But whom was he kidding? He desperately wanted to meet her. Anyways, she was someone who did not bother about appearances. He kept gazing at her like a love sick puppy.

"What are you doing here, Ajay?" Her business tone pulled him out of his daze as he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You tell me."

"What does it look like? I'm volunteering."

"From when did you become so religious?"

"That's none of your business. Remember we broke up?" She tried to pull her fingers away from his grasp, yet he did not budge.

"That's because you failed to let me think things through and give me time!"

"If this is what we are going to discuss, I guess this is the wrong place."

"Please lead the way as you seem to know all the right places to discuss this, other than either of our homes."

"This is my home, at least temporarily."

"Then come with me to my apartment, it could be your home and not temporary in any way."

Anya quirked both her brows and scoffed, "I must give you, you are smooth as butter. So smooth that I know I'll definitely slip, and I don't like falling one bit."

She moved away from him, but he pulled her back.

"We are doing this my way this time," he determined and dragged her outside the Gurudwara. He somehow made her sit in the passenger side of his car, and he quickly occupied the driver's side.

When he was about to start the vehicle, she barked, "If you start this car, and take me somewhere without my consent, I will jump off this vehicle, this very instant."

Ajay gave her a cheeky smile, "Please be my guest and try. I enabled the child-lock there."

The stress of her current job situation, her barely good living conditions and Ajay's childish trick manifested into an undiluted rage which made her bang the dashboard with her fist from pent up frustration. Her knuckle split open, and blood trickled down.

Ajay was startled for a second, "What the fuck?"

But he quickly pulled out his handkerchief to bind the bruise. Anya was least bothered. She jerked her hand away from his ministrations, "Please tell whatever it is and open this fucking door."

Ajay looked at Anya. She seemed to have lost weight, and her eyes were sunken with visible dark circles. She looked nothing better than him in any way.

"When did you lose your job?"

She turned away and kept mum. He rubbed his tired eyes and looked at her. There was no use losing his patience. She was struggling to survive, unlike him.

"Answer me. Please?"

"Two days after we broke up."

That was close to ten, probably eleven weeks.