Silver Lining | Grooms #3

XXII. Fifteen Love

After the movie had ended, Nikhil unplugged the HDMI cord connecting Esha's laptop to the TV screen while Esha disposed the empty boxes and stored the left overs in a container. When she turned to put it in the fridge, she noticed him watching her.

"What?" She questioned, as she had caught him looking at her throughout the night multiple times.

"Just looking at you," He answered.

"No," She corrected him, "You are staring at me."

"Did you ever play those staring games as kids?" He questioned, diverting the topic. "You know the ones where you see who can go the longest staring at each other without blinking?"

"Staring contest." She understood what he was talking about, "Sure, yeah. Why?"

"How about it?" He asked as she walked over to the coffee table chair.

"Seriously?" She questioned, somewhere thinking he was kidding. He shrugged, and she went along with it. "Um, okay. Sure." The night was still young and they didn't have anything better to do.

He took a seat across the table and then counted down to three to let the game begin. A few seconds in the game, she started to stand. He questioned, weary of her intentions. "What are you doing?"

"Just moving closer to you." She replied with fake innocence. He knew he'd have to be careful around her. He had suggested the game with his own intentions, but he very well couldn't carry through them when she had her own agenda in mind.

He was about to get up, when she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down on the chair. "Relax, Nikhil."

"Where you're concerned, I don't think I can ever relax." He commented. Instead of sitting on the chair, she sat on the table.

"I feel like I should be offended." She remarked, letting her hands travel down his shoulder to his shirt. When she reached for the button of his shirt, he chuckled.

"See what I mean?"

She was proving his point, how he could never 'relax' around her?

"What?" She innocently said, "I'm only trying to help you relax by unbuttoning your top button."

He put his hand on her knee and lightly traveled it up her thigh. "Really now?" They were both playing a game different than 'staring contest'.

"You know what I just realized?" She said, unbuttoning yet another button. "We seem to get distracted very easily."

He smirked, "Oh, you mean you seem to get distracted easily?"

She denied, "Not how I remember. Who started the teasing game last time?" Another button came loose, exposing his chest to her.

"You know you don't play fair, dear wife?" He commented at how they were diverting from the staring contest. Then, just as the last word left his mouth, he felt like beating himself up and worried over her reaction. They had agreed to keep things simple. The last thing he had wanted to do was remind her.

"Wife, huh?." She let the words sink in, "Well, come to think of it, I have yet to see my husband shirtless."

"Husband?" He questioned, and somewhere his muscles started to relax. When she hummed in answer, he stood up. Her eyes followed his, because somewhere she did remember the contest. She wasn't going to look away from his eyes or blink. She'd won the last game, and she was going to win this one as well.

She unbuttoned the fourth and fifth.

"Well, it sucks." He teased, more at ease and starting to forget about his slip up given she wasn't making a deal out of it, "It's not like you can look away to admire at my shirtless body while the game is still on."